Learn how to play League of Legends with Mai Nhat Tan 'Nix Water'

General Information:

Full Name: Mai Nhat Tan
Nickname: Nix Water
Date of Birth: June 9th 1985
Occupation: Student Competition Honors:

League of Legends:

• The 1st Prize of Boba eSports Tournament I, II, III, IV, V • The 1st Prize of Clash of Legends I and II • The 2nd Ring of Champion Singapore 2010

Other Talents: The ability to absorb, imitate fast

Favourite quote: “Generally…”
Favourite stuff: Laptop
Describe yourself: Quiet, normal, simple

RGN: Hi Nixwater, glad to meet you. I knew you was once a great DotA players, so let’s me know about you more.

Nix Water: Yes, I’ve played DotA since 2007, the time when DotA was flourished and the most vibrant in Vietnam. Back then, I attended to many DotA teams such as Elive, 3H, MT, iB and MST. When I was playing DotA, I have gained some achievements, but my most success was I had many good friends in my life.

In 2010, I joined SiOL, one of the most powerful DotA teams in Sai Gon. Our team SiOL includes me – Nixwater, Itachi, HHH, Sai and ZhaoJun. We played DotA together in a long time, but we could not beat StarsBoba – the strongest DotA team in Vietnam. Therefore, my team decided to switch to League of Legends.

RGN: That was a right decision because your team SiOL got many successes in LoL after that. How about your feeling when you played LOL for the first time?

Nix Water: In fact, our team played both DotA and LoL. However, after winning the second prize of Ring of Champion Singapore, our team was more focused on LoL. Initially, when I played LoL for the first time, I felt the game graphics is not very eye catching. Besides, the skill system, runes, levels also made me feel tough.

These features were new at that time, but slowly, Riot has improved things that people find it difficult to play, making LoL became friendly than ever. Our team has began to learn about Rune, Mastery, then how to play each champion… I also found new team members who was interested in LoL so at present, our LoL team are quite stable. It is the foundation to success later on.

RGN: League of Legends has many great champions. Which champions do you like best?

Nix Water: Initially, I played champions such as Zilean, Vladimir, Kennen and Morgana. Now I mastered at playing all AP champions and some other champions. My forte are Ahri, Cassiopeia and LeBlanc. I love the AP Champion because I loved the character who use magic spell when I was a child.

 

Nix Water (second from the right)

RGN: There are many gamers rated you the No.1 Solo-mid AP player in SEA region. How do you think about that “title”?

Nix Water: It’s just magnified only. I and a good AP player but can not be claimed to be No.1! In the game, there are many strong competitors, and sometimes I also lose before the

RGN: Let’s imagine that I am a LoL newbie and want to play AP-champion. May you have some advices for me?

Nix Water: OK. To playing AP-champions well, it is important that you have to choose the right time to use all your skills, so that these skills will damage your enemies as much as possible. When playing the AP champion, you need to harass your enemies much in early game, when you are in laning phase. Do not save your mana because the fortes of AP champion are harassing enemies in early game, as well as killing creeps easier with these skills.

In combat phase, you need to use all your skills continuously to create powerful burst damage. When playing the AP champions, players need to know how to use combo to create much damage in the shortest time. AP champions are all quite difficult to play, requiring training seriously, so please train only two or three champions to be the best. In LoL, you should not train AP champions greedy, because no one can play well every champions. When playing an AP champion, you should buy her/him properly items. The strength of the AP champions lie 50% in buying right items!

RGN: Yes, thank a lot for your advices and I’m sure it will help me much when I play League of Legends. OK, it’s time to talk about you, not gaming anymore. As I knew, you are a K-pop fan, aren’t you?

Nix Water: I love K-pop and food. About my hobby in listening to K-pop, I am interested in K-pop after hearing the song “So Hot” by Wonder Girls. I love listening the melodies of that band! I listened to K-pop much, but just watch the beautiful singer and their dance, not to learn their style of dressing. I should be a simple so the elements such as hair style, clothes… of K-pop does not affect me much.

About my food hobby, snails is my favourite dishes. The snails dishes in Sai Gon are very diverse, such as snails, nailing-snails, crab… Each time my friends who study abroad in U.S come to Vietnam after Tet, we gathered to one’s home and made some noise! Sometimes we also have many troubles because of that.

 

Nix Water (First from the left)

RGN: In your general information, you’ve shared that you are the person who can learn everything quickly. So I think it helps you much in real life and in competitive games?

Nix Water: I can think very quickly on a problem and find the best solutions to that problem in a short time! Especially in the LoL tournament, I always know what to do in every situation. It can be a particular good luck with it myself, because in many cases, their decisions are right!

The weakness of mine is the difficulty in expressing emotions. It’s quite difficult to express what I said to make other people understand.

RGN: Oh as I see, you can express your ideals very well! And the last question for you: What’s your intentions in 2012?

Nix Water: Unlike many others, my plan is becoming a professional gamer. So make sure I am sticking with game for a long long time. As I know, next year, Vietnam will have professional gamers who are sponsored by many organization and be paid, so that’s the target our team aimed to. Not only me, the members of SiOL are taking steps toward becoming professional gamers to represent Vietnam to play in the regional and international arena!