In the European SoulCalibur community, there is a running joke about a particular player never being interviewed here on Portal. People are even attending for the queue of who will get the interview (twice, ideally) before he does. It’s very… Refined.
The joke culminated several months ago when both Habaduba and MercyMain got their 2nd interviews here on Portal. This culminated into several waves (friendly) Discord flames and shortly after, I received about a dozen of the following emails:
Good evening, I am letting you know by this online letter that I would be entirely available for an interview with the objective in mind that it would be before Refined makes one, kind regards.
But with New Year being upon us, I decided it was time to start with a clean table and make it easier for Refined to wait for his 1st (proper) interview, giving him the 0th interview as an appetizer…
Twitter: @SirRefined
Twitch: somethingrefined
Age: 22
Country: UK/England
If you had three sentences to say to Soul Calibur players why everyone in EU was interviewed before you, what would you say?
I was originally approached for an interview for ETL (European Team League) 4, where I was captain for the team Royal Flush (2nd place), during the round robin phase. This was chosen to be given to another team because I responded a bit late, and so I thought that I’d have one come up soon after. A long time and several top 8 placements later I still didn’t get an interview, and so was born the meme that Unicorn has to interview everyone in EU twice before I get one.
What is the origin or meaning of your nickname?
It’s a bit strange and long winded. I originally had the name Ouroboros back when I, embarrassingly, competed at a tournament level in Dark Souls 3, when, in some random argument someone said to me “well we can’t all be perfect like you”. When my name then became Perfection At It’s Finest which is the name I competed under in For Honor. Name sounded a bit weird so asked for some ideas from a friend at the time who said “you should have a bit of a proud name, something that’s refined” so I became SomethingRefined.
How did it happen that you ended up playing fighting games?
I got into Soul Calibur 6 as a few of my friends from the Dark Souls comp scene (Gemetic and Revan) got the preorder for it and persuaded me to join them. Started playing as a bit of a meme then found myself enjoying it a lot, no matter how much my friend Revan tried to argue that his main (season 1 Siegfried) was D tier.
I got really interested in fighting games from there, playing a bit of UNIST/UNI-CLr as well as BBTag.
I really got into Soul Calibur 6 thanks to BladeOfFlame and AndyRoo. Blade was a good friend and a decent help in getting me invested into the game and Andy took me on as his apprentice (weird term but can’t think of a better word).
Who do you main in SC6 and why?
Started off as an Azwel main when the game first released because the character is cool and I enjoy arrogant characters in games. After that I got bored of him and moved onto Cervantes and Geralt, before finally landing on the character people know me for, being Groh.
I don’t know why I play Groh to be honest. I think I initially picked him up to be kinda hipster, playing a character, who at the time, was debatably the worst in the game next to buggy Astaroth and Tira. I’ve enjoyed playing the character since and abusing his fair and balanced soul charge for the most intelligent and definitely not smooth brained come backs I’ve ever made.
What do you consider to be the greatest SC meme and why?
I can’t think of many, but it would be between the Geist memes, not being able to deal with NM 6AA and also the legendary video of him getting Wind Cannoned by Incendiate roughly 37 times in a vc one time.
Other than that, Zer0’s meme of “Refined has never made top 8”.
If you were able to add one more character to SC6 – either an existing SC character, or a guest one – who would it be and why?
Either ZWEI from SC5 or Zagreus from Hades. I love the edgy aesthetic if it wasn’t obvious enough by me playing Groh and Hwang and Hades is probably one of my favourite games outside of SC.
If SC7 is released, what do you wish to be changed and/or kept from the current game?
Not sure if I’m qualified to answer this but I’ll try. I’d remove RE or completely over haul it. If it were to be kept it should be made so that it’s speed and whiff recovery is universally the same, similar to all other universal defensive mechanics we have (RI and GI). It’s unfair that it isn’t in a sense, with gloomy tira having a 14 frame RE with little recovery, more commonly among the cast, characters like Mitsu Geralt and more having i16 REs with a lot of recovery and further Groh Cass etc having i18 REs with a lot of recovery also. It’s a bit frustrating for a universal mechanic to bath so much between characters. It also provides an unfairness for characters that use meter extremely well like Groh, as it provides an ungodly amount of meter gain, so those characters also gain an unfair advantage from the mechanic.
To further that point, Soul Charge in its current state is heavily unbalanced. Whether it’s that it can’t be whiff punished, the varying burst sizes or the fact that Nightmare, Groh and Yoshimitsu can pop it for a free round if they get a stray hit while soul charged. If it were to remain as is, it should be punishable if whiffed, cause you to lose a lot of SC time if RI’d and should also have a longer activation time so that it can’t be popped to get out of nearly every single pressure situation in the game.
One thing I’d change personally… I’d give Groh a serviceable back step.
Please answer a single question that you were not asked but would like to answer!
Why do you still play Soul Calibur 6 even though you say you don’t enjoy it much anymore?
I don’t enjoy the game much. That being said I’ll be playing in ETL5 as the captain of Royal Flush again and will do my best to win.
I mostly do this out of love for the community. The people are great and I’d hate to see the community gradually die off. I entered as a captain in ETL5 as it was fun to compete with Mercy and spend time with the people on my team last time, and it also gave more people opportunity to compete in the event.
I’ll most likely continue to compete in tournaments and events as well as there’s still people out there committed to the game and I’d rather see the community last as long as possible. Although I’m just one person, I feel it helps for it’s survival when our numbers are dwindling as they are.
Sort of a self torture to help keep the community going in the only way I can, although it is a small help.
BONUS: Is there anyone in the EU community who you think should get an interview before you make a second one?
Literally anyone else.
Thank you for the interview!