ChenZo: "[Strongsage] certainly was a helping factor in my quick growth in Duel."

Vincent Cronin, known by his alias ChenZo, raised a few eyebrows at KeenCon’s LAN tournament in Barcelona a few weeks ago. Having competed professionally in Splitgate, the American decided to venture into Quake when development of a new Splitgate title was announced, thus putting an end to the current competitive scene.
Yes, despite Cronin’s failure to make it out of groups in Spain, he was still a major talking point at the event, very much so because he with limited experience in the game still managed to win three matches in the Group Stage, only narrowly missing out on making it to top 16.
Church of Quake decided to sit down for a brief talk with Vincent, touching on points such as his performance in Spain, his future ambitions, and the differences between Splitgate and Quake.

How was your first LAN in Quake Champions? What expectations did you have going into the tournament and how do you think you performed?

Keencon was my first LAN in Quake Champions, and actually my first LAN event that I’ve competed at ever. It was very enjoyable to train, compete, and hangout with names I had previously seen battling it out on Quake in the QPL. Going into the tournament I expected myself to play towards the upper half, and understanding that there were 15 pros at the event made me push to become the 16th. I wasn’t completely sure what to expect, but I was growing rapidly and slowly getting better scorelines in scrims against top players. My performance felt satisfactory despite not qualifying, as I gave competitive games that could have gone my way to the likes of Effortless, nosfa and cnz. I would like to give a huge shoutout to Strongsage for helping me out constantly with VOD reviews and other forms of coaching/advice; he certainly was a helping factor in my quick growth in Duel.

Having competed on a high level in a different game – Splitgate – what is, in your opinion, the biggest difference between that scene and the Quake scene?

From what I’ve seen, the major differences with respect to the game itself lie in the combat style, objectives, and the duel format. Splitgate shares a similar weapon system to Halo with two guns maximum, and a ‘power weapon’ format that takes the place of powerups like quad damage. Objectives wise, Quake is more item-focused with an emphasis on kills, while splitgate is heavy on zone-based modes like King of the Hill and Domination (3 zones, each giving one point per second). Lastly, the duel format was the biggest aspect of Quake to overcome. Being used to rely on teammates and giving out communications, Quake duel had this layer of deep single-person strategy and mental self-talk that I was yet to experience.

What are your goals for the upcoming year? Long term, what do you hope to achieve with your Quake run? Are you going all in or do you have any other ambitions in other games?

My goals for this upcoming year are just more advanced ones from almost exactly a year ago: grow as an FPS player and Competitor as much as possible. When splitgate competition ended and development on their new title was announced (November 2022), I immediately sought out games like Quake to grow my aim and FPS understanding as much as possible. I would say my current goals are: compete as much as possible, try to achieve elite in QC ranked, and try to get my lg accuracy to hang at numbers around 60% or greater. My ambitions lie completely in this next splitgate title, but I’ve also noticed that I’ve created a window for myself in AFPS in case a new Quake title is announced.

On the 10th you will be teaming up with phaze to play the 2v2 qualifier tournament for VAXEE FOUR CHALLENGE. What are your thoughts going into that tournament? In terms of 2v2, how much of it have you played, considering you have only been actively playing for a couple of months?

Similar to Keencon, I wanted to take on this tournament to get experience, and push myself to improve with the pressure of tournament. My Quake stats tracker says that I have 20 hours in pure 2v2 gameplay, but I would say that it is definitely one of my stronger modes as I am much more proficient in team games. If I had to rank my proficiency across the three main modes, it would be 2v2 at the top, then Sacrifice, and finally Duel. I’m really excited for this tournament since I feel that I have the opportunity to win this one even with my lack of experience, as this format is much more favorable to my strengths.