A Rising Contender - Mikkel Goh

Mikkel Goh is an outgoing 17 year old student at BMC International College, who is a competitive player in Hearthstone for Team GameForge. He started playing in 2015 through Yee Shean, a friend and now fellow teammate. Mikkel realized he had potential when he achieved the Legend rank within his second month of picking up the game, and subsequently joined regular tournaments, both official and unofficial, often finishing within the top 32 out of 256 players, and has won at least 2 of them. With a competitive nature and a background in other card games such as Duel Masters and Vanguard, it isn’t hard to see why Mikkel has done so well.

Mikkel has expressed his desire to be a professional gamer and play Hearthstone competitively full time, which is why he joined the GameForge team just a few months after he picked up the game. He says that enjoys the prospect of attention, fame and respect it will bring him, and that that is his main motivation for training hard. As a student, he has a lot of free time, so he dedicates most of it to Hearthstone. One of the most important lessons he’s learnt is to calm down and manage his emotions well, because he cannot think when he’s too stressed. For example, during the Campus Game Fest at ITE College Central in a match against heisnotaxel, he didn’t realise that he had lethal in his hand until the rope started. Thankfully, he saw it eventually and finished his opponent off just before the rope ended his turn.

When asked what he thought of the GameForge team, Mikkel commented that they were still small and that they had much to improve upon. He felt that the team should train together more often, not only to improve their skills but also to strengthen bonds and friendships. Mikkel appreciates the Global Friendly Series and has played in all of them except against MiTH, a team from Thailand. He would like to play against Team Abyssus in the future.

One question Mikkel was asked was what changes he would make or would like to see in Hearthstone, to which he immediately answered: “Reduce RNG”. RNG refers luck based cards and effects, and stands for Random Number Generator, a function used by digital games to determine random outcomes. By reducing RNG, the overall skill level of players would have to increase, making the game more competitive. He would also like to see some form of active interaction on your opponent’s turn, similar to how instants and abilities work in Magic: The Gathering. Mikkel also disagrees with the having formats, as he supports buffing or nerfing existing cards, but since Blizzard has already implemented rotation, he’d like to see some expansion cards be shifted into Classic, so that they can become evergreen.

Random fun facts about Mikkel:

His favourite class is Druid.

He enjoys playing tempo and midrange decks.

He finds the Singapore Shit Post giant very amusing.

And here are some of Mikkel’s tips for new players and players trying to get to Legend:

1. Find a coach

Having someone guide you is very important as he or she can see things from a different perspective. Often when you’re playing the game, your vision becomes one dimensional and you may end up misplaying because you didn’t see a certain angle.

2. Think through your turns

Similar to finding a coach, this allows you to consider all possible plays, even if you’re playing a mindless cancer deck.

3. Ingrain good fundamental habits

Good habits like thinking through your turns are hard to form, but once you ingrain them, you can save a lot of time in higher level plays because you will instinctively know what to do next.

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