Zane: “Zamasu is still strong and will have a place on my team”

Zane’s career in pro fighting esports is impressive and inspiring. It was great to see him qualify from online events to the DBFZ World Championship Finals event and beat some of the professionals. And it’s even greater to witness how Zane continues competing at various tournaments — and gets top placements and victories.

One of his most recent wins is the DBFZ tournament at CEO 2023. After a pretty quick adaptation to the balance update 1.32, Zane beat such opponents as Lucar, LegendaryyPred, and Garlic Bread.

Even beyond the tournament results, Zane’s playing style is exceptional. The way his Zamasu floats over the stages and his Beerus shoots those energy spheres makes matches with this guy unique and very interesting.

Well, the time has come! We reached out to Zane and asked him a few questions. And we are super happy to share with you guys this exclusive interview.

You already have some big victories in your DBFZ career. Is it still exciting for you to win such a tournament as CEO? 

Yes, it is still very exciting to win CEO, it doesn’t matter how many stages I’ve played on so far in my career. It isn’t something I have gotten used to and it is still amazing that I get to do it.

The scene has changed a lot since the World Championship 21/22. But has your internal feeling about it changed? Is it different for you now as a top-level player than back then as a guy from an online environment? 

Things have definitely changed since then. There are a lot more expectations for me than there were when I first qualified as an unknown player through the online events. However, my feelings towards it haven't really changed, and I still feel the same as I did when I first arrived on the scene. I’m just better at dealing with the nerves and the pressure than I was back then.

You got experience competing vs players from various regions. Are the fighting styles in Europe, North America, and Japan really different? Which of them is your toughest challenge? 

Each region, I think, has their own strengths that sets them apart. Europe has the best movement, North America has the most team diversity, which helps with character knowledge, and Japan was the best at mid game adjustments. I haven’t had the chance to fight that many players from Japan unfortunately, but no player has made me feel more unsure and confused than Fenritti. I played many casual sets with him at Worlds this year. After winning the majority on the first day, I couldn’t come close for the rest of the weekend.

At various tournaments, you’ve been to different scenarios. Someone resets the GF bracket, but you still win. You reset and win. Someone resets and wins against you. How does such intensity of tournament situations affect your motivation and mood? Does bigger pressure help you play better? 

During UFA, Wade reset the bracket against me, but I managed to hold him off and win the event. I reset the bracket against HookGangGod at Thunderstruck and won the event. Combo Breaker was the second lowest point of my career so far; it definitely made me feel bad to come that close to the title and then fall short at the end. It hurts at that moment, but it just gives me more reason to keep practicing and try to improve. I’m not sure if I play better or worse in those pressure scenarios, I think what I've improved on from experience is being able to play the same even during those big moments as I do when there is no pressure.

You picked Gotenks for CEO 2023 fights. What helped him get this honor?

Gotenks was someone I was working on for a couple weeks before the patch dropped, I knew Lab Coat 21 was going to get nerfed, and I wanted to pick a character that worked well with both Zamasu and Beerus. After the patch dropped and I got to read the changes, Gotenks seemed like one of the best choices. His main bug was fixed, his combos improved a lot, and the number 1 thing my team needed was a way to build the meter, and he is one of the best at it.

Zamasu got a pretty short presence at this tournament. Have they nerfed him that much? 

He is mostly the same character, he wasn’t very good at building the meter before the patch, so the change didn't affect him much. The biggest change for Zamasu was the meta shift; some of the characters that got buffed the most are strong picks against him. He is still strong and will have a place on my team, but he doesn’t fit the meta as well as he did in the last patch.

Is Beerus safe after those changes? May something happen that you exclude him from your team? 

Beerus isn’t going anywhere. He is my best character and the glue that holds my team together. With the changes in the last patch, he is as strong as he has ever been, and I plan to keep him on my team for a long time.

Do you generally enjoy the latest build? What do you want from the ultimate balance update? 

As with most patches, there are things I enjoy and there are things I do not. The greatest thing about this patch is team diversity. The amount of unique teams we saw at the top 8 of CEO might be the greatest it has ever been. The one thing I don’t like is the full screen skip neutral options. I was hoping there would be less of them in this patch, but we were given more of them instead. In the next balance update, I want to see less of them instead of more.

Are you up to the World Tour 2023/24? Some players are shifting from DBFZ. What about you?

I have plans to work on the new games, just like many others in the DBFZ community. I’m currently learning Street Fighter 6 with plans to try MK1, Tekken 8, and Project L when they come out. My primary focus might shift away from DBFZ to one of these new titles, but with the upcoming World Tour, I plan to enter more tournaments for the game and try and qualify. I still enjoy the game and hope to be able to keep competing in it.

You stream a lot of SF6 recently. Do you like the game? May it become your next competitive step after DBFZ? 

I plan to try each of the new FG titles in the hopes of finding which one I enjoy and play well enough to be my next competitive step after DBFZ. SF6 is a good game, and even though it has been a difficult transition, I am giving it my best shot to try and be competitive at SF6.

Are you a Sonic Adventure 2: Battle speedrunner? Maybe the FGC doesn’t know this side of your personality. Why have you chosen this game? What are your achievements there? 

I am an SA2B speedrunner running the Hero story category. I’ve always enjoyed watching speedrunners and had been thinking for a while that I wanted to try and learn how to speedrun a game. SA2B was one of my favorite games growing up, and after seeing it on sale on Steam and watching an AGDQ race between two of the game’s best, I decided to learn. My highest position on the leaderboards since picking up the game was 48th in the world.

Thank you for these answers!

Guys, make sure to follow Zane on Twitter and on Twitch.

The DBFZ World Tour 2023/24 is right around the corner, with Evo 2023 being the first event (on August 4-6). Let’s keep an eye on Zane’s performance at this and the following tournaments!

And we are honored to have a guide by Zane in our collection of DBFZ videos — learn How to Play Beerus. Yep, no one could be a better tutor in this topic.