Heading into Evo the discussion around the Dragon Ball FighterZ Top 8 was more a matter of who would stop the likes of HookGangGod, Dogura, Go1, and SonicFox. To many, the Top 8 was cemented well before the tournament even began. But there was one player who knew he shouldn't be counted out. NRG Esports' Steve "Supernoon" Carbajal knew he could make Top 8 if he only believed in himself and he played his game. After his Top 8 performance, Esports Heaven's Amanda Stevens was able to talk to Supernoon about the differences between East Coast and West Coast, who is criminally not signed yet, and how he overcame his own weakness in preparation for Evo.   Amanda Stevens: Supernoon, you’ve made the first top 8 of Dragon Ball history. How does it feel? Supernoon: It’s honestly really insane. I came into this event expecting to make top 8 and I’m glad I was able to do that. Knowing all players around the world were going to be here including Japanese players, rest of the power competitors .. you saw yourself as one of the top 8 competitors? On contrary to what people think, I knew that in my heart if I could perform to the standards I hold myself to that I’m one of the best players in the world and this weekend I proved that. During the feature with NRG I heard you talk about your work ethic. Where does that drive come to you on not only believing yourself to be one of the best players in the world but put the work and put the money where your mouth is?   I think that comes from playing Marvel 3 and the friends from that era specifically one friend named Gabriel. He instilled those values in me when I met him. It’s not about playing for fame but its about playing on becoming the best you can in what we love and that’s fighting games. How did you get hooked on to fighting games because it’s not a normal career path. Yeah it’s very niche (sic). I grew up playing platformer and shooter games. It was the release of MK9 and I thought the game looks cool. My group of shooter friends wanted to play MK9 and I said okay I’ll give it a try then we’re playing, screwing around and I was one of those who wanted to learn combos then I heard about tournaments and thought about the setups. I found out it was cool and that there were tournaments and then Marvel 3 came out. That’s how I’m here. FGC is now your full time job. A lot of FGC players have a different definition on how practicing works into that full time job. What does your FGC workday look like? Typically it depends on how I’m feeling. It doesn’t mean like I work less or more but training means how much I play and watch. That’s how I train because typically I watch more than I play since that’s how I absorb more information. I can play a lot and I can play with strong players but I only learn new things about myself rather than discovering new tactics that I didn’t know before. For example, if I watch the CYCLOPS Weeklies, Dogura and those players every week I see them do something new in a certain scenario that I may find myself in in the game. Being able to watch that and practicing when I’m able to play helps a lot. When you were preparing for EVO, did you notice a strong weakness that you had and how did you overcome that weakness? It’s kind of a weakness that I’ve always had since I started playing fighting games in tournaments. It’s my mental fortitude. It’s gotten better in the progressive years since I’ve started travelling but this year it’s more like a bigger approach as I was picked up by Energy. I traveled to events and I knew in my heart that I could do well and my friends believed in me as well so I kind of felt confident. In other events I may have felt short of top 8 and that’s because of myself. For EVO, I went to SonicFox’s house to train and worked on being able to believe in my decisions and be confident in what I believed was the correct decision at the moment in terms of gameplay and distract myself from other factors thereby focusing only on the game rather than thinking about myself in the moment. You brought up Energy a couple of times and you’re a relatively recent signing. Unlike other esports where a team stays together, plays together and practices together, you’ve a teammate HookGangGod. What is your relationship with him as a fellow team member and as a fellow competitor. How do you two help each other improve? I would say Hook and I are similar as we both exploded in the Dragon Ball scene although him being new school and barely started winning tournaments. I exploded in terms of popularity from Marvel to this game. So we sort of had that kind of rivalry even though we hadn’t played and people always hyped it up as east coast versus west coast kind of competition. We’ve met in a couple of tournaments and both of us want to take it more than the other. What’s the match score between you two? I’m trying to think. He’s beat me once at the Texas Showdown and then I beat him twice. I guess I’m in the lead. You brought up the subject of Summit of Pawer. How was it like being under the same roof with eight of the best Dragon Ball players in America? It felt pretty good because that’s what I always wanted to do. I’ve always had my goal to do the best at Evo that I can. So I’ve never had that kind of training as I’ve had normal training partners. But this year training with some of the best players in America and in the world was good. I was able to get a lot of valuable insights because at a tournament you can only focus on improving so much rather than trying to get results so being able to be in a boot-camp like setting where seven days a week there’s only playing and talking Dragon Ball for so much of the day is really good. If I didn’t do that, I don’t think I would where I am today as a player so overall, it really helped a lot. Do you think there’s a difference between East coast and West coast Dragon Ball or do you think they all play the same? West plays Dragon Ball faster. The difference between decision making in East coast is much more reserved and they like to wait and let you kind of hang yourself a bit whereas West coast players kind of see the opportunity and go at it. Is there a West coast player you think people are sleeping on and you think should be signed and go to more events? I actually have two - brkrdave and Reynald. I think it’s actually like criminal that in esports scene those two players are not sponsored especially Reynald. I think he is the only player coming out of power who’s not signed. brkrdave also placed ninth at ComboBreaker besides EVO being the only event that he’s attended. Do you think that with the potential success of the Dragon Ball World Tour might give teams the confidence to sign more Dragon Ball players because traditionally anime fighters don’t get a fair shake when it comes to sponsors. Yeah I think that every Dragon Ball World Tour is improving on the other and attendance wise on generally how it works for other players. I think other teams will eventually jump in specially next year’s World Tour when they improve on the current system or format. I think it’ll be a lot better and a lot more improved. I hope other teams come in and I’m sure they will. My last question. Which character do you want to see next in Dragon Ball as we already have many Gokus. I would say Android-17.

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If you enjoyed this interview, follow the author for more on her Twitter at @AmandaTNStevens. Cover image courtesy of Robert Paul. Find more of his work here.