Hail Zod - the new Mulligans Open Champion

The dust has settled on a thrilling Scottish Open tournament and - for the first time in the Open era, we have a Scottish champion! I caught up with the man of the hour to get some insights into how he managed to pull it off.

Kevin "Actually_Zod" McMurdo taking the plaudits at Mulligan's Open - with TO Chris Rafferty.

First up: how did you come up with your NAF name?

I got my name back when we had to make a name to play online i was always in to comics and hero's and superman was my hero at the time but you know what it was like trying to get an online name back then without numbers in it lol so actually_zod was where I ended up.

Some background: how long have you been playing and what are your favourite races?

I only started about 3-4 years ago when Badgie joined our club and introduced us to the craziness that is blood bowl. I’m a bash coach at heart. I'm a chaos and Khorne fan with a little lizardmen mixed in.

Now, specifically for Mulligans: Chaos Chosen was apparently an inspired pick. What was the decision-making process there?

I was going to mulligans to have fun with some good people and friends and wanted to take a team I know well have a few good games and just enjoy the atmosphere. Also I feel that chaos are one of the better teams to play with in the new edition as they never changed much if anything they got a little better.

You won against Orcs, Undead, Chosen, Lizards & Norse and drew the last game vs OWA. How do you feel Chaos did in those match-ups? Any games in particular that caused you trouble? Were you worried about coming up against any particular races?

As everyone knows elfs are always hard to play against and I find myself struggling when I come up against agility teams. I was worried about every game over the 2 days not because of the races but cos of the coaches playing the race. I've come to know everyone I played and I know they’re all very good players and I just got more lucky on the day.

You've been there or thereabouts in terms of tournament wins for a while. What do you think was different this time for you?

I went in to mulligans to have fun and just play my game. I stuck to that mindset all weekend. Just kept saying to myself: just play your own games and see how it goes.

So what's next? Do you have any Blood Bowl goals for the future?

Honestly I’d like to win a few more tournaments to prove this wasn't a fluke. But I won the big tournament for the year in Scotland. If that's all I win, that's the one to win.

So: congratulations to Kevin on the win. What a fantastic result for him and Scottish Blood Bowl in general! Hopefully we see more Scots following his example and coming through at the top tables of major tournaments in the future.