BaseLAN 30 is in full swing today, and all kinds of amazing stuff is happening here!
On Saturday, we had some awesome tournaments taking place. With Overwatch capturing the hearts and minds of fans all over the world, it is no surprise that it is a pretty big deal at the event.
While watching the teams struggle against each other, the main thing that I noticed was the competitors showing a an incredible amount of humility in the face of both victory and defeat. Opposing teams would meet with each other after a match and compliment each other on their impressive kills, discussing certain strategies and all around being good sports. It was really cool to see people come together to have fun, even thought there were prizes at stake.
One of the teams playing Overwatch was called Gurren and Co. I had a chance to chat with their team captain John, AKA Gurren. We talked a little about the tournament that took place today.
Gurren (John): Hi I’m John, I go by Gurren in Overwatch.
Nedu: Nice to meet you John! What do you guys do to prepare for these matches? I mean, they look like they get really intense!
Gurren: For our team, we usually have me, Kefka and Deadlight. We usually cue together as a trio, but the other three members we kinda picked up last minute, sort of. So we didn’t really play together, but I guess we have our individual skills that we can kind of work together.
Nedu: So how do you end up assigning roles? How does that go? Do you call them out, or do you guys figure out together who should pick what role?
Gurren: First off, we just look at our rankings and we see who mains which character. Usually if someone plays offense, they should play all the offense characters. So we do give people a chance and we try to compare, and see who’s the best fit for the role.
Nedu: What do you think that other team you played against [Meggybits] did well? What do you think you learned from them?
Gurren: First off, we actually left their healers alive for too long and we got destroyed, so we just changed our strategy to focus on the heals instead and it seems like it actually worked in the end.
Nedu: What do you think of the competitive scene here in Winnipeg? How do people get interested and involved in that?
Gurren: Well Overwatch is a pretty new game. There are only seven or six teams here. I do think it is pretty competitive, seeing how most of the higher teams are all around the top 10% in Overwatch. We are pretty much close to there.
Nedu: Any tips for people hoping to get into Overwatch?
Gurren: I would say skill level doesn’t really matter, but team work is the best thing that you should be focusing on.
Nedu: What is different about playing in a tournament like today rather than playing in competitive mode?
Gurren: In competitive mode, you do have some trolls of course. (Laughs) We don’t always queue with a full team, but I feel like if we play in a LAN, it is better. We can always communicate and we have no trolls. Everyone knows their roles and what to do.
Nedu: One thing I noticed at the end of the match, you guys were talking to the other team being really jovial, friendly, complimenting each other and talking about strategies. Can you speak on that?
Gurren: For the last game, we did have a disconnection. Our power went out. We had to agree on a certain rule for the last match. We basically agreed that they would keep their time, but we will give them an extra 15 seconds. We would have a rerun for our attack. At the end, we managed to clutch a final Reaper Ult[imate]. After that, the whole team accepted what happened. It was a real close match for the first two games.
Nedu: Last question. Which three Overwatch characters would you use to describe yourself?
Gurren: For me, I would say, Reaper, McCree and Zenyatta.
Nedu: Very nice. Thank you for you time!
Gurren: Thank you!
Nedu gets yelled at for playing Hanzo all the time. He is also a content writer for AYBOnline. His views are his own.
