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With the Contenders on break until the big live game, I couldn’t help but start thinking about what it must be like for some of the players.
In particular, I found myself wondering how some of the New Zealand members manage to deal with playing while being in a different country to many of their teammates and what the goal for some of these players are.
To find out I spoke to Andrew Medlicott (Legabrill) from Avant and Paul van Hutten (Cantus) from Dark Sided who are two players who manage to be absolute assets to their team while playing abroad.
First off, it seems the Overwatch League is the dream for most Contenders with both Legabrill and Cantus confirming that this would be the ultimate goal. Legabrill explained that the next step for him would probably be North American Contenders League for a year to improve his skills and Cantus showed his admiration for the New York Excelsior with their meticulous coaching style.
Coaching is incredibly important to team cohesion, strategies, and moral but Contenders teams are at a bit of a disadvantage due to playing while split across the country. League players will train in situations like team houses, living with each other and developing strong bonds while they practice and again both players agreed this could only be beneficial.
Legabril even cited his own experiences to back this up, saying “Being able to play together in person has been shown across multiple esports to have enormous benefits for teams. It would absolutely have enormous benefits for my own team or any other team in the Australia region. From playing at LAN with teammates for The New Zealand World Cup team we improved so much more in that one week than the previous months of practice, and I improved immensely as an individual player.”
OverWatch Contenders finals crowd: Does it get better than Overwatch? (Supplied)
Cantus generally agreed that it would help him and his team but had a positive take on the current situation and how it’s improved “Compared to even a few years ago though, it’s quite amazing for example, a team of players from Auckland, Sydney, and Melbourne can practice against a team from Seoul, Korea all connecting to a server situated in Tokyo, Japan. So in that sense, being able to practice against better competition even on higher ping is a plus “
The good news is these advances mean that neither player really felt disadvantaged for being a New Zealander playing in an Australian League. Players are already fairly scattered across Australia and Cantus said that his internet is better than most of his Aussie counterparts’ anyway. Legabrill cited the only real downside being time zones which means practice could run quite late for those further ahead.
While remote play seems fairly solid again both players reported really liking the opportunity to play stage in front of a crowd and feel the reactions from fans. Cantus talked about his experience representing New Zealand in the Overwatch World Cup and how he’s looking forward to experiencing it again soon.
“Playing in front of an audience totally appeals. When we attended Overwatch World Cup group stages last year as Team NZ, the audience there was enormous and just looking out over it was such a bizarre but great feeling. Each time someone made a good play in game you could feel the vibrations in the desk from their cheers, so experiencing that again is going to be awesome. The competitive side of esports is why I got into it, so when the stakes are at their highest is when the game is most enjoyable.”
While it’s good to hear that distance isn’t causing any problems for our Contenders I did wonder what players feel could be improved on for this level of competition. As a spectator, I’m very happy with the recent changes for viewers but seeing what would help on the other side was interesting.
Legabrill wants to see more international interest, especially in the form of coaches and to me that made a lot of sense. As a player being able to work with coaches from all over the world would give you more exposure to different styles of training and play and also the bigger the pool, the more opportunity to work with the best out there.
Cantus, on the other hand, wants to prioritise short-form Lan tournaments like what you’d see in many other esports.
“I know when I watch esports, for example if I tune into the LCS then most of the group stage matches I find slightly tedious after a while, and the playoffs only occur twice a year. Then when the Mid-Season Invitational rolls around the excitement is palpable and each game is much more satisfying. Even a simple system such as each region’s Contenders champion is invited to a LAN and they have a tournament to determine the best would surely prove immensely popular.”