Esports Meta | A Nerd Street Podcast

In the first live-recorded podcast at Nerd Street's The Block, XSET's Erin Ashley Simon discusses the difficulties aspiring professionals face when entering the esports scene, and having the courage to be true to yourself and speak your mind on social media.Follow Erin: https://twitter.com/erinasimonFollow Jess: https://twitter.com/JessScharnagle

Zekken gives the recap of what happened on day one of the VCT Last Change Qualifiers, and what it is like to be a student while also maintaining a career as a professional VALORANT player.Follow Jess: https://twitter.com/JessScharnagleFollow zekken: https://twitter.com/zekkenVAL

Naori Mizuki, aka Samantha Timms spoke to me about how she got her start in her casting career. Then we talk about our predictions for Valorant Champions, and how VCT Game Changers is going.Follow Naori: https://twitter.com/NaoriMizukiFollow Jess: https://twitter.com/JessScharnagle

Jason Lake founded Complexity back in 2003. For the last two decades he has been the leader of one of North America's longest running and most prestigious esports orgs. After being acquired by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in 2017, Complexity has become an industry leader in physical health, mental health, posture and nutrition for esports players. On this episode we dive into the science, how esports has changed and why its important for not just the players but the industry at large to place a big focus on all forms of health. 

True Neutral is an esports organization based in Argentina best known for their Rocket League team. After winning RLCS X South America, True Neutral is moving up north to compete against NA teams for this upcoming season. We talk about that decision, winning NSG's Summer Champs, and the South American esports landscape as a whole. 

Psalm's career has had plenty of ups and downs. From leaving a Dota 2 team only to watch them win The International the year later, to going pro in Heroes of the Storm just to have the league shutdown, to winning one of the single largest prize pools in esports history at the Fortnite World Cup, it's been a ride. On this show, he talks about how the journey has played out, what he would do differently if he could do it over and how the process works when the prize payout is in the seven figures. 

Yannick "KOLER" Blanchette plays for DarkZero Esports' VALORANT team. Since the org picked up the roster competing under the name Kooky Koalas, the squad has put together a few impressive results. In just Stage 3, DarkZero has beaten FaZe while losing 2-1 to both XSET and TSM. On this show KOLER talks about Challengers Playoffs live during the lower bracket matchups on Thursday night. He makes his predictions for Berlin before we move on to talk about Summer Champs. NSG's upcoming VALORANT tournament will feature almost every top team that isn't competing in Challengers Playoffs. DarkZero will be competing against a field that also includes C9 Blue, NRG, Andbox, Immortals, Susquehanna Sonics, Ghost Gaming, Renegades and many more. We talk about the importance of tournaments like that, what it would mean to become Summer Champions and how the VALORANT esports scene could be improved as we begin to look towards year two of the VCT. 

The Esports Meta goes in-depth on the business of esports. How orgs make money, why many operate at a loss and where the industry is heading going forward. Adam Fitch talks about how he broke into the world of esports reporting, the benefits and the hazards of joining an industry that's already a hobby and plenty more. Check out Adam's Dexerto portfolio and follow him on Twitter. 

XSET's new roster, featuring a new in-game leader, has quickly made waves. Alongside Envy, 100 Thieves and Sentinels, XSET is the only team to qualify for all of NA's biggest VCT events in Masters 1, Challengers Finals 2 and Challengers Playoffs 3. But the first two times, they got bounced early. With the new IGL and new young gun in Zekken, fresh off an upset of Sentinels, XSET seeks out to make a true run with the team's eyes on Berlin. Full episode transcription below the dotted line:-----------------------------------------------------------------------Mitch Reames  Hello and welcome into another episode of Esports Mehta from nursery gamers. I'm your host Mitch Reames eSports meta is a show looking at the current trends on top of Esports we place a big focus on valorant book cover all the top titles at various times. Today's guest is one evaluates rising stars. His name is Brandon Cole Jensen, but you probably better known by his initials bcj, a former Apex legends Pro, he made the transition over to valorant, granting a variety of open tournaments, including plenty of NSG events before being signed to exit in January. We recorded this episode on July 12. Just one day after exits best performance so far invalidate the squat with two new additions in second and depth who joined established core of pure ayran and bcj went to the grand finals of stage three challengers one to do so they beat sentinels rise and 100 thieves before eventually losing the rematch to sentinels in the Grand Finals. With that initial win over sentinels xA, grab the top seeded challenge playoffs in August. And that's the final gatekeeper before trip to Berlin for stage three masters bcj Welcome to the show.Thank you for having me on the show. It's a pleasure.Mitch Reames  Anything I missed in that intro that you have people to know about yourself? No, not really. Sorry. Good. Beautiful. So we're going to start with challenges one, even though we aren't actually publishing this until closer to challenges playoffs, so it'll serve as a nice reminder for people about excess performance. And starting off with the most important thing the biggest storyline that came out of this you guys beat sentinels and there isn't any question whether or not settles is the best team in the world right now after a run through stage two masters without dropping a map. You guys eventually lost the rematch in the Grand Finals but you took another map there which made the final tally three last for you guys and for for sentinels. I'm curious before you guys beat that. Do you know the last time sentinels lost?Um, yeah, I heard something ridiculous. I think it was like a like a 16 maybe even double digit somewhere in the double digit of, you know. I think that was like that amount of matches. They've played somewhere in the double digits of not even losing a map. I mean, it was unreal. Yeah. So it was a long time.Mitch Reames  Yeah, they they were on a crazy run through challengers vitals through stage two masters did the open qualifiers, their last loss was actually April 22 202, and box and challengers to nearly three months ago. And I asked that not to talk about sentinels here. But to illustrate how impressive this wind was, especially taking three maps with all the best teams in the world didn't take a single map. What made you guys so successful? It's something that a ton of the best teams in the world have tried and failed to do over the last few months.I mean, you know, we came in and we play confident, I think Sonos is one of those teams you play and you naturally you know, play a different way than you usually do. They kind of a team that forced the issue on you make you play different make you play a little, you know, outside the box, but you know, if you stick to your game plan, which is where we did, we made sure that we were going to stay confident play our game. And that's what we did. We came out strong against them. We weren't like, you know, scared anything to play them. We were pretty excited.Mitch Reames  Yeah, it that's one of those things that sounds really good on paper, like, Hey, we're just gonna go in and play our game. But the way they play took a lot of teams who were going to go in and just play their game and forced them to not play their game, I guess it for lack of a better term. What What was it to, hey, we're going to stick through this, we're going to get this like, how is that game plan prepared in a way that made it so yeah, we're gonna stick to our game plan. And we're actually going to be able to, with some of the other teams tried to and then like four rounds, they're like, crap, we have to go like, try something else.Yeah, I guess it goes to our like metaphor to the team, we have, like a bunch of veteran leaders and, you know, even young guns with, you know, good experience and balance so far. So all that combined, you know, we kind of were talking about strats, you know, when people were worried or like, you know, when people were down, you know, you weren't getting frags, or whatever, we just started talking about, alright, this is what they're doing. This is what we can do to win. And we were doing those things, we're just focusing on our game plan, focus on our strats you know, our mid rounding was pristine. Yeah, everything we were doing, you know, mid match after match pre match. It was perfect. And, you know, I credit that to, you know, Don, our coach and def, you know, our leader. You know, he's been, you know, leader in and out of the server for us. And it's been, it's been great to work with him so far.Mitch Reames  That's awesome. And I want to get back to some of your performance. But I'm curious, you mentioned bringing up def and the new person and the young guns, Zach. And I imagine one of those two new additions both brought on in June brought to the team that you guys are missing.You know, second is a very flexible player, he can play just about anything and even plays like a star duels role as well, which is really nice to add. Because not all star duelists can flex you know, letter deals just play one or two deals and that's about it. But having him on board being able to play the rays, you know, in Just absolutely go crazy on it and flex on to the stuff that we need on other maps like sky and stuff, you know, it's great. And he's got a great personality. He's such a young kid, but you know, he's he's, you know, really good role model for us. And he's actually got a great attitude. He brings a lot of strategy to us that we didn't you know, think he, you know, naturally would being so young. But um, yeah, he's been a great addition, I love Zack, I've been loving playing with him so far. And you know, it's been, it's been very, very, you know, a welcoming experience for him so far.Mitch Reames  I love it. It's cool. You bring up the attitude. So I talked to all of x, X's four co founders, for people unfamiliar with the org, and I talked to all of them as they founded the org. It's only about a year old now. And whenever I was talking to them, it's like, Hey, what do you guys goals, like we care about attitude, we care about people that have the right head on their shoulders gonna approach this game in the right way. And that is, you know, in addition to skill, which is obviously important, attitude was something that they always said, Hey, this is what we're looking for. This is something that is crucial to us building our teams. And now you can see the results of that only year odd competing in a bunch of different eSports and having success in quite a few eSports as well.Yeah, I mean, it really goes a long way people don't really realize how, you know, good your environment can be just with a few good attitudes on the team, you know, it's actually a game changer in high, high stress matches, you know, it's it's a game changer, and it makes everyone played better and makes everyone play different, you know, so it's great.Mitch Reames  No doubt, no doubt. Going back to this series, you know, you mentioned the new leadership from def zek. Its flexibility. But you were actually the the team leader in both those games against the Sentinels, you taught them both. And you led the team in ACS in both with 236 the Grand Finals at 274 in the wind earlier in the tournament, what was going well, for us specifically in those matches?Oh, you know, my team sets me up to you know, when those clutches You know, my team is really the ones entering into the bomb sites. Yeah, I'm like, the third guy in, you know, so I'm naturally set up for these positions. But, um, you know, I think it's just my flexibility on the new silver roll. I had to pick it up when I first joined accet many people don't even know but it was like my third or fourth best role I didn't even really place over at the time and, you know, over time, I, you know, put my head down learn the, you know, the agent, learn all the nuances. And, you know, I think that's just really why I don't think a lot of servers are catching up right now is because, you know, only a few of us are really putting our heads down and grinding the agent, you know, watching what other regions are doing, maybe, but um, you know, you got to have a system that supports you for sure. Some teams just play support soba and that's fine. I kind of play more of an aggressive fragging role. And so you send more output from my role. But, you know, everyone is got a different SCA Arab style, everyone's got a different team comp, you know, just depends on where you want from that room. And my team expects me to frag and clutch so that's what I do.Mitch Reames  We love our Silverman's on the show, we had average Jonas from EU on the show a few episodes ago. He's You know, one of the most famous Silverman's out there, as well as being an opera singer, which is just a very interesting background that that man has, but he loves to solve and so we love so that as well. On the cool staff, right, your your, you know, the attitudes clearly covered through your deflecting to your teammates, we appreciate that. That's always great. I'm not gonna let you totally get away without talking you up a little bit more. Because your 274 ACS was actually higher than any player was able to get to get sentinels in all the states you masters that featured all the top teams from around the world. So as you look towards challenges playoffs and hopefully stage three masters, is that important said an important thing to know that you can compete with the best The world has to offer on the biggest stages, especially as you look towards potentially entering some international competitions.Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, me more especially than most pros, because I don't really come from a CS background. But these guys have crazy experience in CS. I mean, they've been Atlanta, they've played a 585 shooter on you know, on stage before, you know, my background comes from apex, which is a battery. Oh, yeah, sure. I've played on stage I played the X Games been in Poland. Those are an ad team land 2018 land. So I've played you know, on the big stage, but not necessarily in a five to five shooter. And when I first made the transition, yeah, that was my thought, you know, can I really do this full time? Can I make a career out of this? And now I said, You know, I love this game. I'm just gonna commit to it. I left Apex full time. Yeah, I was competing a little bit on Apex back when I first started playing down there, but I just I gave it all up. I committed fully on valorant and I was a free agent for about six months until you know EXA gave me a chance and yeah, to finally come full circle and to play you know, as the top performer against sentinels. I mean, yeah, that's a dream come true for me. Knowing I can do it and, you know, getting ready for the first international LAN. I mean, that's, you know, that's gonna be the next goal for sure.Mitch Reames  Absolutely. If you if you ever have any doubts You can always look back to that and be like, no, I can do this I've got I've got the absolute top tier there, you know, we can reach that level when when we need to. So talking about Apex a little bit, it's a really interesting game because we are actually seeing a few people pop over who have pro level Apex experience. The other one most notable is probably Psalms, on sentinels. What do you think Apex gave you this other players might not have had coming straight from CS.Definitely ability usage and teamwork. I mean, that game is coming down to the microsecond. So you got to be on the same page as your teammates. So you know, having, you know, knowledge of, you know, where my teammates are at all times, how to use my abilities, and all the, you know, specific scenarios. Same thing as all the Overwatch players, a lot of Overwatch players are really, really talented with their abilities, which, you know, many CS players don't really have that, you know, in a background with, they got to kind of learn that skill. So yeah, I say, my teamwork with my teammates, my communication, those are probably the three biggest key points for me that, you know, Apex really brings over it's, it's kind of like, you know, if you're in a tense fight in apex, it's down to the seconds, literally, if you make a mistake, in those seconds, your your whole game is lost, you just wasted 30 minutes, you know, sitting in a building to lose. So you got to be really precise, and you got to have great communication with your team.Mitch Reames  I feel like Battle Royale doesn't always get the same level of respect it deserves on the pro level, mostly because it's such a casual game that most people play it as, on the pro level. It's one of the hardest eSports out there because of that communication, because you're not fighting one opponent, you're fighting 10 1520 depending on where where you are in the game, or how many people are play it on for your perspective. Can you talk a little bit about you know, I think you agreed that, hey, they don't get the respect that other eSports do in some ways? What do you think that is? And what should people know about? You know, what it's like to be a battle royale pro?Sure. I mean, the biggest thing for me is I think there's so many players that people don't realize that, you know, there are top echelon teams like there's only about eight teams in this game, I'd say valorant there's only about eight top na teams. And, you know, in apex, there's, you know, 40 teams in a tournament, and sometimes so it gets a little confusing. But the biggest thing for me to note for newcomers to battery cells that, you know, the same four or five teams have been playing the same exact way for months, and probably over a year now. And they're still the best and no one's even close. It's that prior knowledge of just once you like learn the game and get that kind of general understanding of how to play a better owl. No one's even close to you, man, if you have good teamwork, good communication. learning the ins like the ins and outs of battery is so much harder than just playing the game and having a good shot. Or, you know, having good communication, you know, all that stuff is basic level, you know, but learning how to play better learning how to play zones rotations, it's so complex to the point that only five teams in Apex are now are probably top tier. And that's and the game has been out for over a year now. So, you know, it just shows how dedicated these teams are to you know, San at the topMitch Reames  Apex specific specifically to has done a really good job of elevating the safe teams, which is a mark of like, This game has a lot of depth to it. Like it's not just a random person who wins this competition, which was one of the main knocks on fortnight eSports, as well, at Apex TSM had an insane run for a long time there at Apex where they were just dominant. And that shows that it is so skill based that there is obviously always going to be some level of randomness that evolves at every battle royale. But when when the safeties keep rising to the top, it says a lot about esport in my opinion.Yeah. I mean, their dominance was unreal, no one was even close until, you know, kind of the second wave of pros started learning, you know, hey, listen, this is what TSM does step 123. You know, what can we copy? What can we learn from that? And once that second wave came out, nicey there's some more teams there's Yeah, there's about five that's a good handful. But yeah, it's uh, it just goes to show how good these teams are. Man. They're really unstoppable.Mitch Reames  Definitely. Funny, funny timing on this as well. We actually had to have access to actual Apex legends to clean it. Kenny on this podcast just a few weeks ago. And I'm curious, we talked a lot about a reader mode on that episode and sort of like Apex taking in this mode. That's a lot more familiar to attack shooter background case. If you've played at all given that you now play attack shooter, and you used to play Apex Have you ever spent any time at Apex is read about yet?Yeah, I have played it. The concept of the game mode is really sick. I actually really enjoy the concept of the game. It's really fun. Apex movement is always going to be really fun to play. The gunplay is always going to be great. I think the only gripe for me is the balancing because you They released it without really, too much pro impact or influence, you know, on the balancing side of things. But yeah, I think once they balance it out and you know, get a some more maps in there, I think it should be pretty fun. Yeah, pretty good mode.Mitch Reames  Well, I told I told Claire to Getty, I would pass it on to MSG that, hey, we might let's, let's see what let's mixed up a little bit, see if there's anything we could do with this vote. So that's not my team. I can't make any promises. But I would love to see how pros approach that or just sort of how that looks, and maybe a little more balancing that could come out of hosting a few random tournaments here there in the arena mode. I want to jump back a little bit towards sort of adapting, as you mentioned earlier, and how that was a huge thing about a rallies, sports and now is also a part of valor in eSports. Because challengers was the last major tournament without kayo added to the pool, and challenges two teams will have played a major tournament with him in it. Is there any concern at all from your front that other teams will had a chance to get real tournament experience with the new agent? Well, you guys will have to rely on screaming ahead the challenges playoffs?I mean, for sure if that's always a slight worry, but yeah, on the counter that you can always just watch the VODs as well think we're a team that really analyzes VODs really well. And so you know, we can watch a lot of these teams that are having success with kale, what's not, you know, some teams that maybe played in are not getting success. We can, you know, really watch and study and see, hey, listen, these guys, you know, they're doing this, it's working out really well. This team's not really doing that well with this. So, you know, maybe he's not busted, but well, you know, only time will tell you know, as we said, you know, we got to see some more scrims you got to see some more matches with him in it. You're ranked really isn't a great judge. You can kind of tell a little bit of what he's gonna be like, but yeah, you got to get some lineups. You got to get some team experience before you fully see you know what he's about. So, yeah, I'm excited. But yeah, and I don't think it would be too big of a worry with my team. But yeah, it could be. Definitely,Mitch Reames  yeah, jury's still out on the new agent. It's actually very similar to what Ted said, I had him on the podcast recently as well. And he was like, Yeah, when it came out, I was like, Oh, it's broken. Because that's funny to say on day one, but you really don't get to know until we see him in tournaments. We see him in the lineup. So it's going to be interesting at challengers to at the open qualifiers, even sort of seeing how teams begin to use them. But even that tournament will still be definitely this period of like trial and error a little bit. And teams might not want to deviate too much from their initial causes so much on the line already. So we'll be really curious to see add challengers playoffs or add challengers to what teams using what teams commit a lot to him without having a ton of practice or even high level practice going into it? Yeah. What are your initial reaction to the agent actually talked to 10s the day came out, and he hadn't played it yet. So I'm curious what what your thoughts are playing it,um, I've played him and he seems really powerful in the current meta, a lot of teams are no hard anchored into sites right now. And if you throw that knife, it just silences the entire bomb site, a lot of these maps are designed in a way that, you know, there is some type of object he can throw his knife on, and it lands in the center of the site, and it gets the whole entire site, you know, it's very similar to I like, compare it to me, like playing soba for the first time, you find out all these lineups, you realize how much the dark can get, and you realize how, you know, crazy it can be in some it's, I see the same thing with the knife. Taking abilities way from every single player on the site is a little extreme. And so I think he could be, he could be game breaking on some maps that allow that, you know, cover the whole site. But, you know, we'll see, obviously, you know, maybe I'm thinking maybe it's easy to shoot, you know, who knows, we'll see what, what it looks like in a scrim. But yeah, first impressions definitely looks very impressive. I mean, all this kit is really sick. So you know what the, let's see.Mitch Reames  It seems from from a more layman's point of view, somebody who watches the games, but has not played them at a high level. It seems like it's a nerf aimed at the post plant. Yeah. All right, if people were struggling with the counterplay, especially at stage two masters, well, here you go, that at this point, do you have blanket counterplay? towards that? Is that is that your approach? As well as that? Is that kind of?Yeah, same thing with the Viper meta, they were trying to find something to like, kill the ability like spam, you know, it's not a great solution. I'll say, you know, it's, it's not great, because you're not really fixing, you know, if my Viper is gonna sit in my spawn and shoot Molly's across the world, you know, it's not going to stop her. So, you know, we'll see how they're gonna deal with it. But, you know, I think it's an interesting take, I think, you know, we'll see how it plays, but you know, it could do more harm than it is going to do good. Who knows?Mitch Reames  Possibly, that's that's always the danger there, but it definitely does. Feels like a little bit of like a wet blanket fix. Like we're just gonna throw this over the entire thing not a ton of new what's there with his kid. It's like, Alright, everything's got have fun. But we'll see how it works out I'm at least interested to see it and it's gonna be cool to see how people adapt to it. That's always you know, interesting in eSports and it's the nature of the game that sometimes you qualify for a tournament and then the game changes by the time you play the tournament that you qualified for very unique at sports but just sort of the name of the game I suppose. I talking about your current agent pool, you're a silvermine, bitter sage and Viper mixed in there as well. And I noticed the server goes away with breeze. What's the thought process on the on that map for that choice? Is that something that might change as well with more reps as people start figuring out better angles for silvo? Or is there something that just doesn't work on thatmap? I think the biggest thing for me when I first played sovann Brees was that you can't get as much use out of the old as you think you would the oh actually has a range Believe it or not. And breezes the biggest map in the pool for sure. And the range is actually hit a lot. The max range on the old is actually hit quite often when I first played it and so I was like, you know, okay, I got to learn some new you know, Olds because you know, this sobo, you know, how I usually use it, like, just, you know, randomly throughout the room, it's not as good, you know, I'm getting cut off, I got to find, you know, good spots for me to old, which I'd never had to really do on any other map. So initially, we were thinking that and I thought, you know, well, I can play whatever, you know, if we want to try some weird experimental comp, the one we went for the first tournament was the double Sentinel, that was our kind of, you know, experimental, we're going to run this, we think it's good on both sides of the map, we're going to kind of condense the map, you know, and so that's what we ran with. But uh, you know, I'm a very flexible player, I can play just about any role in this game at a high level, I think and at least, you know, learn it in a week and then played at a high level but me picking up the Viper, you know, I had two weeks, maybe three weeks of experience on it, and I was able to perform on that as well. So I don't think it's a big issue for me. And for most of the guys in team two, I'd say the biggest three are second def and Aaron does the biggest flexors next to me, I'd say cuz we only got to play whatever we can, you know, def plays almost all smokes in sentinels. You know, Aaron's been flexing on the new support roles he's never had to before, you know exactly what the sky as I mentioned, you know, all of us can play a lot of flex roles. It's really nice when you're trying to craft that, that perfect comp, kind of find out what works best for you. You know, having those options, having you know, all these pieces, it's just so much easier to you know, craft that perfect comp.Mitch Reames  That's really cool to have a team with that much flexibility pretty rare as well. Yeah. And especially going into this period right now where you guys basically have a month before challengers playoffs, you know, you're locked into a top seat of challengers playoffs and now you have a month to theorycraft. What does that open up for you during this time knowing Hey, we don't need to be maybe at peak for for challengers to we've got some time to experiment to figure out new things. You know, what's it mean to have that assurance that hey, chowders Pass comes around, we'll be there. So let's figure out some new things we can break.Yeah, I said this last time, I can't remember. I think it was on another podcast. But because we qualified in the last first open qualifier. Yeah, we were in the first one, we got top four we were through to the end. That's what we did last time as well. And you know, it's such a big advantage, man, not only are you gonna, like you said, stay in the low, you know, scrim make new strats you know, kind of reinvent yourself. But you get to watch all these other teams play in the open qualifier play in the challenger, you know, closed qualifier, you get to watch everything go down, kind of maybe steal some things here and there, counter shots and things here and there. And nobody really knows what you're doing on the behind the scenes part. So it's such an advantage to qualify in the first open, then it's, it's actually really sick for these 14. So I think it will be, you know, a true test the teams you still have to qualify, it's gonna be hard as ever, you know, as it always is, only four slots left is pretty ridiculous when you say some of these team names, you know, so, you know, we're blessed to be in the top four, for sure.Mitch Reames  You bring up a really good point, my initial reaction, why is that earlier question about kayo is like all these other teams are going to get some reps on it. But in reality, you get to see their kayo strategy, whether they plan to use them whether they don't plan to use it out there. And meanwhile, you guys come up with your own thing and nobody knows your attentions to play him or not play. So that's an interesting flip. I didn't even think about that. That side of it.Yeah, it's kind of like the double edged sword when you compete, you know, you give it a lot of valuable experience, but so do other teams, you know, with these VODs they're all over the place. So you can you know, go on YouTube, go on Twitch. Find them. Watch what you Did you know watch what they like to steal or what they want to counter next time, so you kind of have to reinvent yourself that to every big event for sure.Mitch Reames  Definitely, version one, also very talented at that they sort of reinvented themselves going into stage two masters and had a lot of play a lot of people bamboozled, I will describe liquid in particular, were some of their looks. They're just like, what is going on right now. And so it just just highlights, again, teams that have the flexibility and have the willingness to change are finding success at the biggest competitions and you know, going into it too, knowing, hey, this works well, challenges one, but we got to change, you know, we have to come with something new is the mark of a good team and mark of a really successful team.Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I can credit that to the entity and Whitby those are two flexible players, for sure. benedi being their leader more specifically than a flexible player. Yeah, he just plays controller, but, you know, it's one thing I've always learned from him is he said, over and over is, you know, put your head down, keep to the grind, and, you know, be willing to change, you know, that's the biggest thing in this game is stay ahead of the curve, you know, don't get lazy, you know, keep keep grinding, and you know, you'll see the performance, you know, over time. Definitely.Mitch Reames  I'm curious, you know, challengers playoffs is coming up, it's gonna be this huge experience. And you mentioned earlier how you don't have a ton of that that same land experiences some of these other CS players might have had, what are you most looking forward to? As you enter challengers playoffs? It's us sentinels, 100, thieves and envy, right now qualified, what are you looking forward to, as you enter that with three spots in Berlin out of the eight teams,I am looking forward to some more tense matches, I think every match we played in last challengers was actually really close. You know, somewhere, you know, a little bit more bloody than other, but you know, they're all pretty tense matches, you know, a few rounds go our way, we, you know, make it dotes here, you know, we win those maps. So, any map we lost, it was, it was close, it was tight. And, you know, I was pretty happy with the performance we had. And, you know, I think any of these teams can beat anybody. You know, I think that's what every team is kind of thinking right now. Hey, listen, you know, the skill gap is really close right? Now we need to come out, you know, with our best game plan, you know, we need to come out strong, because, you know, it's anybody's game, you know, we're so close with these top four teams that, you know, maybe besides sentinels being above everybody, you know, everyone's really close, and anyone can beat anyone. So, I think that's what all these teams are thinking right now. It's like, how can we, you know, find that upper edge, you know, how can we, you know, edge ourselves out to get these top two slots? Because I believe everyone's got sentinels in one of those two slots. Just how can you slot yourself into that, as well? Now, I got to find out what your matchups are. Find out who you got to beat. I'm sure that's the envy 100. thieves are thinking, you know, how can we be each other? Yeah, definitely going to see those names in the top of this tournament for sure.Mitch Reames  Absolutely. And now that you guys have sort of ascended that level, I think you're already on the come up. But if there was any question of whether or not you guys are a top tier team, in NA, that question has been answered after this last weekend's performance. So congrats on that. I am curious if there's something that you feel like people don't know about this team about exit as an org about us specifically, what's something that you want people to know that they don't? Right now, or you think they don't know right now?Hmm, I say it's our dedication as a team. You know, I don't think a lot of people realize how much work we're putting in to succeed. And I don't really think people realize how much work this core has put in, you know, even before I joined, these guys worked tirelessly to make themselves better, even when they weren't getting the results they wanted, you know, it, it wasn't a reason to quit, it wasn't something, you know, maybe we should cut down on some practice. You know, they these guys, you know, were the hardest workers, when I joined Donnie and I, I kind of fit really well with that. And so it was a perfect fit for me. You know, obviously, the Corps changed a little bit now. But you know, that philosophy still stays the same, you know, we were the hardest worker, you know, team out there, you know, competing with the best of the best. And that's kind of how you got to stay up there, you know, you can be the best of the best, but if you aren't willing to put that time in and work, you know, like sentinels or anybody else, you know, you really won't stay there. And you've seen that with some teams now, you know, hitting their top of the top and then you know, kind of bottoming out now. It's really just that dedication, that grind, you got to stay, stay in the grind and you got to be willing to, you know, play as much as you can.Mitch Reames  It's certainly difficult to stay on top just ask Europe's two teams from stage to masters who will fail to qualify in their first run at challengers playoffs in EU both fanatic and Team Liquid both missing that. So it's hard to stay on top, especially with the entire world watches all of your clubs and your strategies at the biggest stage, so we're coming to the end of our show, but I have to ask you about battalion 9044. So Twitter, I saw you listed first a group of games that made you the gamer you are today. And you told me before we start recording it was also your first lead. Can you tell that story of your first lead in battalion? 1944?Yeah, so basically this game came out. It didn't really have a good following, but I wasn't really playing games super competitive back then I played Overwatch, God top 500 once I was super excited, you know, I was like, Yeah, like, Let's go, I finally got some visual recognition, you know, of me being good at the game. And then just game the time comes out. And that was the actual, like, first game that I saw progress. I was like, Damn, like, I'm good at this game. Now let's see what I can do with it. I played a bunch of tournaments. Love the community. I still talk to many of them today. So you know, made some lifetime friends. And I think the biggest thing for me was just how natural the game came to me. It was a call of duty shooter basically, it was corps called duty jumping and shooting running, you know, running gun and it was an SMD It was a search and destroy, so you know, to bomb sites like valorant. And so game really natural to me. And I think that was why I kept playing it even though it was nothing really in it for me outside of fun. And I just went to school. I played it for fun. And then once that first land came around, I didn't have a team. I didn't make one with Lex who is one of my best friends. For sure. We went to that land we built the team. It was a couple other people play valorant I was to NACA pride and hero that was the full squad they'll shut up and we went to the first LAN in Philly we won nobody thought we were gonna win we were like the fourth best team there we went we played our heart out at two in the morning the tournament finished or something wild like that all sweating it like midnight and yeah, we won that best of five we came out of the winner so the back end we took that that's a three or it was a five I think it was and it was it was probably the best time of my life. It was it was really fun and I think that was definitely the point where I knew Okay, this is what I want to do for sure like I want to find a game that I love and you know with some money in it and you know I want to grind it and I want to be a pro player This is the most fun I've had so that was definitely the biggest thing for me was the time that's why I think it you know helped my career so much maybe not the game was big or you know with the beat the game had a big scene but you know definitely created my career and I think Lex and I think my teammates and yeah, I think the developers of the game for sure.Mitch Reames  I love that you know over there sure gamers we love at ice 2am sweatbox rock adelphia finals that's kind of kind of our bread and butter right there. Try it out to end them usually at 2am but hey sometimes the games reblog at the competition is just too good to cut it off. So glad that you were able to have that experience at frag adelphia and have to mention frag delta is coming back we just announced yeah Lance are returning so if you want to be an open player if you want to get an experience in an FPS game that you know I we take pride that a lot of the people who we talked to here who are beside in our pros, have some sort of frag adelphia experience have some sort of nursery gamers experience in their past so be sure to be on the lookout for open qualifiers you want to give it a shot, head to Philadelphia and play some frag adelphia we'd love to see y'all there bcj is a pleasure talking to you my man I want to give you a chance to plug your socials Twitter twitch YouTube whatever you got out there What do you want people follow and subscribe and look out forso it's good I guess what I'm most active on is my Twitch and my Twitter my Twitter is at T one bcj Shout out to T one for so that's my out there and my Twitch is the bcj which is where you'll find me streaming irregularly I hate to say it no no no no consistent schedule yet but you know that's where I'm most active. So make sure you follow me on those two platforms for sure.Mitch Reames  I will link his twitter at his twitch underneath this episode in the description section. So check that out add please check out some of the other eSports met episodes. We mentioned some of them during the course of this podcast. We're also talking to Casey pioneers, Chief gaming officer about their little run through challenges to being an open qualifier team and sort of making an appearance on the top stage that's the most recent so that we have 10s Apex legends x set average Jonas Emily, other people coming on this show as well. So please be sure to like follow and subscribe new episodes every Friday of Esports betta Hope you enjoyed this one. bcj again, thanks for coming up.Thank you. Thanks for inviting me again.

LJ Browne, the 19-year-old co-founder and Chief Gaming Officer of the Kansas City Pioneers, joins the show. We talk about the orgs impressive upsets over Immortals and Version1 in VALORANT's Stage 3 Challengers1, signing previous champions like Kronovi and Censor, and the orgs goal of potentially getting a spot in the Call of Duty League if it expands. We also talk about LJ's background, being a young founder, the orgs work in Kansas City and its mission of increasing diversity and inclusion in esports.  Full episode transcription below: --------------------------------------------------------------------Mitch Reames  Hello and welcome in to nursery gamers. eSports Mehta, a podcast featuring interviews with leaders across eSports. From players to execs to streamers and more. I'm your host mudrooms. We kicked off this revamp nurture gamers podcast by interviewing setenil Star 10s last week, and we're continuing the valorant training in part today as we talked to Lj Brown, the chief gaming officer and founder of Kansas City pioneers. If you weren't familiar with KC pioneers before, you're probably getting a bit more familiar lately. Ballard stage three over qualifiers held over Fourth of July weekend was the biggest slate of upsets the young esport has ever seen. And I'll run through all those upset upsets of the course of the show. But Casey pioneers was one the team have said Immortals in the first round and beat virtuoso to become one of the eight teams to qualify for challengers one in stage three of VCT North America at challengers one Casey pioneers had about the toughest sleep possible for any team. They started off against EBI, losing 1311 at 39, and two very close Babs. Then they go to the lower bracket where things are supposed to get easier, but they don't. And they play version one one of the best teams in NA and North America's second rep at Islip. After dropping the first map, though, they want to straight to advance past v1. And so what's the reward for beating what are the best teams in North America play not just at his best team, but the best team in the world in setting those were KC fighters dirty ended at least four challengers one. In addition to Valerie Casey pioneers had a top 10 Rocket League roster for most of our LCS season x, which is bought out by Shopify rebellion in April. They didn't leave the game, however, and picked up a new roster led by Chris Novi, one of the most famous faces in Rocket League, and arguably the game's first superstar. They also have a Forman, Call of Duty squad led by sensor a two time Call of Duty champion, who they signed in late June. The word also features of Madden player, a women's Rocket League team, a halo team, a solid Rainbow Six team and content creators, founded in 2019, Casey pioneers has quickly made inroads in a lot of major eSports over the last two years, so on the show, we're gonna be talking about Valerie's upset weekend, signing stars like sensor could Ovie the value of time, the organization to Kansas City, and KC pioneers focus on diversity and inclusion within the organization. Lj Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Hold luggage show right there. If you could tell people who don't know anything about the org, just one thing about it, what would you tellLJ Browne KCP  them? Um, that we're awesome. And we're authentic. I mean, you don't you don't get that a lot nowadays. And, I mean, we're extremely authentic. And, you know, we just got a lot of cool people with what we're doing.Mitch Reames  Clearly, you guys are finding success on the competitive side and are picking up some really big names, some names that most even casual eSports fans definitely recognize. I want to start with valorant because we're sure gamers are big on the valor inside and so far it's it's been a pretty valorant focus show, we're actually playing on cover most eSports but we do a lot of our coverage because again, you guys picked up fplc on June 30, just a few days before the open qualifier. And it's a team with some notable history three guys on united before they drop their roster. What did you see in that fplc squad that push you to pick them up?LJ Browne KCP  Um, well, I know, valance been out for over a little bit over a year now. I recently got into it earlier this year. And I'm keeping up with the the core three, you know, jMo Scourge physic, you know, over at EA united. Um, you know, those three guys themselves are cracked individuals, like those guys are really good at the game. And then when you see somebody like odorous who has this, this extremely rare work ethic and drive. You know, you want that guy on your team. Um, you know, and then you've got scuba, you know, the kids crack to, um, you know, so really doing a lot of digging on, you know, how they've been playing and building relationships with these guys is huge. I think that's my most favorite part is you know, building the relationship with these players and getting to know them personally on a personal level. Um, I think that's how you actually understand you know, the competitive integrity you know, that they have. So, you know, we got them on board and, you know, we kept up with scrims and how they were doing and, you know, we knew this team was going to be a top caliber team and you know, we're looking forward to the next qualifier to show you guys some more.Mitch Reames  I, you guys appeared on the scene. These guys had some previous experience but fplc there'd be a lot of nerves shoot events. You come to challengers one and odorous in particular was really one of the standout stars so vcts North America, Twitter account posted a bunch of stats after the end of the entire challengers event. An odorous name popped up over and over and over in these different stats. The first one was ACS and it's tense the star sentinels as soon as the star 100, thieves, odors in third. You know, it's just arguably the two biggest stars in North American Valerie. And an odor it's, it's, it's like he's right there. He's six, the KD is first an average damage per round bdl both heads and assuta as soon as who dropped a 40 Bob in the course of this tournament, by the way, and here he is. But the craziest part is, he's not a duelist he's putting out similar damage numbers attend to the pseudo playing on setenil on killjoy and cipher, that's absurd, a little bit that he's out there competing with them playing a little bit of a different role. What makes him so good? And you know, what, why was this such an arrival for him? Among the biggest names in the game?LJ Browne KCP  Um, honestly, he's just, he's the true definition of a true leader. Um, you know, and that's why he's our, you know, in game leaders or captain. And, you know, those exact reason for those exact reasons, you know, um, you know, he's, he's a great leader in the game, you know, as far as the methodical part, and, you know, the technicality of the game itself, but the actual skill, you know, you guys got to really see how good odorous is when it comes to raw talent. And, you know, it all comes back to grinding the game, knowing the game, knowing your teammates, and you know, just being a raw leader, like, you know, the guy's insane, he never stops grinding, um, you know, just to be as big brain as he is, he knows where to be, you know, on the map, he knows where his teammates needs to be at. And, you know, that helps him you know, lock in, you know, headshots and, you know, these kills and, you know, just having a great tournament, I think that this, I think Otis is going to be up there with your tins. And sooner than, you know, he's he's one of those guys, so I'm really looking forward to what he's going to continue to do this season.Mitch Reames  It's, he can't overstate how crazy it is for guy to be itl not playing a duelist and to be putting up numbers in the same level as guys like that, whose only job is to Frank and the way ACS in particular set up if rewards that doesn't reward inherently, the itl the Sentinel player, but yeah, you know, it there, he was on the stats, and the stats Don't lie. It's one of my favorite things about sports or eSports. The stats Don't lie.LJ Browne KCP  It's insane. What he can do on the map. Um, it's it's, I mean, like I said, there's there's almost no one like it, you know, that's, you know, like you said, He's not a duelist he's our igvault he's got a look at the map the whole game, you know, he shouldn't be he shouldn't be popping off the way he is, but he's doing it and and you know, the fact that he's able to do that and you know, also call the shots and, and, you know, get all these kills and you know, really lead his teammates and motivate his teammates. It's insane. And so, um, you know, we love odorous, and he's a great guy. We love chat.Mitch Reames  Love it. Love it. Yeah, it's so the other cool part about that is like some people might be saying, Well, okay, so it's averages. You guys only played three games 100 thieves and sentinels played a few more, but the three games you guys played? If you had to pick Have you talked to a random failure like Hey, who are the top three teams in North America Valerie right now? I think the most common answer might have been envy version one and sentinels. Oh, yeah. Which are the three TV has ended up play. So yeah, you know, sometimes the schedule works out like that. But what does that mean watching the team play against the three teams that are the best this region has to offer and competing in each one of those matches?LJ Browne KCP  Um, honestly, Mitch, I think it's it's the way we want to go um, you know, I know we will talk about Rocket League later on down the road but it's this it's kind of similar to how we got in the rock league you know, we got in with our team they're ranked like top 16 and then you know, we get in and we're starting to play against all the top teams and stuff you know, right off the bat and then you know, we're instantly ranked top six after that, um, you know, we want to be the underdogs we want to show these these big orange these big teams that you know, we're here to compete you know, our guys are more than capable of you know, beating anybody in in in in the in a scene you know, you know, we get in we play envy we have a close series against them. They go up what 11 I want to say 11 three honest we can't we bring it back. Then we lost that 113 to 11 we are one round away from OT and then we go in we play version one, we beat them and then the next day we come back and we play the number one team in the world so it's it's insane, you know, but but like I said, bro, we wouldn't want to come in any other way like it You know and now people know you know what we're capable of and I mean we're coming into this next qualifier with all three of those teams already qualified for playoffs and we don't have to see any of them so I think that any team coming into this next fire does not want to run in usMitch Reames  or you might you guys ruin v ones chances so you might they might come back for a little bit of revenge oh yeah advocated and said those are both there but yeah v one is on the hunt for you guys now they're not if you go to the last one that they ate now I'll probably see that Oh, yeah, I do want to get over to some of those other games but there's one more stat I wanted to highlight which was headshot percentage now odors does not rank first and this odd that's because two other Casey pioneers got ahead of him. Number one, scuba number two, Mark from envy at number three and then odors at number four. So you get first second fourth best headshot percentages all Casey pioneers, what his stats like that say about this team, especially as we look towards the next qualifier. And the next one about, hey, this team didn't just get lucky against fee one or something like that. This these are stats that show a really, really talented team that is going to stay out that going forward. Oh, yeah.LJ Browne KCP  Um, that consistency is one thing and I think that we proved last weekend, you know, that we're gonna this is this is going to be a consistent roster. You know, guys that the underdogs you know, we were the underdogs coming into this tournament. And we played lights out the whole weekend, you know, we didn't have one good day. And you know, we had every game that we played was a good game. You know, and with our team being a fresh team, you know, only teaming together for about almost two months now. Um, you know, I think it's scary, you know, that we come in and we lead in headshot percentage and even some of those other stats there. I think it's scary that we're just now getting started we've only been with our coach fraud for about two and a half weeks now. You know, this isn't this isn't kcps form. You know, I think that like I said, any team that's going to be in this next close qualifier, I don't think they want to run into us at all.Mitch Reames  Again, yeah, I think there was it's actually happened a little bit in stage two as well, where the some of the teams like FaZe clan got beat by might be mixing this up, but FaZe clan in version one. Alright, sorry FaZe clan and Genji both got beat by version one and cloud nine blue. And at the time, those both seemed like really big upsets. And then in hindsight, we're like, ah, those might not have been that big above sets. And I think there's potential for especially your win over Immortals. In the first in the open qualifier that in hindsight, we're gonna look back on that and be like, no, that makes sense. Casey pioneers, just the more talented team overall, even when it looked like an upset at the time.LJ Browne KCP  For sure. Um, like I said, I think that, I mean, we've as internally You know, we've known our guys have been capable of doing this for you know, a little over a month now. But actually seeing them do it and, you know, publicly and them consistently doing this. It's insane. I think that I don't think that any match that happened last week was an upset maybe the version one I think everything's an upset the first time it happens, because it's never happened before. So we have an upset. Um, but I think you know, when it comes to pure skill in, you know, big brain plays, I think that we've got the guys that have the edge over, you know, a lot of these teams in NA So, you know, we're extremely confident in our team and, you know, we're here to give them the tools they need to be the best team in NA.Mitch Reames  Absolutely, and clearly a auspicious start for the squad right now. Talking about Yeah, I think I think it dies with that v1 when that upset or not so much upset doesn't look as, as glaring on paper over mortals over the weekend that we did see a bunch of different smaller orgs orgs that we love over a nursery then like video, a lot of our tournaments, your your nobles, your rises, even virtuoso, the guys who played beat NRG and these bigger orgs. What's the value of that open qualifier system in especially right now in valorant, where so many leagues are moving to this more closed system? Why is it important to at least have some opportunity to set up those KC pioneers versus v one matches because even if it doesn't look, if it looks v one on paper, once the game is actually played, clearly, that could change. So what's the value of having the ability to do that, especially in a young esport like Ballard,LJ Browne KCP  um, it, the open ecosystem shows you know who the real grinders are, um, it's gonna keep it's gonna protect the competitive and integrity of the game, you know, as long as they're doing this, because it's gonna keep the highest level of players at the top. Um, you know, I don't know, if you saw a couple, couple weeks ago, the CDL La La gorillas Academy was playing their, their, their, their starting CDL team. And they were like smashing them. And it's just like, like, if they can do this and challenge their scenes are doing this. I mean, there's obviously better challengers, players and teams, and challenges in there is in the Pro League. And so I'm kind of hoping they kind of open things up there. But it's just a great example of why an open ecosystem keeps, you know, the highest level of talent at the top, you know, our team being one of those examples, we weren't, these guys weren't competing at this level. You know, until this month, it's crazy. I've been on Reddit almost every day, and everybody's like, oh, he united this united that. And it's just like, you can't really time those things you don't know when a team is gonna pop off or a players or a player is gonna pop off or anything like that. But I love the ego, the open ecosystem there. And I mean, I think it's just a great way to kind of build their esport. You know, they're, they've been around for a year now. And they've got to, they've got to build this community. And this is the best way to do it. For sure.Mitch Reames  It's quickly and I'm not just a company man talking about talking about valor in here, it's quickly become one of my favorite eSports as well. And I credit that open ecosystem for it. Because that was, I was a huge Call of Duty guy before and I still live with a CDL. But I didn't realize until it was gone, how much I loved the open ecosystem, part of it and the different runs we got to see in the CW Well, you mentioned the Los Angeles gorillas, team, and I, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe I saw on Wikipedia that you guys ran into them. And one of the challenges tournaments recently, as well. on why it's closed, and why like, there's so much talent, that's, I don't wanna say stuck down there, but isn't really getting its shot at the next level.LJ Browne KCP  Well, I mean, a lot of people, and it's, it's funny, I came from the cod community. So I know pretty much you know, all the pros, I know, a lot of them on a personal level. But they call it the friendship League, a lot of people call the friendship league because because of that exact, you know, reason, you know, it's not an open ecosystem, it's really going to come down to who's captaining the team and who they want on there. Um, but I think they were supposed to expand this year, they weren't because of COVID. So that, that obviously hurts the chances of players actually being able to get a shot. You know, and then, with the addition of taking the teams back down to four man instead of five, man, you know, it cuts a lot of chances for a lot of players. You know, so them not having an open ecosystem. Um, it's, it's a good thing, but at the same time, I feel like it's kind of hurt God in a way, in a sense, um, you know, just because, dude, the AMP scene is, is where that fire is, there's a lot more fire in the AMP scene, there's, um, you know, I don't know if you've ever been to a con event. But you know, when you get down to the the am the am venue. I mean, it's just a whole different grind. And it's a it's a completely different feeling and vibe, you know, because it's just a bunch of guys fighting it out in a pit, you know, for that top spot. So I'm hoping they will, they'll move back to some sort of an open ecosystem or, you know, a little bit more support for the challenger scene. But I love Cod, I'm hoping they can do it for us.Mitch Reames  Oh, absolutely. So I have to ask as well, especially with the name the Kansas City pioneers. You guys are part of a growing group of orgs that have named yourself after city without actually holding a spot in one of the Activision Blizzard franchise leagues. We've also seen that with the Pittsburgh Knights is another pretty notable example there. Now, you guys also have a call of duty format roster feature, said Sir, he's a two time world champions over a million followers on Twitter. He's one of the biggest days that Call of Duty's had ever. Is it fair to say you're targeting or angling for some possible expansion slots? If the CDL does expand like the Overwatch league did, which went from 12 to 20, after season one or season two, is that something that's, that's on your mind?LJ Browne KCP  Um, I think that any Cod, I mean, it mean, any org that has roots in Call of Duty, I think that the CDO is a priority for them. Um, you know, obviously, the CDL is extremely hard to get in. Yeah, for obvious reasons, you know, for some words might be the financial impact for most or just the financial impact, but you know, them you know, they they're very specific on who they want in that league so but it's definitely on the priority list and it's a reason why we're in challengers for sure and you know it's it's also a reason why you go out and you get a brand like sensor who's been in cod for years and I mean I I've watched sensor when I was in eighth grade and now you know he's in the Oregon so to say you know to have a face like that and on the in the brand so um yeah 100% CEOs great we want to be a part of it someday and hopefully when they expand we're you know one of those teams that they're looking atMitch Reames  I think you're definitely in a good spot with the team already that the $25 million wall is probably the toughest challenge but you know it it things might change things might open up at your with your eyes success so far hopefully you might be able to find one of those big sports odors maybe the I'm not sure who was the chiefs of the Royals but I see you rocking that Royals Royals headers that you guys get thisLJ Browne KCP  is a Royals hat. Um, and it's funny because like most people ask is that a royal tie or KC hat? And most most people say a lot of people in KC dress like we're tourists because we wear Casey stuff. And we live here in KC, but just like we like to wrap our city. It's just like, Casey thing.Mitch Reames  Just say, That's how that's how a lot of the other org seemed to make it happen. It's finding that that's for its owner be like, hey, what a little bit on the side. Yeah. So speaking of major faces, joined to the org. I'm a huge Rocket League fan. That's, uh, that's my background. That's my, that's my favorite game. And so, so you guys had kernoviae? I was like, wow. And for people who might not get the impact of crow like, this dude was the best player in Rocket League season one, season two, season three. And for my money, you know, some European people would probably argue with that, but for my money, he is the best. What? Why did you what what does it mean to have a player like that? Who is instantly recognizable to every Rocket League fan? Same sort of deal with sensor there. He's a former world champion. I think Crowe got a world championship. Regardless, he's on that same level. You know, what's it mean to a new orc to have players like that it faces like that, who have so much history in their respective communities.LJ Browne KCP  Um, I think that these guys are, you know, Kurt Kenobi, especially a really good fits for what we're doing. Because, you know, we're newer org. And these guys, they know their stuff. Um, you know, crows held that trophy up before you know, centers held that trophy up before. We as an orc have not, you know, you know, being new. And so bring in guys with this experience, and knowing the game and knowing that community, and even knowing the the business side of things, you know, I think it's crucial to grow our brand. You know, you have to have these people on your side, to be able to level up what you're doing. You know, if we want to be a tier one organization, we've got to, you know, bring on people and connect with people that have been to that, that tier one Oregon, you know, people that have won championships, you know, we want to hang banners here, we want to win championships. So we got to get people that have done that already.Mitch Reames  And it shows how serious you are about that, to where some words come out and the first thing they invest in is streamers and content creators and that's a part of every eSports organ, there's no doubt about that. You guys come out and be like, we want world champions. This is our goal. This is our mission. It adds an air of legitimacy isn't the right word, but like seriousness about it, like no, we're going after this like we want a title. And we're gonna we're gonna go get the people that know what it takes to get that person. Speaking of speaking of rosters and really talented rosters, you mentioned it earlier and I want to jump back to while we're while we're on the subject of Rocket League. Your Rocket League roster for all CSCs next was one of the big upstarts of the last year that was like wow, this team's crazy crazy good. It featured rapid beastmode and memory and got bought out by Shopify in April I assume it got bought out I'm not sure the details of that I'm not sure if you could speak on itLJ Browne KCP  I would have to get we made a transfer to we made a transfer to ShopifyMitch Reames  Shopify has a bit of money that that one company that so much digital marketing so yeah, I I thought about it was like that feels like Shopify VM like Toby's coming out with a bag. He's like, Hey, what's up guys about it. But anyways, they're very talented team under you guys. They became a top 10 team and now they're currently ranked six and liquid pedia under the Shopify banner. He did something similar fplc who'd been a free agents for a few months now was like they just been dropped by United and immediately found some success. What are you looking for in these players that's helped you find diamonds, people who are better than they're currently being credit credited for?LJ Browne KCP  I get this question a lot, just because it's, it's insane, that it happens. You know, it's, it's happened with our Rocket League team valorant. Now, we had a Gears of War team last year where, you know, they were kind of the underdogs and ended up winning the whole playoffs, you know, event and so it's, it's kind of the running question in our org is, like, you know, how are you guys going out and getting these people that are performing at a lower level, and then you guys are signing them in there instantly. Like, I mean, we're not obviously, we're not coaching, we're not doing any of that, um, I think that, it, our support comes from the mental aspect of making sure our players feel like all they need to do is focus on winning and playing good. And we take we take care of everything else, you know, we make sure you know, their skills, their schedules are set, we're make sure we make sure they're organized. And, um, you know, we give them the tools that they need to be successful, and, you know, having that, that, that mental, you know, that barrier there, you know, kind of having all that stuff off of their shoulders, helps them play better, you know, and then just giving them a great community, we have a awesome community here at kcp. And it stems from kind of the rocklea community and then, you know, now the valorant, and Rainbow Six community and Call of Duty, um, you know, when you've got, you know, over 100 200 people in the chat, you know, just spamming your name and your orgs logo. I mean, it's, I mean, who doesn't want that confidence boost there? You know, but as far as looking at the players, you know, before we sign them, it goes back to guys like odorous, you know, when you talk to somebody that has a crazy work ethic like that, and somebody that wants it that bad, and then has raw talent like that. Like I said, you want that guy in your team, nine times out of 10. Same thing with Kenobi and center, you want these guys that have that fire in their chest, and have been there before? So I mean, that's that's how we do it here.Mitch Reames  Yeah. Oh, doubt. I mean, you can't argue with the success. so far. Of course, as you talk about sort of the, the environment that you build a case, if it is, I was a little surprised to see, you know, when they're playing these v wads, these sentinels, these places that have had, a lot of times to build a fan base, the VCT chats got just as many pioneers in it as people spanning say, it's like, how have you guys built that fandom? And how much of it radiates out of Kansas City? And really, the being located in a certain place? Is that a big part of why you have this built in fandom right now? Or is it just been, you know, what you guys have been working on? What do you guys building the culture you've been building,LJ Browne KCP  um, it stems from the the culture, and then just being authentic with our community. Um, you know, we're not, we didn't get into eSports backed by, you know, sports owners or celebrities or anything like that, you know, we were just people that, you know, had passion and a dream here and a vision. And, you know, we did it from the ground up. And so with that, you know, you get to offer a way more authentic feel to the community in, you know, the business itself. Because we were just regular people. So, you know, everybody that looks at what we're what we've done, you know, they're like, they're extremely inspired by that, and motivated by that. And so we get to build the community, you know, based on that. And then, you know, we, like I said earlier, we've just got some great people. And we've, we've, we've, you know, built this thing, like I said, from the ground up, and we've, we've added so many people, you know, and they're just all great. And so, to be able to build what we built has stemmed from that and then obviously, the local perspective is, you know, we're the pioneers to the world, but you know, to the Midwest and to KC where they can see the pioneers, you know, and we want to be that fourth premier sports team right next to the Royals, the chief sporting KC, um, you know, so to be able to add that geographical base tag on our onto our name, it helps you know, people in KC say, you know, like, I'm really a part of this, you know, it's it can see pioneers, like, I can rock this merge, I can be a part of this. I'm a gamer every day, I mean, the game every day. Um, you know, and so, kind of building that inclusiveness is, you know, where we're at right now. And that's one of our missions. You know, we want people to feel included in what we're doing here. You know, for you know, people in KC and people in the Midwest in general, soMitch Reames  I love that. So my family's from St. Louis. And when you were talking about how we're just, we're just calling people I was like, that fits with what I know about Missouri, what I know about the Midwest that like, this is what people want to support, like, Hey, we just made this we're not, we're not millionaires, we're not backed by crazy amounts of money, or just people from your community, trying to create this trying to represent you well, and that's so much about what Midwest is and what the Midwest stands for. And I'm sure that the city's resonated with that.LJ Browne KCP  100%. Um, like I said, I think that building the community here, first was was really crucial. You know, we don't want to build the Kansas City pioneers, if Kansas City's not behind us. Um, so you know, making sure Casey's was behind us and making sure we built our fan base here and making sure everybody felt included in what we were doing. was a was a high priority for sure.Mitch Reames  What are some of the things you're working on within the city to make sure it's not just a name only and you know, we are part of this community? Were you holding events? Are you doing different things for the people that live in Kansas City, to get them familiar with the KC pioneers?LJ Browne KCP  Well, that's funny, because we actually over the weekend, we actually had an event, I'm at sporting KC, which is our MLS team here, we had an event at the stadium there where, you know, we had a booth and we were able to meet some of our fans and take pictures and simply sign some stuff for people. And we got to network with a lot of people but you know, doing, you know, things like that, where we've, we have something called our kcp Street team, which is a group of some of our content creators and people that actually live here in KC, where we go around to, you know, events, you know, partnerships with the Boys and Girls Club of greater KC, where we actually exercise our mission of, you know, inclusiveness and diversity and all that good stuff. Because we, like I said, we're building this authentic environment, and we want to show people, we actually care and we don't want to talk about it, we want to actually put x into that.Mitch Reames  Definitely. And you mentioned your vision for the company, sort of your mission statement on your website and says, Our vision is to use the power of Esports to champion diversity, inclusion and opportunity to players and fans across the world. And I'm curious, why is it important not just to stand for important issues when they arise, but make it a core component of the audit itself.LJ Browne KCP  I mean, man, we're in 2021, um, you know, you've you've got to be diverse, you've got to be inclusive, you've, I mean, there's so it's so important to make sure people feel included in what you're doing. And, you know, especially with, you know, the gaming aspect, there's so many different, you know, ethnicities and cultures, behind gaming, you know, we've got to connect with everybody, you know, we want to connect with everybody. We want to learn, we want to, you know, bring some of these people on board, you know, we have a ton of different people from a ton of different backgrounds in kcp. You know, it's extremely rare that you see, I mean, I was set, I was 17 year old, you know, black kid, you know, founds a business, you know, from a college dorm, and then we've got, we've got older guys in our org, you know, we've got women of different ages in different cultures, and, you know, it's insane, you know, just being able to meet all types of different people, you know, at the age that I am personally, um, you know, and work with them, because I get to learn, I learn every day, I learned something new. And then, you know, being being the type of org that not only wants to raise awareness for, you know, diversity and that, I mean, LGBTQ and, and things like that, you know, beyond you know, just raising awareness for it actually doing it. I mean, I'm wearing our pride merch right now. Um, you know, actually doing this type of stuff, like, it's an everyday thing. And putting this into our everyday practice, is what we're doing, you know, we don't, we don't want to just post for, you know, we don't want to exploit, we don't want to post just to post or just to keep up with what's going on. And, you know, every day social media, you know, we actually do these things. We have people from different backgrounds and, you know, different ethnicities and things like that, um, and so, you know, just just actually doing it, it's where you really have that authentic feel and, and actually doing stuff for sure.Mitch Reames  Absolutely, and you could tell when it's a random when it's a social media team putting out a statement or when it's core to the org itself, and $100 statements are good. And it's good to join that conversation. But we've seen a lot more eSports orgs move beyond just, oh, we're gonna change our logo for June, for example, we're going to let's, let's actually keep this front of mind year round and focused on it. And some of the other orgs out there doing things like this, you got flyquest focused on the environment, complexity, putting a big focus on playerhealth exit Ed, you guys will put diversity inclusion as core parts of the founding of the org. Why is it important for eSports for the world of general to have organizations investing and pushing for change.LJ Browne KCP  Um, I think like I said, it's, it's 2021 man times are changing. Um, I mean, I don't, I don't want to act like I'm oblivious to it, or I don't want you know, anybody to feel, you know, watching this podcast that we're oblivious to, you know, the world changes, and you know, what's actually going on and current events, um, you know, being being diverse and inclusive, and, you know, raising awareness for, you know, the LGBTQ community, you know, things like Black Lives Matter and things like that, um, you know, we've all got to do these things, we want to be a part of change, and on the right side of history, and in order to do that, we have to actually do these things, we've got to show our faces and show up to, you know, events, we've got to, you know, we've got to run charity events, we've got to do these things, because it's our mission. And it's, it's what we want to do, and it's and it's how we feel, you know, we actually care about these communities and about these problems, you know, in our country and around the world. So being a part of it, you know, making making our merge our primary, you know, something on our store year round, it's not just going to, it's not just up in June, you know, this stuff is up year round. You know, that type of stuff, it matters, you know, to people that are in that in the LGBTQ community that are gamers, you know, for them to say, for them to go on our website and see, dang, like, they've got their stuff up, you know, 24 seven, like, this is great. Like, I can always go grab a pride shirt if I want to, or whether it's, you know, we did a charity back in February for Black History Month. Um, you know, we're always going to do these things, and actually care about these things for sure.Mitch Reames  Absolutely not. So, so important love to see, in order supporting that something that's really important to us. At nerd street as well. We're actually launching new content series about the time this goes out hosted by our editors, a member of the LGBT community called gamers chair, where he's going to bring on different members of the community to talk about their experiences and how video games have helped them with their identity as well. So be on the lookout for that first episode coming out and nurture gamers. And that's going to be a monthly episode. For us. Again, going year round, making sure these aren't just designated parts of a social calendar of like, okay, June, we're focused on LGBTQ and then February we're focused on black lives matter. But this is, this is your route, these these issues are important your route and they don't just have one month, where they're important. So love to see you guys focused on that we're focused on it here too. And hopefully, in the future, gaming in the esports world is much more inclusive, and diverse place for for everybody in it. 100%. Speaking of the future, I want to end on this, if you could see yourself in five years, if you can see the Oregon five years, which apparently according to you, you'd be What 24? Are you like?LJ Browne KCP  Yeah, I'm 19 I'm 19 I turned 20 in September.Mitch Reames  credit to you, Kenny to you, I would have never known I mean, based on the way you're running the org on this interview to is the first time we've talked but like you carry yourself with not somebody who should be a freshman in college or who's a freshman in college, give me credit for that. I appreciate it. So 24 years old, what's the five you play? Where do you hope Casey pioneers is?LJ Browne KCP  It's not even, it's not even a hope thing. I know, you know, we I mean, I'm a big guy on speaking into existence. Until you know, it's never if for me, it's always a win, you know, so when that time comes around, you know, the plan is to be you know, a tier one organization, you know, leading in eSports, and leading and content creation. You know, big shout out to my guys hex and NadeShot you know, those are two guys that I ended up watching a lot of. And I give those two guys credit for everything that I've learned in eSports. And everything that I've done, you know, um, you know, the the model behind, you know, what I've always wanted to do is, you know, stems from what those guys have done, you know, the last 10 years. So, you know, five years, bro, we're going to be a tier one organization. We're going to have championship teams, and we're going to be leading in content creationMitch Reames  and hopefully, you're taking On thieves and optic yo fighters as well. Hey yeah and NadeShot you're not the only guy in eSports who has those guys to thank for a lot of lessons and leadership and inspiration over the last decade or so. So you're already well on your way man, it was great talking to you. What do you want people looking out for follow in subscribe into twitch YouTube Twitter where you guys at?LJ Browne KCP  Definitely check out our Twitter or twitter at pioneers GG same at our Instagram pioneers GG pioneers GG for everything is going to be Kansas City pioneers. You know, that's where you can catch any of our off the record content where you can see you know, behind the scenes of signing, you know, valorant Rainbow Six and some of that good stuff. And then also, I mean, you've got our valentim plan at the end of this month we've got that last close qualifier so make sure you guys are checking that out. And uh, yeahMitch Reames  awesome, awesome. I'll be on lookout for KC pioneers and I'll link all of their different socials underneath this episodes just jump down there, you should see a bunch of hyperlinks. Be sure to follow them you're going to be we're going to want to be on the lookout for what they do next. Whatever team they sign next apparently is going to become a top 10 team whatever game they play, that's just kind of how they do it. Over at kcp no pressure though they'll fresh it. That is it. Thanks for coming on, man. It was great talking to you. For next on the esports metaphor, you guys we've got a deviation from valor and a little bit we're talking to Kaido he's an oxygen eSports Rainbow Six Pro. I'm talking about Brazilian eSports and why they're really playing great Rainbow Six these days. And then we're finishing off the month with an interview with bcj from accet. The young stand out on exit who just upset sentinels in challengers one and are now locked in to challengers playoffs. So we'll have that for you on July 30th and kind of coming on July 23. I hope you enjoyed this episode. With Lj Brown, the owner and chief gaming Officer of Kansas City pioneers

TenZ is arguably VALORANT's best player following an MVP performance at VALORANT's Stage 2 Masters but he's also one of the game's biggest content creators. This show covers the recent changes in VALORANT, the growing content scene around the game and TenZ's wild few months which took him from a Cloud 9 streamer to a Sentinels pro locked into VALORANT's first World Championship in Fall. The full transcription of this episode is underneath the dotted line. ------------------------------------------------------------Mitch Reames  Hello and welcome in to Esports Meta a podcast from Nerd Street gamers. I'm your host Mitch rates. Today's guest really needs no introduction. He was already on the rise as a CSGO player and the release of valerate has elevated the order the game's biggest stars, retiring from Cloud Nine in January 2021. To pursue consecration, he was sent out on loan to sentinels. With sentinels, the team proved itself to be the best in North America at VCT. Stage one masters and the best team in the world at stage two masters Reykjavik, after that when he joined sentinels full time as a contract buyout was completed, and sentinels looks to defend their crown as stage three approaches tense. Welcome to the show.TenZ  Thanks for having me.Mitch Reames  So I'm definitely going to ask you about the transition from CD to sentinels valorous next act and the release of Keio which actually just happened the day we're recording this, but I heard a story I want to ask you about first and was while I was watching VCT, stage two masters and I was hopping around to a bunch of the CO streams over the week long effect. And one of the CO streams randomly Ludwick was watching with mango, who for people unfamiliar is an all time great, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. And he had a 10 story about YouTube going to casino I think it was in Croatia. And so there's a different drinky gauge over there different gambling age different rules in general over in Croatia. What do you remember from that night hanging and drinking with mango?TenZ  So mango invited someone like like the CSGO guys to see if they wanted to go to casino with them. And I don't think anybody else went but I decided to go and I've never been to casino before and I definitely like megos an expert, so I knew I could trust them. I went to the ATM. I tried to pull out like $100 I think but I pulled out like 300 euros accidentally. And then we proceeded to play blackjack. And yeah, I lost like everything within 20 minutes. And then mango kept giving me like 10s and chips where I would gain back like at repay the debt. And that happened like 667 times. Or it was a 20s I don't remember I think he called it like homie. It was either homie Tanner homie 20, I don't remember but where he gives you 20 chips and you repay the debt after you like you make your money back. So it was fun. We got wasted. He carried me back to my hotel room, literally, and threw me onto the bed.Mitch Reames  That's an iconic story, honestly. So that's when you know, both part of the C died family at the time. I imagine. So that was the connection there between you two? Yeah. Had you ever? Have you ever talked to him before that?TenZ  I'm not really I knew I knew who manga was because actually one of my friends from high school is really like big into smash, and especially the Smash melee. So mango is actually his favorite player. So that's how I kind of like knew about mango before and then I was able to hang out with him in Croatia. So that's pretty cool.Mitch Reames  That's such a random story. But it's one that you like think back God you I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. I've ever by. So I live in Las Vegas. Now the first time that I got here, I was like, Well, I guess I have to go learn how to gamble. And yeah, it's a it's kind of confusing. would you would you start it?TenZ  Yeah, for a beginner, you'll definitely suck for the first time.Mitch Reames  It's good, good to be part partnered with a true pro and mango. I don't think he would balk at that by any means both, both on the alcohol consumption side and on the gambling. The man does have a part. So switching over to Valerie a little bit obviously you're a part of see nine then you get scientists at Lowe's in some pretty interesting circumstances. It's just a few days before stage one masters. You know, how was that transition from the jump. But I know I've talked to you a little bit after different events like that. But if you think back to that, and just sort of this crazy run up of the last few months where stage one masters falls right into stage two qualifiers before which then leads up to Iceland. Now you've had a few weeks to kind of catch your breath after stage two, stage three coming up in about 10 days or so. You know, can you reflect a little bit on this last period of time now that you've actually had a few weeks where there hasn't been a super high profile competition you've been competing itTenZ  yeah so the just like reflecting on everything. It's all crazy like from the first day where I'm I sat down and I wasn't really expecting much I was expecting just kind of stay on the sidelines until whoever knows like whenever the time was calling for me to come back to pro play but getting the message from Shah's on Twitter dm that started everything. We won masters one one masters to one elegy su so it's fantastic and I'm like thankful that I just have such an amazing team behind me.Mitch Reames  You all prove to be the best team in the world. And I think you silence the doubters. You know if there was doubters before that a clean sweep of fanatic in the grand finals of stage two bye there's pretty much locked that into place. And you won the MVP award for that series with an absurd 289 average combat score or ACS. How are you feeling during that match? You know, it's the biggest stage Valerie ever had up until this point, and you popped off.TenZ  I don't know what it is, I actually feel like I played better in matches. And especially if there's more pressure in the match, I don't really feel the pressure instead of pressure, I kind of feel like adrenaline or like excitement. So I'd say like in the Grand Finals, I was definitely like in the flow state. And just owning with my aim.Mitch Reames  It seems like you all were actually really want to talk about your aim and how that's going to be changed in this next validated stage that we have coming up. But it was so interesting, because we don't let ourselves have any time before moving on to the next story. It feels like so after you when that everybody starts immediately talking about your contract, like it comes up in the postgame press conference. People are start, like tweeting about it. It's like within 30 minutes, I was like, Can we enjoy a win before we immediately move on to the next thing. But you know, as that played out, how long after that when suddenly a few days later, it's like, Okay, he's on sentinels, like the buyout happened. He wasn't in contract jail, some people speculated or something like that. How long after that, when did you learn that you were officially becoming a member of sentinels.TenZ  So I was actually, like, right after he won the Grand Finals, I'd say like an hour, we were back in like the room or even like 30 minutes, but our manager just says, Hey, guys, we have an announcement, we picked up tons. It's like, Whoa, that's big.Mitch Reames  Did that allow you to celebrate a little more free?TenZ  Just Yeah, I was definitely able to celebrate both for the win. And for like, just being able to join this team.Mitch Reames  And you know, like you with that win. And with the stage win masters when you guys became the first team to qualify for champions. And so at the back of your mind has to be a little bit like, did I qualify to? Or are these four guys going? And I'm still not sure that it was that that play into it at all?TenZ  I mean, at the time, I wasn't really thinking about it, I'm sure like if I didn't get picked up, and it was after the tournament, like we took this long period. And just like in a world where I didn't get picked up long term. Yeah, definitely would have been in the back of my mind that like, like, Damn, we qualified for champions, but they're just sad. I can't be a part of that. So it's like, I'm so thankful that I was able to join this team long term.Mitch Reames  In the end, everything worked out. Right, you joined the team, and you're allowed to join it right after stage your masters as the contract. Did you have communication with C nine and with jack at the end at this at the time during that? Or was it kind of in the dark? I tell you just got the Hey, okay, you're part of it.TenZ  Uh, I was like in the dark a little bit, but I know thattheTenZ  that likes animals and Sina and we're communicating and especially like my agent as well. So there's a there's like communication there. It just like I'm the type of person where I don't really need to know what's going on. I just playMitch Reames  fair enough, surround yourself with the right people. And you don't have to worry about that as much because that's their job to figure that stuff out. Well, again, it all worked out and clearly the contract situation it didn't have a negative impact on your forms or or maybe it did you actually have another level of skill that but that would be pretty, pretty shocking even for for you. Going forward, especially as we entered this period of meta change of a big switch, are you able to relax a bit more knowing Hey, there's probably going to be some adjustments we have to make there are going to be some adjustments we have to make. But I'm set in stone with these other four guys and we're going to be able to figure it out. Can you relax a little bit more especially in this period of incoming flux? Then maybe you would have if you're still alone?TenZ  Yeah, so definitely like I know for a fact that like all these like all my teammates, so shout dapper sick, like they're all amazing players, they can have my back at times, like I trust them in game 100%. And so yeah, I can I can definitely like relax and have ease of mind knowing that I have like, great, fantastic team misses for me. I'm looking at like the meta changes stuff. I mean, obviously, like, it's very exciting to see a meta, like, constantly adapt. And that's what kind of kind of what interests me in eSports. And especially in other games that I wasn't a part of, like I was in Counter Strike where the meta was pretty much the same for God knows how long andMitch Reames  to log on.TenZ  Yeah, but like if you look at other games, I'll take like early Overwatch as an example because the game was fun, but I didn't enjoy it when I tried playing it later. But like game like that. game like league where it constantly has like metas. And there's certain things that you have to do in the pro scene to keep up with competition. So it definitely is just really exciting. And I kind of like that, like adapting part.Mitch Reames  There's, there's always going to be good metas. And that is the delt work. And some of that might be personal preference, or whatever it is, but it is one of the hardest parts of being an Esports Pro is, you know, that doesn't happen in traditional sports, the whole game doesn't change on a dime every six months or so. You know, as you clearly you guys are the best team in the world right now, based on results alone. And I know there's some EU fans would be like, Well, actually, some of our teams didn't get to go. But regardless, you guys want Is there a tough part when you're on top and clearly on top knowing, hey, things are about to shift? And that shift might take us to a point where we're no longer on top? Is that hard to deal with at times? Uh, no, ITenZ  wouldn't really say it's hard to deal with. It's just mainly our ability to like, keep a collective mind as a team and stay like on the same page and just play how we normally have been playing definitely like being at the top though, every other team was gonna have a target on your head. And you kind of have to prepare and not really underestimate any other team.Mitch Reames  Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, people will certainly be gunning for you already. I think people that I already work it for you. But even more so now for sure. So talking about the shift kind of dance around it, let's talk about what actually is changing in valorant. Right now recording this on June 22, when this came out, and not publishing this podcast until the fifth of July, so you'll be able to hear it there. But we'll be having a sneak preview of this on press four to diffuse our valorant show, which is coming out tomorrow. So we'll have some tense thoughts there and then check out the full podcast on July 5. So the changes that just happened. I'll summarize very, very briefly. price increases to basically every single ability out there. You've got kayo, which is a walking nerf of some sorts, just basically a bunch of different E and T n T's. I can't remember the I can't read the word. It just stands every single thing installed. Yeah, the EMP is EF PS Thank you. I was like, that's a that's somebody who drives that. I'm like, Why? Why can I not remember this word? EMP is to everything like multiple different abilities all sort of just locked out abilities and promoting aiming, I mean, that's clearly where, where they're aiming here. So talking about sentinels, we have this combination here where you guys just dominated the last patch and so you're clearly very good. But you're also a very tactical player. You're the best Amer invalidated by pure stats. So does this actually benefit sentinels in some way?TenZ  I won't lie. I've been praying for this day to happen where they would keep nerfing the the running accuracy or like the dead zone for the tagging or walking everything. And especially like other guns like I think the sheriff got some like mad accuracy reductions. So my CS habits I will like always stand still before I shoot I counter strafe and definitely for this patch, it looks like you have to kind of train more even like with pistols anything so maybe it's like an indirect buff to gunplay, which could indirectly buff my own gameplay. Who knows? I really have to see it. I haven't played the patch yet. So on paper, it looks fantastic.Mitch Reames  Interesting. So yeah, it's it does have that that weird combination where Yeah, it's you're gonna have to play more tactical. Yeah, though. I think the running debuff the running nerf is actually gonna be like it's not talked about as much as the release of the new agent or all the the price increases. But that could have a really big impact on just how people play and who specifically and what backgrounds, specifically stand out in, in the game going forward. So you mentioned that you haven't played the act yet. And again, we're recording this on June 22. I did see that you were playing like a little test. Yet a YouTube video about 10 minutes while we're just sort of testing out the different abilities going through the different things with kayo the the new robot he plays initiator, the first new initiator said sky so it's been a little while for that. Going through those abilities ahead of release. What? Uh, what stood out to you about the new agent you described him as broken in that video. Is that, is that still where your head's at? Uh,TenZ  I always say like, whenever a new agent comes out whenever like a new patch comes out. It's always fun. Just be like, Oh, damn, this is broken. But really, you'll be able to see what is broken and what isn't broken through competitive play through screens through just playing in everyday, like ranked or whatever. That is the easiest way to tell something's broken or busted right now on paper kayode seem pretty insane, I actually just found out like yesterday that you can break the dagger. So that just is game changing. Also, I found out that if he holds, you can see his location from the pulse. So there's a certain stuff that I didn't notice at the time. And I'm just like, looking at the straight like, kind of like the numbers and not looking at like the small details were down. He can like EMP for like 28 seconds or whatever. So I'm definitely like, maybe like when a new agent comes out, I just I like to overreact a little bit. It's fun.Mitch Reames  I think that's I think that's natural for all eSports ever is like a new age is that you're like, Wow, that looks so so good. You're right until you see it actually work with it a cop? You can't the juries, the jury's still out on that. Yeah,TenZ  I'll add one more thing. Like kayo, definitely, I think he will be a top tier pick. Because looking at this kit, it's actually kind of like classic tactical shooter Counter Strike style where his flashes to to flash are two ways to throw the flash, you can left click it right click it, so you can throw it supportively. And for yourself with pop flash. He has like the Nate or the Molly, whatever you want to call it that does a lot of damage. But straight off, like those two abilities are just classic tactical shooter. And so I definitely think a lot of teams will, like utilize that. Yeah, IMitch Reames  remember that video, there's no point where you go behind those standard boxes that are in the trading pit and you toss a flash over that you pop out and peek and you're just kind of showing it'll like, Oh, I'm gonna see that. Like, exactly happened next time I watched you match, like, I'm gonna watch that like to the tee. And it's kind of cool to see see a pros first look at a new agent like that, because you get to see, okay, here's how they're gonna use it. And then here's how I'm gonna try and use it to my games later, it failed drastically, but I'm gonna give it a shot at least talking about your guys's playstyle I, you know, in addition to talking to you guys, after a few of your wins, I also was talking to a lot of the other teams. And, you know, I had a whole story about how some of the other teams weren't necessarily giving you guys credit for playing tactically in comparison to Korea and Europe where there was this more like, Oh, they play aggressively solo it like solo team play, or, like solo plays. And the EU teams play more tactically, more team plays. And you know, I just covered that with jazz a different people like that who disagreed? for good reason. So I'm curious, you know, as you talk about that style of play, or the style of play that you're perceived to have by other international regions, we're also seeing a nerf to the post plant Molly's, which was something that version one did really, really well, when they were playing. I'm curious, you know, do you think this was at all a reaction to what happened during stage two? Or is this something they were already planning on doing? And, you know, it just sort of happened to be related to some of the teams that succeeded during stage two?TenZ  Yeah, so looking at the, like the post plants, or like riots attempts on kind of adjusting the post one meta, I definitely think that they were looking at matches and seeing like, how powerful the, like the was it called the strat was just playing, retake on site, and you have a bunch of utils. And stop, it's actually, if you don't play against it correctly, it's borderline like almost impossible to actually win the rounds. And one of the things you have to do is you have to be really disruptive, you have to not let them take over the site and like give them the site for free. So to that certain playstyle you just kind of have to adjust to it and play to that place to a certain weakness, for example, since they're saving all their utl for post flat, they're actually not gonna be able to use that much utility going into the site other than like, maybe silver drone or stuff like that. So at the shakta Molly's snakebites, like all of that will just be you are saved until the bomb is planted. So you can kind of rest easy knowing that like you can kind of sit in like a one and done corner or there's a certain aspects that you can get away with.Mitch Reames  Definitely, that's a it's a really good point. And we saw some teams do well against that we saw some teams really, really struggle to do it. And there was there was it is probably the most vocal complaint out of pros I heard was the post plet Molly meta and just sort of like anytime there's no counterplay or not a not as obvious of counterplay to certain situations like that, you know it, it feels bad to be on the theTenZ  end of that. And I'll go off saying also I would say the postman Molly or the post plant meta was also not affecting just pro play, but also kind of casual games or ranks games. And I think that actually would be probably the most frustrating for players because when you're not queuing up with like five players and you're not on the same page, you won't really know how to counter And how to adjust properly. So that's one thing that can be really frustrating is like if you're keeping ranked on, there's just a viper and a killjoy and enemy team just lining up Molly's every round, your team is not gonna be on the same page to deal with it.Mitch Reames  That's a really good point. And I'm glad you brought up casual play. Because as a game developer, as a game designer, you have to cater to, to basically separate groups of players, you have to cater to the best of the best and the esports world. And then the people in broads who don't know what they're doing. And if there are plenty of agents that are, you know, really oppressive, and those rights that aren't actually very good in the top tier, and that's every East for ever. Some games have really, really struggled finding that balance fortnight in particular always prioritize the casual player and pro players got really just sick of trying to play the game, especially when they kept introducing broken mechanics, the morning of major tournaments, that's that's tough to deal with. How do you feel like this? Do you feel like if you had to choose one that these changes? Do they benefit more of a casual audience? Or do they benefit more of the Pro is which one do you think they were weighing heavily more heavily when they made these changes,TenZ  so looking at the gunplay, running accuracy being decreased, and just overall accuracy of all guns being decreased, and gun prices going up? I think that kind of favors pro play, and especially abilities going up, it's harder to get your abilities out, and you'll have to play more economically smart. So I definitely think that part caters to pro play, and with the goal towards going up as well.Mitch Reames  Makes a lot of sense. And you know, the REITs did a really good job of their ballots on that front, because league is one of those games that does have to deal with it. But everybody treats it as a pretty competitive experience, even when you're in silver, like, there's not quite as much of that, oh, there's a big casual audience and there's a big competitive audience, the just always tilting is the idea hope they take that same approach where it starts from the esport, you know, down, and then the lower ranks are just people trying to do pro strats, but poorly.TenZ  So I'm not really a Game Dev. So I'm not gonna put in my opinion here. Because to be frank, I probably don't know anything that I'm doing compared to like what they know, they know, they have the numbers on the spreadsheet, they're, they're doing a bunch of stuff, they're seeing this statistics, so I'll just write with that.Mitch Reames  You wouldn't be the first pro player to, to strap on the Game Dev mindset and tell everybody what what needs to change. But, you know, appreciate it say back to what you said earlier, you know, it's their job to do that. I'll let them do that. My job is to is to click it. And yeah,TenZ  I really enjoy the game.Mitch Reames  Perfect. And that's that's the right kind of mindset right there. I want to ask you, as well about we just celebrated valor in one year, from its full release, you were playing in the closed beta back in April of 2020. You're actually the first person to reach the at the time valerate. Right, which is now the radiate rag on the closed beta. Now, Raceway isn't always indicative of professional success. But in that case, it clearly translated. If you think back to those first days, like valorant, what comes to mind about the game in its very early iterations? And why did you gravitate to it and succeed at it so quickly?TenZ  So one of the things that made me very successful early on in the beta and why I was able to get to volunteering first was, I think, a lot of the time, people are treating ranked as like super tryhard, like matches, kind of, and I'd say I'm a lot more proficient in matches than I am in pugs, which most people in theory would be like, Oh, he's just a bug pubstomp or something like that. But really, you won't really know how I am until you actually play with me, I think I can definitely contribute to a lot more in the team. Not just through my aiming, but like through various parts of my gameplay. So there's that and I definitely think like, when we were playing in beta, everyone was like five stacking. And so it was kind of like, like, as I said before, like matches, it was like scrim. So I just really enjoyed having that like high pressure. High pressure gameplay where everyone was trying to win everyone was trying to give government fursMitch Reames  is that because of how much investment happened in the scene from an early age where we had major or speaking of teams before the game was officially released, it was like beta so that closed beta became almost like a proving ground for for pros as people were trying to get keys but they weren't readily available. And you had all these different orgs already investing in valor teams with clearly more on the on the horizon. So it was that like, was that known during the closed beta? It's like hey, this is like a Open tryouts basically for the future of valor in eSports.TenZ  Particularly from like an art standpoint, it was really enticing, like, if you could rank high on the leaderboard, or like get violent rank or whatever first. A lot of orgs will kind of look at you and be like, oh, like this player got this verse, where if like, let's say a player that wasn't signed, got going first, would they have gotten signed? So it's kind of like a thing where it was. If you wanted to get signed, that was your best case. And that's why like so many people tried so hard and grinded.Mitch Reames  It's a rare opportunity, sometimes not as rare, like traditional sports are like that. But for a new esport to come out, especially a new esport that comes from from Riot Games like that. It's like, Alright, here's, you know, my shot, almost like, hey, this new game is about to come out. And it's a level playing field from day one. You know, anybody can be the first person to this right, let's get it. Yeah. The other thing that happens with a new esport is new content creators come up because, you know, some people transition over as As to be expected. But as the game rises, new stars are are naturally created. And then you also have old stars coming over like the FaZe clan, Overwatch guys, scream and some of the CSGO guys who've come over, but you've climbed up to being one of the biggest, if not the biggest content creator in valerate, you got 1.4 million followers on Twitch 815,000 subscribers on YouTube, are you streaming every night from 7pm to midnight? PST, just in case you guys are wondering when he's online? Oh, if you found a nice balance between content and pro duties over the last few months.TenZ  So definitely, for me, especially if I'm a pro player, I will prioritize playing Pro, but I really do. Like I really do enjoy streaming, I enjoy interacting with my community, my fans, like they're all amazing. And honestly, like us pro players, we wouldn't have the amount of like desire to win if there wasn't like a bunch of fans supporting us. Like, that's kind of what keeps us going. And like I just appreciate all my fans.Mitch Reames  It's pretty crucial as well, like we see orgs everywhere investigate content creators, like they they are the two sides of Esports. And you know, a lot of times players will retire and then they'll go be content creators that you did something similar, where you're like, Hey, I'm gonna go focus on content creation. How is it? Is it difficult at all to to balance the two? Or do you think it actually provides a lot of benefit? a better question is do you think it provides benefit to the valerate eSports scene to have top players also be big content creators as well.TenZ  So I definitely think it's a benefit for just the entire scene as a whole to especially like if you're a pro player to stream, because first off, some people might just watch you for, like who you are as a person. Or some people might watch you just strictly because oh, this player is my favorite pro player. They're like, the best rays are the best like cipher. Let's go watch them. Let's take certain stuff from the gameplay. How do they play this situation? Or Like what? Like, how can I do stuff that they do that would possibly impact my game? So there's, there's certain stuff that you can definitely take from a pro player and from watching their stream even taken from like their mindset, I think is really good. So yeah, I would say just positive to have pro players streaming. It can be quite tiring, though. I will say.Mitch Reames  Yeah, there's definitely a people have. I think this is changing a little bit. people's perception of streaming as a career is like, Oh, you get to play video games for your job. Like that's not hard. But it's not really the play that's so hard about streaming, it's the entertaining acting, almost being on camera for five hours interacting with with chat is like, it's a lot more exhausting than just playing five hours. Five hours of effort by itself is also kind of tiring as well.TenZ  Well, I'll stream like, three, four hours a day, maybe if I have like an off day on my stream, like six or eight. I will say though, one person in this scene that's just built their franchise, and he is a monster. I don't know how this guy does it. He's he's screaming, he's doing vaad reviews. He's our he's our ideal or coach all in one. And at the same time, this guy streams like eight hours a day. How does he know? Like I don't understand this. I don't understand this at all.Mitch Reames  Shoutout to says that's actually crazy. And so many of the, you know, we're I was talking to different players and going back to that tactical thing. I kept talking to him and he's like, we're playing tactical, like I'm putting in the work. These are strategies. We're not just like 10 times better Amer's anybody else like it's foolish to think that we're that much better like this is tactical choices. And we even saw new Terran adopt your guys's strategy because they kept getting killed on split Was it during the turn of it?TenZ  I don't remember. Yeah, IMitch Reames  honestly don't remember either. I was hoping you could cover that up. They were getting killed on one map throughout the entire tournament. And they had it in their final match against fanatic in the lower bracket semi finals. And they completely changed their cop to the comp that you guys are running. And I remember seeing a bunch of tweets. Actually, I thinkTenZ  it was haven I think was a haven haven cop. Yeah, so I think we, we, we beat them on haven. And I think they just kind of like questioned what they were doing or like, why it wasn't working. just tried to like adopt our comp just like after one day so it was interesting to seeMitch Reames  it didn't workTenZ  when Yeah, it didn't work as expected but that's how it is when you're changing characters right off the bat.Mitch Reames  Well they actually took more rounds on that haven than they had the entire rest of the tournament like the most they'd won on haven was five rounds I think they took eight off fanatic there so you know not 13 which is kind of the number you need to get to but you know for for switching to tire cop clearly that call was better if they were able to take more rounds without practicing it.TenZ  I mean, we'll see in the future if they keep their calm to who knows.Mitch Reames  Who knows I mean yeah, a lot of the a lot of things but it just gets to the point of like people giving other teams credit for playing tactically, but then one of the teams that's getting credit for playing tactically copied you guys is cop on a map that they're struggling with. So it's like who's really like the most tactical gave out there? I don't know. quite quiteTenZ  thing. Am I allowed to like swear? Oh, yeah, of course. You're all good. Okay, um, I'll just say shut up that people that think that we're playing or not playing tactically, we're just holding w that's like bullshit, because you're obviously not looking at like the the little like fine print of how we play and the small details, you're just looking at surface level, like, oh, like the gun goobers. She has, like, really good. You have to really like look at what we do, how we react together as a team, and then you'll realize why we've had so much success that we've had. And that's, that's like one thing people don't notice. And like a lot of people in the community it's like, oh, these guys are just like outselling everyone that's why they're winning. Now, that's not it.Mitch Reames  I beat it. In some ways. It's like a really nice compliment of like, you guys are just so much better at the core function of this game that it doesn't matter that you don't have Chad you but it's also like, it just doesn't hold up. But do you actually think about it cuz everybody's really really good at the game? Like it's not like you guys just have this unlock this extra level of, of aiming?TenZ  Yeah, well, like if we just worked together really well.Mitch Reames  Yeah, clearly the communication works. The the team play works, you guys each understand your roles really well. You know, you can't argue with the results when it comes down to it. Back on the content creation side, I was actually very curious because I had average Jonas on this podcast a few episodes ago. And we talked about co streaming stage two masters but also being a content creator and valor and it gets back to that point of like, a new esport allows new people to kind of explore the content and become names in the consecration world we saw this with in the battle royale genre with people like ninja courage Tim the tap man Nick mercs and all these different people that now are some of the bigger names in gaming and now valor is the the next new esport and like, so I saw you two were playing some games together when you were in Iceland in eSports I think having a bunch of major content creators lifts the content up as a whole like through collaborations like we saw with all those guys are just mentioned in the fortnight Battle Royale genre. How have you seen the content ecosystem around valorant evolve over the last year?TenZ  So the content ecosystem I definitely say like first off for content creators collabing it's nothing but good like whenever you see a content creator collabing with another like it's it's honestly just a positive experience both for like the people individually their brands and also their communities being able to like interact, find new streamers as well. So it's everything but positive for that. Everything that is positive Sorry, I think I saw the wrong one.Mitch Reames  Oh, absolutely. It's so good to see people playing together. And we actually saw that as well with like the among us craze where it's like that Oh, yeah, like five people together. You could have 10 people together, they could share audiences and they could really like all their content could kind of explode. Have you started to see that happening environment where more and more people are being creative people like average Jonas as well who aren't just pro players, but are pure content creators. Have you start to see that really start to evolve where Hey, there's a lot of chances for cross collaboration, especially cross region collaboration as well with other content creators.TenZ  Well, I'd say I see here and there but I definitely think like content creators could do even more. There's nothing really stopping you. So even for myself, like I could collab more. It's just awesome. So we're kind of lazy as a person.Mitch Reames  I don't think that's a fair characterize how you're streaming and play broke like so. You know, I don't think you can you everybody wants to put more on their plate, but I think you're doing quite a bit right now. So the last question I want to ask you about is dollar champions, which we touched on a little bit now, we just learned that it's going to be in Los Angeles, which is pretty awesome. I'm in Las Vegas. So I was stoked about that. I was like, sec, I can drive there like, I'll be there. I'll just hang in LA that whole week. As you look forward to stage three, but that also champions following is the only team that's actually qualified for a spot right now. How does that feel to know you'll at least be represented there and you'll be competing with sentinels with these teammates where you guys have great communication and great success already.TenZ  Honestly, like it's just amazing. And the storyline couldn't be more perfect of like, na doing well in esport and he won masters two one, Masters, one, Berlin's coming up, I mean, we'll see if we can win that. But we're always like adapting we're always playing really well together. So I have some faith in us as a team. And going into champions I'm pretty sure it will be just as confident as going into like masters to for example.Mitch Reames  I love it. I love it. Yeah, you know, I'm supposed to be a journalist is supposed to be impartial. And I am what I've covered the teams but I'm also a fan of North America. eSports. So, especially working to nurture gamers are so heavily devalued. I was so stoked to see you guys go on that international stage and represent na as a region so strongly. So I want to give you one final chance we mentioned your stream, follow him on Twitch subscribe to him on YouTube if he's not a million followers or subscribers on YouTube yet. I imagine that's coming up here pretty soon. What do you all people look out for follow it subscribing? Go for it. Well,TenZ  yeah, stream I do. Both tons. I appreciate all my fans. And I think you guys so much. Also shout out nursery gamers for making this happen on the podcast. Yeah.Mitch Reames  We appreciate you man. We love the valerate eSports scene we're rooting for settles we're rooting for all evaluate eSports of course. But thank you so much for coming on the show, man. It was a pleasure having you up.TenZ  Yeah. Thanks for having me.

In May, Respawn Entertainment announced Arena Mode, a 3v3 version of Apex Legends similar in style to the top FPS esports. On this show, XSET's Clane and Keni join to talk about Apex Legends Global Series, the creation of Arena Mode and why the battle royale version will likely stay the dominant form of Apex esports. We also talk about XSET, one of the fastest growing organizations in esports, Nerd Street Gamers' upcoming Summer Champs and more. Be sure to follow Clane and Keni on Twitch and Twitter. @ClaneSZN and @KeniFPS. The full transcription of this show is below the dotted line. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mitch Reames  Hello and welcome into this episode of loosely scripted a podcast from nerd street gamers. I'm your host Mitch Reames. We're talking Apex legends eSports today and I'm joined by two players from exits relatively new Apex legends team. Previously, the duel was competing under the team named season where they were a mainstay in Apex legends global series or args circuit events. That's the top level of Apex eSports for people unfamiliar with the game that included an eighth place finish for season at the Winter circuit playoffs which qualified them for a spot in the 2021 na LGs championship. In late May, the duo Klain and Kenny are picked up by exit the growing eSports organization founded by former FaZe clan executives last summer. At the championships exit finished 24th out of the 40 teams competing but clean and Kenny are just getting started with their Apex legends careers and now are signed to one of the top boards going forward. They were also just joined by a third Rambo to round out the team. He's an accomplished player as well who competed on a different team during championships but as a play with the duo for well over a year, clean. Welcome to the show. Hello, hello. It's good to be here. And Kenny, it's great to have you here as well. Thank you Thank you. On the show we'll definitely be talking about the apex legends eSports scene as a whole the creation of Apex legends new arena mode and being signed to one of the fastest growing eSports orgs out there in exit. Let's start with the recent championships. You guys Apex legends might be the best at this from all battle rails, but scoring in eSports competitions for BRS is the torturously very difficult fortnight really struggled to find a good format even with the massive prize pools, the H wanzhou. A Pro League was a pretty high profile failure at this point at pub g mobile is doing better than the PC version on the front. All that's to say it's really hard to build a battle royale eSports competition simply due to the nature of the genre. I'm personally not quite as familiar with Apex legends scoring system as I was with fortnight and pub G. Can you break down how placement works in alts events? And what if anything, you might change if given the chance playing? Well, it will start with you. But Kenny again, please feel free to hop in as well if you have thoughts.Clane  Yeah, so basically, it works. There's a placement point system and then you get one point per kill. So first you get 12 points like this is for placement. First you get 12 points Second, you get 930 you get seventh, fourth, you get fit five points, a fifth, you get four points six, and seventh, you get three, and then eight through 10, you get to 11 through 15, you get one and then 16 through 20, you get no points for placement. But like I said, I'm your team's kills combined. So let's say I had two kills Kenny had one bow had one, we would have five kill points plus whatever our placement is. And I think that's actually a very even way because it benefits both teams that like to rotate and play late game or teams that like to get a lot of kills and play on edge.Mitch Reames  Definitely, yes, some combination of kills. And placement is pretty much the core of Battle Royale scoring at this point. Kenny, are there any drawbacks with that format from a player's perspective, where it's like, hey, maybe we could improve it here or weight things a little bit differently.Keni  In my honest opinion, I feel like Apex has done a great job with the scoring system. The only thing I really could say is upping the placement like points just a little bit. Because it really like there are some teams that really just play on edge and look for kills. And that's how they get most of their points throughout tournaments. So I feel like it could like be better for like rotational teams, because rotating teams have less opportunity at kill points than edge teams do. so rewarding those teams that consistently come for a second third place with more points. That's the only thing I would really change. But right now I feel like there's a great balance between placement and kill points.Mitch Reames  That's honestly pretty impressive. I've talked to to a few different pros. Clay, do you have anything you want to add to that?Clane  I was just gonna say I definitely agree. I think rotating teams don't get as much as much worse sometimes as the teams that just kill on edge because realistically, I believe that the whole point of a br is to literally just be the last team alive or like try your hardest to win. And the kills like come along with that. So I think that placement points definitely deserve to be a little bit more than what they are but honestly it's pretty, pretty equal for every kind of play style right now.Mitch Reames  Again, that's obviously pretty impressive. I was pretty deep the fortnight seed during the height of that Like 2018 and let me tell you every single fortnight pro I talked to had like six different things they wanted to change about how that game worked about might be a different approach between epic and add, respond or just sort of how they approach the game and the esports scene in general, but it's pretty impressive that they've actually found a very nice balance. So I am curious looking forward we're in between alts circuits right now the last one just finished it the next one starts in September. Do you guys expect anything to change so the I'm also getting at this new arena mode, which is three v three, the original br is a br you know, 20 teams of three all drop into one map and the last one standing wins. You guys are all familiar with Battle Royale at this point. But the arena mode is like a classic three v three it's something you you'd see more in eSports like Overwatch like valorant like Cisco three teams battle it out head to head, is that going to bleed into the esports mode? Or is alts going to stay? The Battle Royale format and then arena mode is just maybe something for like twitch rivals events or things in the future. Kenny, what do you think on that front is is a transition coming at all.Keni  I truly don't see a transition in the near future at least. But I think the competitive side of Apex legends will stick to battle royale. But if they do properly execute arena mode, I feel like it could potentially have a league of its own in the future. Because it Apex like movement and gunplay and things like that it is the closest to perfect in a shooter in my opinion. And battle royales do have that RNG factor as everyone knows, you know, with all anything can happen but in an arena mode three v three, you versus a different team. I feel like there's a lot less RNG if at all any you know, like you are in control of your match completely and entirely. And if they do properly executed I feel like in the future there could be a arena league in a way like like just like Call of Duty has or valorant things like that, you know, but for the near future I do believe Battle Royale will be what Apex Legends is about.Mitch Reames  It would certainly be a pretty quick switch if they released it and then like they announced it a month Hey guys, next circuit is actually going to be to read a boat like we're dropping the br it's I have to imagine a pretty big deviation. Joe clade from a player's perspective. How different is flagging Have you been playing some arena mode and how different is it from like an approach and gameplay standard compared to playing a normal Battle Royale mode in Apex?Clane  Well like like Kenny was saying the battle royale there's a lot of RNG like sometimes you can't even pick what guns you want to use. Sometimes you can't pick like you don't get good attachments and the other person you're fighting has just insane attachments on their gun and like you might have white armor the other person has purple and it's just a very uneven fighting you have to play perfectly if you're at a disadvantage to win the fight. So in arena I really like the fact that everybody's on even playing field every single round nobody has better gear unless obviously they earned it in the previous round by getting multiple kills or like getting the materials so that they have more money but yeah, I just I think that the the arena mode is actually very good I've been playing it a little bit i like i said i just love how it's even playing ground and it's really good to practice gun skillMitch Reames  that's a good point as well in terms of just being an area where you could compete in a market trolled environment and getting the practice they're getting from from your perspective what is the value of arena mode to apex like thatKeni  I just purely believe arena is there to serve as a three v three fighting scenario and practice your gun skill. When you play the competitive br there is so many possibilities and and things you have to take into consideration when playing for example knowing zones like like I spend a lot of my time just looking at zones and trying to predict where it ends which is one of the great things about Apex Legends is it has a pretty consistent zone algorithm not perfect but it's pretty consistent. And you can pretty much guess where the where the game is going to end based off of a zone to read which is like you when you play arena you have you don't have to worry about any of that. You don't have to worry about zones at all really. But the thing about the br is you can also get Like r&g out of his own, like you think it's going somewhere, but it completely pulls the other way. And your position just gets completely destroyed. And you just have to play on edge. You know, it's just you have to do what you can. But in arena, like it's just strictly there for fighting and getting better as a team that that's all it really serves us.Mitch Reames  Yeah, that absolutely makes sense, as we're in this gap between LGs circuits with another three months until it kicks back up. are you guys looking? Are there some arena mode tournaments out there? Would that be something you guys would like to play in during the summer just to kind of get an idea of what that might look like, and a reduced RNG eSports competition.Keni  Um, I definitely if there is the opportunity to play in such a tournament, I would love to because I absolutely love Apex legends when it comes down to gun scale and positioning and raw mechanics. Like it's really just the best game out there for such a thing. And if there is an opportunity to play in a arena tournament, so to speak, like I would love to be able to be in it. But there is nothing planned, like maybe twitch rivals or something like that. They may host but as in like, like an actual tournament. I don't think anything's been announced for arena yet.Mitch Reames  I don't think so, either. But you know, I'm hosting this podcast for nursery, but I'm also maybe doing a little bit of market research, just seeing what some players might want to do. Because you don't worry. We've read plenty of tournaments as well. And I was, I know, we're talking about, you know, I don't want to spoil anything for our tournament Ops, but they were talking about it in Slack, a little bit of like, Hey, is this something possible to do in the future? So it's cool to hear the players be down for I think it'd be at least an interesting look, and would allow for more of those head to head matchups as head to head rivalries that we see in other eSports, which are kind of hard to develop in battle royale just due to, you know, dropping in and by the time you get to five teams left, you know, there's no guarantee what teams are left. Is that a fair take a clean is like, is that hard? Or is it actually like there's plenty of rivalries a battle round? I'm just totally off base here.Clane  Well, no, I don't think you're wrong at all, I think. I think there's there's not many rivalries in battle royale because I mean, there's 20 teams competing against each other. And then the arena would just be one team versus another team, you know. So I think, yeah, I think I don't think you're off at all. I think, also the having arenas, like I would love to play Arena in a tournament, just for the sole fact of, like, let's say x set versus TSN. Like fans are can easily route for one or the other, you know, or like TSM vs NRG. Literally just anything, it's very easy to route for very easy to understand what's going on for the viewers. So going back a little bit to what you were asking earlier, I do definitely think that arena can be a competitive mode, but I don't think it will take over Battle Royale ever. I think Battle Royale will always be the main priority.Mitch Reames  Interesting. Yeah. That That definitely makes sense. You know, it's possible to see like, way out in the future of arena mode really takes off. It's like, Alright, we'll make that adjustment. But no, for now, it's a battle royale game and switching and deviating completely from Battle Royale feels like it'd be very hasty at least. But it would definitely be cool to see it. At least it's like a competitive experience. Or I think Kenny, I think he said this earlier as a sister legal most where they run to different things. And maybe players compete in both or you have two different teams even competing in the two different modes. I want to be pretty interesting.Clane  I definitely agree. That'd be I think I think having two leagues is more of a like what will actually happen in the future.Mitch Reames  But a big shift over just like all right now we're in a mode. Yeah,Clane  I don't think it would ever do that. I think it would just be both at the same time, if anything.Mitch Reames  turistic that makes a lot of sense. So you guys have mentioned the gunplay in the game and Apex Legends is pretty unique because unlike other BRS you have this character pool which are naturally called legends in game but every game that's ever been created has a different name for that Champions League of Legends. Its agents of valor it the whole point is it's different heroes. You could choose any day you want for it, but they all have different cops and abilities and allows teams to build a cop play from your perspective does that team carbs and flexibility allow for more depth in the esports scene especially compared to the other battle rails?Clane  Um, it definitely adds more depth there's a lot as of recent there's been all kinds of different comps and different characters coming in. Um there's definitely some things I think with every game Some things are very some comps are like on the people say they're unhealthy for the game, but There's just so many different varieties, varieties of things that people get to experiment and fans get to like, see their favorite characters and actually not just the same three every game, you know what I mean?Mitch Reames  There's always going to be busted cups for sure. Kenny, what do you think?Keni  Um, so when Apex legends came out, it was strictly Wraith, Watson and Pathfinder, and I think as the meta, like every game goes through meta changes, like every single one. And I think like right now, Apex legends. It has a pretty diverse meta compared to the beginning of the game. But there still are like, you know, meta comps compared to just other characters. And I do like, like the diversity of characters, but in a way I did appreciate and enjoy watching it when everyone was also playing all the same characters like back in the day with Wraith Watson and Pathfinder def compared to now, yeah.Mitch Reames  Interest Sue's almost sometimes more depth when they're on the same characters and watching how different people use those or use the interplay between them actually might be a depth is a sort of a loose word, I guess, here, but that also provides a really high level of strategy as well.Clane  Yeah, like back in the path wide Wraith meta. You can see the difference in teams basically, like, the most experienced teams are obviously just at the very top, you know, like TSM, winning five major championships in a row. When that meta was out. That's unheard of in battle. royales I think that meta really made like, made the game feel like it wasn't a battle royale and made it just feel very competitive. Because like I said, you look at any other Battle Royale, there's no single team that's just winning every single major tournament in a row.Mitch Reames  Yeah, consistency has been one of the absolute hardest things to fight a battle royale and was, you know, one of the reasons why, or doesn't necessarily stop investing in fortnight pro players, but they were also like, oh, we're just like, these guys are all good. But what it actually comes down to it, it's really hard. It's not necessarily entirely about players skill. There's, there's a lot of RNG Yeah, part of it. So yeah, TSM winning all those different events is really, really unique and definitely speaks to some of that depth that exists in apex.Clane  Yeah, definitely. Because, I mean, they were just ahead of their game. Other teams played different ways. They played their way. And they just knew how to play that competition at the very best and at its peak compared to everybody else.Mitch Reames  And sure, interesting. So talking about major orgs in eSports are actually publishing this episode on June 28, which is the one month anniversary of YouTube being signed to exit claim, what did it mean to be picked up by the organ org that is quickly becoming one of the bigger orgs in the space?Clane  Oh, my, I'm actually smiling I was working so hard to join exit exit was the one org out of n like, if any top top org hit me up, I would have 100% rather than with x I work so hard, and wanting to join this org for so long, and I'm so happy that it came through we really grinded for it. And we're going to show up for the whole next year. We want to make sure x sets on top everybody knows and we want to be one of the biggest names and a perksMitch Reames  That's awesome. And I'll give some background on x if people unfamiliar with the organization because it really came out of nowhere and it's been a major player in Esports in under a year since it was founded. But Kenny from your perspective, you know getting signed to an org is really making it it's kind of the the milestone that you grab for the new like Alright, now I'm here and now I have to win to stay up here but that's like the big milestone that you tried to get to what did it mean to be picked up by a major org like that?Keni  I mean getting picked up on accet it's it's it was insane for the first week I didn't even believe it like how I was just like in shock though time I really was surprised clan was able to pull it off and I'm still appreciative of the opportunity to be on sets it's honestly a great org and they've honestly been so amazing to the the apex legends team like all three of us and I'm just thankful for it. But um yeah, back to your question like, like getting picked up it's great but you know, there's still a lot of work to be done like getting getting on an org is is the is like the great first step, but I think there's just a lot more work to be done and being considered one of the best teams in the game. You still have a lot of work to do. It's not it's it doesn't stop once you get picked up. There's a lot of behind the scenes work and you just got to grind.Mitch Reames  Yeah, absolutely. It is a marker of Hey, we're doing a lot of things right to get to this point, but we have to keep doing those things right it doesn't just like alright guys control. We're gonna do it we're good. So a little background on exit because again I can't rave about this eSports and I'm not affiliated with exit in any way. They were founded by three former FaZe clan execs is the former president of faze Greg selkoe will Eden's who is crucial and phases Mart merchandising clubs, like with champion at Clinton sparks, who help broker phases music crossovers, including bringing on offset as a co owner. Then the fourth founder was Marco Moreau, who came from outside phase and was formerly the founder and CEO of frame rate in they were founded in summer of 2020. So the org is less than a year old or maybe coming up on the one year anniversary of its founding now, Kenny, I've talked to all four of those guys at various times over the last year since they founded exit. What's your guys's experience as a player for the Ord over the last month?Keni  Um, well, there hasn't been besides champs and the the tournament that we had an Invitational last week, we haven't really been able to represent apex, the apex legends exit team too much yet, but we are really hoping to make a huge name for ourselves in the next next season of HGS. But um, so far EXA has been great, honestly, like the guys ever the welcome was amazing. I really just don't have many words other than accent is amazing, to be honest.Mitch Reames  Great. You were the one who said, Hey, this is the org, we would have chosen. I think some people might be surprised with that, especially with legacy orgs like liquid TSM CLOUD NINE that all compete in apex, what was it about exit that you're like, no, that's the team that I want to I want to compete under.Clane  Um, basically, I just see the crazy potential they have, like you said, it's under a year, and they have blown up so much, they've done so many amazing things. Um, I also really, really just loved everybody that was on the org, I talked to a lot of people before I joined because obviously, I wanted to get a good idea of like, how the people are like, what everything is going on, did a lot of my own research. And literally everybody in excess is so amazing to each other and friendly and nice and just wants the best for each other. And also, um, well, they have a few NFL players that are representing accet. And they also have one of my favorite artists Wei Li and I was very like, I was like, wow, if they can do this, imagine what they're gonna do in the future too. And I don't know, their their merge is all insane. Literally, just everything about EXA is just mind blowing, in my opinion. The fact it's been only, like 11 months, that since they made it, it's just insane. And also, I had a very, like I started competing in Apex actually the same month that they created the org. So I don't know, I just thought that was pretty cool.Mitch Reames  That is that is really cool. And you mentioned some of the celebrities when they founded they obviously split off a phase and phase is one of the giants in this space. And when they started it's like a few months later they signed suavely, NFL player that Kyle van Noy and a couple of others. And these are like big, big artists. Calvin Noy, I think was a pro bowler. I'm not sure. But he's, yeah, he's a great football player. And then they just started citing player after player team after team and I was like, Oh, these guys are, these guys are here for real, like they all switched over and hit the ground running. And clearly that's that shows in the org, because not only do they have this celebrity roster, they've picked up players in 10 different titles. According to their website, they have 58 pro players and content creators, that's not counting the celebrities, which they have like eight or nine of those as well. Is this just like good founders doing things right? Or, you know, what is there from what you've been able to gather? I know, you've only been there a month and it's been, you know, I'm not sure if you've been able to have a lot of like FaceTime with these people. But, you know, what's their motto? What's their mantra? Why are they adding people so quickly and really just trying to like plant their flag in eSports?Clane  Well, I think they just see the value and everybody that they're there picking up obviously they want to grow and getting more players in different titles, different content creators, different celebrities. Like obviously that's gonna help a lot. They just treat everybody extremely well. Like I said, they just want everybody to love everybody they care about every single one of us. They care about each other. They just want a great they just want to grow a great org that that is very supportive of anybody and everybody they appreciate anybody's work, they don't care who you are what you are. What you go for, like, what? Like, what your I don't know how to say this, but basically they just care about. They just care about everybody and anybody for just showing the work and being genuine and nice to other people.Mitch Reames  For sure, yeah, they were founded on sort of this mantra of diversity and inclusion and bringing people together. And making sure you know, Craig, on his way out, had a heads of words for faizabad could describe the organization as a frat house and wanted to make it clear that Oh, yeah, yeah, that was he dropped the bomb. He came out with a New York Times article describing phases a frat house, and I was like, all right, all right, they're, they're here to come. But yeah, they were founded on those different principles. And I think that's a great big, that's something that nurture gamers stands for as well. And we try to support it all of our tournaments. So, you know, it's, it's awesome to see orgs not just embracing it over time, but literally being founded like this is core to us, and then backing that up as well. The people they sign and the community and the culture they create. So speaking about nerd Street, you know, I got I got my corporate duty here. And you guys competed in the nursery gamers monthly open in April, and you guys won that you guys repeating under season at the time of about a month before your side to exit. Now, I'm not obviously not gonna say that, Oh, you guys want that tournament. So that's why you got side clearly it was the LGs success and your grind that you've put in over the last year. But I'm curious, Kenny, for your perspective of being somebody who is just sort of grinding out on an ortho scene, what's the value of having these community tournaments that nurse she puts on and so many other organizers are putting on as well, especially when it comes to getting players discovered getting players to break into the top level?Keni  Oh, yeah, definitely. So nerd Shree and small other smaller tournaments, like it's really gives you good practice other than a LGs, because scrims and Apex legends, you can get close to like a reality of how it actually will be on game day. But no one really like you have to incentivize practice. And I think smaller tournaments is a really great practice for alts. And, and I really do appreciate the opportunity to play in them, because I want to play as much as I can, and as competitive as I can, like in the best competition. So when you play in any of these tourneys people are, they're trying and especially newer players. And more, I guess you could say tier two players, because they're the you see, you see some people you don't normally see in the finals of an Al gslb. And you can definitely notice people stand out as well, the newer players and, you know, it allows people to make a name for themselves.Mitch Reames  You can't have a successful esport without a strong tier two seed because yeah, there needs to be charted, there needs to be people waiting to replace that at places for orgs to look for, either to pick up new players, like in the case of exit or if they need to make roster changes or something like that. So yeah, we firmly believe that, you know, for eSports to work, there has to be opportunities for players to get noticed and a pathway into that upper echelon.Clane  Most definitely, I agree. 100%.Mitch Reames  Clean flipping over to you with that when our monthly open, you guys qualify for the soccer championships in August, which we're really looking forward to, obviously, but it's going to be, you know, a pretty big event going into that. And so far, we have four qualifiers for that one. It's you guys, Team Liquid obey and the Pittsburgh Knights with alts not starting until September is our summer chair stuff that you guys are looking forward to so that you guys have marked in the summer where there isn't a ton of the alts events or any other top level events.Clane  Yeah, yeah. What's funny is when they announced args won't be till September, I was like, wow, we really need to make every one of these tournaments that we're playing until then, and we're like we need so we had the tournament last week for eSports arena. And I think just yet nerd street tourney in August, which we want to just do extremely well and like it's I love competing. I love competing against people just it is just so much adrenaline sometimes just it's such a good feeling competing in Apex and I'm really looking forward to play in the energy tournament for sure.Mitch Reames  Thanks. We're looking forward to you guys playing I'm sure I've actually talked to you guys around when that tournament is kicking up as well. The only thing that those community tournaments offer especially to you guys is bringing in Rambo and I saw on your Twitter clan. I think it was that you guys were playing together for quite a long time but you're playing on a different team in the championships. Why did you want to bring him into the squad and make him yours third, headed towards this next season of LGsClane  Yeah, so I guess I'm going to start, because this all kind of builds in with it. But when I used to play on Xbox back in like, February, March of 2020, so last year, and we were we just, we were like, really good good friends. And we were competing, or like playing ranked all day, every day, we're like, well, we can really take this to the next level, we both bought a PC. We started competing with each other back in May of last year, or June of last year. Um, he's the one who I started competing with an apex. And we did, we did really well for being like brand new players, we actually made it in our very first LGs tournament, we made it to finals, and we finished 12th, which was actually just, that was insane that our very first tournament ever. And then we kept like doing pretty decent, we made basically every finals together. Then he got an offer to God set to join them. And he took it obviously, because joining a joining like a good team that's known in the community is always a good, a good look for newer players. So he joined them. We weren't teaming for about eight months, because this happened in August. And yeah, he was been on another team for quite a while. And we found out that we needed to get a new third. I mean, Kenny did we went, we played with a guy named lion first and then we played with fun FPS, which is on he was on complexity. And that was our most recent teammate, and we were like, who can possibly do what fun did for us? Who can who can do that in better, like who has the motivation to be the best like we do. And, and we were just thinking, and Bo, honestly is just, he is insane. He is grown a really big name for himself. We have such good vibes, we're basically we're just all three best friends. And I could see this team, what are the lasting for all of the rest of apexes lifetime. We are, we're so motivated to be at the top. And that's really all I wanted in a third teammate is somebody that's just extremely motivated to be the best. And that would represent x set good. And I know that he's going to do everything correctly and I'm super excited.Mitch Reames  It's It's so cool to have somebody like that who you are playing with back on Xbox and then you know, get your break together and eSports oftentimes forces people to diverged a little bit like like what happened there, but you guys all come back on the tier one org is, uh, yeah, awesome. You guys got to be pumped. Awesome. So that was the last thing whatever. But actually, Kenny I want to give it over to you one more time for people that don't watch Apex legends eSports give them the elevator pitch give them 30 seconds why an Esports fan should check out Apex legendsKeni  so Apex legends in my I've played all sorts of shooters I played Call of Duty battlefield destiny, Halo, you name it, I've played it. And the gunplay and movement and mechanics of Apex Legends is unmatched to any any one of those shooters and I think it's also extremely easy to watch because it is a shooter at the end of the day and it is easy to watch and keep track of but um I think just the game itself has a insane skill ceiling as well with how good you can get and it's an interesting to watch players grow as well. And I do think Apex legends will go down as one of the best games of all time easily.Mitch Reames  Awesome, it's shown a lot of staying power and again, it's very unique in the battle royale space. I also want to roll out the red carpet for both you guys plug your twitch YouTube your Twitter What do you guys want people subscribing looking for? Follow it clay let's start with you.Clane  My Twitter is clean season. So CLA any SZN and my Twitch is also the same same thing clean season. And that's all I really use right now. I'm gonna make a YouTube in the future and tick tock in the future but right now I want to focus on growing our competitive team.Keni  Yep. So on Twitch and Twitter I am Kenny FPS. And those are the only two platforms I actively use. SoMitch Reames  check out these guys. After the show. I will link their twitches and their Twitter's underneath the show should be in the bio. So be sure to check it out. Give them a follow. If you enjoyed this podcast you enjoyed their thoughts on apex. I'll be back next week with another illustrious guest. We got 10s for the podcast. We're talking to the valor champion fresh off his stage two masters when we're setting goals. So be on the lookout for that podcast with 10s coming next Monday. Well, I hope you all enjoyed this episode of loosely scripted as always, I'm your host, Mitch Reames.

Average Jonas' career has been anything but average. An accomplished opera singer, Jonas began creating parody songs based on video games. Hits like "You Don't Know Your Silver 4" and "Eco Maybe." He's also a damn good esports player and not just for content creators, he helped 100 Thieves Hiko become one of the best Sova players in the world and other pros have been known to check out his videos for tips and tricks to the challenging hero. After VALORANT's release, Average Jonas was laid off from his job performing on cruise ships. He started streaming and in the last year has reached over 400,000 followers and joined Team Liquid. Most recently, he was one of the five English-speaking streamers to receive the rights to co-stream VALORANT's Stage 2 Masters alongside Shroud, Myth, Ludwig and Pokimane. Pretty good company. On this show we go in depth into the co-streaming experience including some of the benefits and critiques of the practice. We also talk about the NBA's recent partnership with Gaules (who I accidentally called Portuguese when I meant to say he speaks Portuguese, he's Brazilian), the rivalry between NA - EU in VALORANT and what EU teams to watch heading towards Stage 3. The full transcription of the podcast is below the line. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mitch Reames  Hello and welcome into loosely scripted and eSports podcast from nursery gamers. I'm your host Mitch Reames. Today's guest is jodis never said day but you probably know him as average Jonas. Well, he may use the title average notice on his content. His career has really been anything but he's an accomplished opera singer who has performed on big stages around the world but especially in his home country of Norway. He broke into the esports scene with parody Cisco songs like you don't know your silver for an Ico maybe to the tune of Call Me Maybe it eSports he competed in Overwatch during the game early years sorry those songs are absolutely fantastic I don't have any questions about it. I wanted to seek allied from you don't know your silver for but I wouldn't do an accomplished thinker like that. A lot of fun with those to be honest. Yeah. Incredible. Incredible. I'll link them down below this because you should watch it if you're a CS GO fed. You're gonna love that because they really capsulate everybody's reg experience especially Yeah, you don't know your silver for a little bit of my own experience personally. in eSports he competed Overwatch during the games early years and after valor came out his scalable CS at Overwatch translated into him coming to the best solvers in the game with pros actually stealing a few of his patented moves. As a streamer. He has over 400,000 followers on Twitch and well over 200,000 subscribers on YouTube. In the world, he's now joined Team Liquid, he's performed amazing darts to the tune of Amazing Grace at major EU valor events. And most recently was one of the few co streamers approved for valor champions, Stuart vcts. Stage two masters in Reykjavik, Iceland. Average Jonas, welcome to the show. Thank you. ThatAverage Jonas  was quite the intro. Jesus Christ. That was like I saw my life just flashed before my eyes there for a second.Mitch Reames  Did I miss anything, any big moments along the way that you feel like should be better?Average Jonas  Or you know what I it's kind of sad to say that I feel like you just basically explained my entire life in like 15 seconds. But I mean, that was pretty much essentially it. Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, the opera singer was also like on our cruise ship and like 60 countries around the world. So that's like a minor detail toMitch Reames  very cool. Very cool. I didn't know that. So yeah, big stages around the world, literally, of the oceans going around the world. You know, if if your life could be explained to 15 seconds minds in like three. So I think you're actually very curious. I'm sure you've answered this question in the past, but your name is average notice, but you do all these different things. What's the origin story behind the name average, because it doesn't seem like a very fitting word to describe your career.Average Jonas  So the way it started, it's actually a pun on average, Joe, because so I made my youtube channel like seven or eight years ago or something. And I started making just YouTube videos, I made a lot of acapella covers, where I put like, 40 or 50 tracks of my own voice to create like a choir, because like, you know, I didn't have any friends. So I just made more choir instead, you know, as you do, and I made like gaming songs and stuff. And my idea was that like, anyone can start a stream or a YouTube channel, and all you need is a computer. So I felt like average Jonas like fit in because any average Joe could technically do the same. We all like, like, you know, if you grow up in us, like, normal home, most people have access to a computer or some sort of recording equipment. If they're, I mean, if they're lucky, not everybody, but you know what I mean? So yeah, that's basically Yeah,Mitch Reames  that's a it's a really good point. The, the internet has become a meritocracy in so many ways, especially in content creation, which is one of the best things I tell this to, you know, when I talk to students or people who are addressed in podcasts you're working in this industry of like, just mics are like 60 bucks. So you could get a Blue Yeti for for $80. And then you start recording things audacity is free, you can start like developing these skills, and then publishing your stuff for free in a lot of cases. So yeah, I totally hear you on that. Especially all the content creation. So I don't know how I did get the average Joe. of that. That's a that makes so much sense. Yeah. Talk about Valerie, obviously, we're here. There's your gamers, we're huge fans of valor. It is something that we've been doing and supporting the NAC quite a bit. When valor came out, you played it almost immediately, you're in the beta. It follows with this really nice middle ground of other popular FPS titles. Why were you drawn to the game, starting from the very first days of its release?Average Jonas  I mean, so it was like a combination of things. First of all, I have a background in Overwatch. So I've already come from a game where utility usage is extremely important, which is probably also why I was so drawn towards Silva because like, his entire toolkit, like can just be used to such perfection, but he could also be like so bad, depending on how you use it, which was really, really intriguing. So the very start actually started playing Sage because like she couldn't dress and that's really cool. And then I was looking at so far like, in like the distance and I was like, I really want to play that guy. But I just know that if I play that guy, I have to play him and not just like cash the play, I knew that I had to just get 500 hours done in customer games and stuff, which is essentially what I did as soon as I could. So that was like the main thing combined with the fact that like, I had my cruise ship job, and I lost my job due to the cola Corona. So I was basically back home in Norway with my parents. And I started streaming at the same time as valorant came out. So I basically streamed for more than a year now.Mitch Reames  Yeah, that was the crazy thing about Valerie's release is it just comes at this period where everyone's like, Oh, yeah, what do I do now? What do I What am I spending my time with? And then this new game comes out? We're like, I mean, hey, that's as good as anything else. Right?Average Jonas  Yeah, there's a ton I think there's a ton of streamers that kind of like blew up with valorant you know, like it because the game grew so quickly and a lot of people grew with it. So I think like a ton of streamers you have me flights or flux center. You have all these people who just like saw an opportunity and took it and like made the best out of it.Mitch Reames  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you look at like the stars created as well, players like 10s and asuna. Over in NA these guys and then fanatics basically entire roster who have all just boaster became a star like a few weeks ago, basically, he would from people knew him in the CS community. And then yeah, he's like, one of the faces of valor is already one of the best teams that his celebrations are incredible at all, all this great stuff. So it's one of the coolest things about a new esport coming out is you start to see one, you have old stars, you have people like scream who everybody knows. And then you start to see these new stars start popping up both streamers and content creators and the players as well. Speaking of stars, the people that you were co streaming with at VCT youth, there's five approved co streamers, and they are shroud I think everybody knows shroud myth, Ludwig, and Pokemon. And then you're the fifth there. Those are basically some of the biggest names in streaming history. What was that experience like for you co streaming along that being one of those five people that Riot was like, hey, yeah, carry this banner, and represent valerate eSports, we trust you to take this brand and to deliver it to your audience? What is that experience like for you?Average Jonas  So I think like, first of all, we have to like go back eight months, when like, basically nursery gamers was actually like one of the few who were constantly showing off the matches. And I've always been a huge fan of nerf street because I think you guys are some of the best that actually highlighting valorant Esports in a hole, and I think is one of the main reasons why the NA scene grew so much compared to the other scenes, but, and I was actually like quite early on co streaming a lot of the matches, especially like 100 thieves, because I'm a good friend of hiko. And I taught him a lot of sowhat tricks back and it's dark, because they didn't play. So when it started 100 thieves, and I was like yo, he go do this. And then he was like, Oh, that's a good idea. And then he became one of the best soldiers in the world. And, but, and I obviously I kind of had this whole like 100 thieves fan club kind of thing in the same way how myth had a TSM and so on. And that happened for a long time. But then obviously, after a while, first of all, I joined liquid. That's of course, one big part of it. Another was that like, watch parties were simply not allowed for European tournaments. And they were not allowed, basically anywhere else than if you were an NA streamer. And that was a huge problem. So I actually fought for this right for like a solid eight months, I was like being very vocal about it on Twitter, I started to get a lot of contacts in riot. And I was like, Hey, guys, we need to work this out, we need to try to balance out. So it's not just the NA scene being recognized. But we need to like be able to have other ways of lifting up the other scenes as well. And of course, you can't just say that because you're co streaming some of your lifting up the scene, but it definitely helps. So then finally, I was able, after a lot of back and forth and a few denied applications, actually, we finally managed to first get a deal where we were allowed to stream on YouTube, in which case we went back and said yeah, but like I'm I'm a twitch streamer. And if I stream on YouTube, I will actually get banned from Twitch. And not to mention that my audience is on Twitch as well. So it just doesn't make sense to stream on YouTube. So we had to like get letters of recommendations from higher ups. And right here, it was like a whole whole shebang for several weeks of meetings and presentations to be able to actually be the first ever European watch party host so of course that was a huge achievement for me personally because it's something I've worked for for so long. But it's also a step in the right direction to shine more light on especially the EU scene, which is of course what I'm a big fan of, which is why it's great that we have teams like Finn And so on, like showing a lot of personality and getting more fans around the world. And of course, streaming next to Miss pokeymon Ludwig instride was really cool because it streamers I've looked up to for so long. And I did, of course, I didn't expect like have the same numbers or anything like they did. But I expected I was able to host a watch party that was probably the only one that was biased towards the EU scene. Because as much as like all the other streamers are West Coast LA or close to that at least. So I knew that if I started my stream earlier, at least I would be the only co streamer that would have like a pre show where we would look through statistics, we looked through all the different teams, comms videos, literally everything that was in a tournament, we had comms videos watched on my stream. So we could like get to know the teams a bit better before the tournament even started, I think like my watch, but his uniqueness was was the fact that like I'm in a different time zone. And there's a different audience in Europe. And we were just able to cater to more fans of valorant as a whole. And also to introduce it to new people, especially getting to know the teams better. I said teams and other regions that people may not know as much about from EU and na.Mitch Reames  I think in hindsight, it was crucial to have somebody there because the dominant storyline, the dominant narrative that came out of it was the NA versus EU rivalry as the two teams, two of the three regions to get to entrance in there and Brazil, does it perform very well. So it becomes very quickly. Oh, na versus EU, they meet up in the finals. So not having if we didn't have an EU streamer doing this, it would feel a little hollow to be like, Wait, where's that representation from from that side of the world, basically, as we talk about the most dominant narrative, invalid eSports to date right now. And I actually do want to talk about some of those narratives and some of the potential drawbacks or some of the there was some critiques for the esports community about how co streaming prevents narratives. And I think that's something worth talking about. But first, I want to talk about the positives to co streaming before we jump into any of the perceived negatives. And what are the big positives is viewers This event was the first valid eSports competition not including the beta period where people are just hunting for drops to top 1 million people watching an event at once. From your perspective, what is the value of CO streaming to an esport, especially one that just celebrate its first birthday in Ballard.Average Jonas  So first of all, I think that one of the most important things that a co streamer does is to provide variety in the entertainment. So what I mean by that is that like the entertainment value of an official broadcast doesn't necessarily cater to every type of viewer. And that is also why I think it is important that you have x professionals like shroud who knows a lot about the game as and it's probably the best costumer to watch if you want to get a more in depth insight into what's happening, because the casters are busy casting a spell, so they don't actually have time to provide that much detail into each play. And of course, he has a lot of followers as well. So that gains like more fans to the game. But then on the other hand, you have people watching eSports for entertainment, who are maybe, maybe they're silver players, maybe they just pay for fun, you know, like they don't have like the same competitive mindset. And then it makes like, this is why I've always been defending Pokemon, for instance, because I know she got a lot of hate for being a coach gamer, and she's diamond and she just have any competitive background. But that's the whole point. The whole point is to have a variety in her entertainment, she provides a completely different entertainment package to her viewers. But it doesn't mean that it's worse in any way. It's just a different type of entertainment. So for her viewers, I don't think the most important thing is why someone peeked this corner and planted that specific spot. It's more about while it's fun to see these teams competing in a game that is really entertaining for me to watch. And I think that's something that co streaming does that an official broadcast can never do. But then the big problem is obviously like how do you know that the CO stream race and stealing viewers from an official broadcast? How do we know the core stream is adding value? Because that's always the big discussion here? like are they actually adding value or are they stealing value? And that's again, why people were questioning for instance, why Ludwig was one of the CO streamers. But then one of the big arguments for that is obviously that his audience almost isn't a valid audience at all. Which means that if he has 20,000 people watching him while he's co streaming valid, that's 20,000 new viewers to valorant competitive, and that's worth a lot more than 20,000 viewers that would already watch the main broadcast anyway.Mitch Reames  Absolutely agree. I think there is. Yeah, and you bring up a really good point too, on the pokey main front, which, you know, I think the most common way to compare eSports is with traditional sports and not everybody's watching traditional sports for like super in depth strategy of the games themselves. Sports offers. So Much more in that. And I think eSports will do well to also replicate that same level of motion, that same level of interest for a more casual viewer. And co streaming is one way that we might start getting that and start moving away from just people who are really, really good evaluate, because ultimately that caps, how big eSports can be as a whole. Yeah. So talking about some of those potential downsides, I think you might have alluded to this to the big critique I saw was Monte Cristo, and he tweeted during VCT masters, quote, I'm very conflicted about the rise of CO streaming on eSports. So that, on the one hand, it's a good way to utilize the reach of big streamers. On the other hand, co streaming dominance is subjectively bad for Brand Partners and proper eSports and narrative development, and quote, do you think there are some negatives that come with CO streaming that might need to be fixed? You talked about potentially stealing audience away? In terms of like the brand partners and narrative development? Do you think those are valid critiques?Average Jonas  So first of all, I think it depends on how you look at it. Because like, for instance, when you have official co stream co streamers, like valorant has, it means that they can tell us to show all the same sponsors and the same ads, which means that when we share our analytics, they're not actually losing viewership, because I don't think a sponsor cares if the sponsor logo is shown on trout stream, or on the valance stream, because it's still exposure to a sponsor. But this is where like, the the kind of details around the agreement comes in, what is it like? Do we have to show the analyst segment? Do we have to have the volume on during the commercial breaks? These are like details that could matter. But then you could also flip it and say, like, Yeah, but the person watching the commercial break on the main channel, would they wouldn't they possibly mute the the ad break anyway? In that case, would it make any difference? Or would should they customize their ads to make sure that they're visual and Not Audible, so that even when there's a break, you can still see it, so that these are like more details to how you create the actual agreement with each co streamer. And in terms of Esports narrative, I think I kind of disagree because like, you can see now when we had this whole year versus na thing, it is actually really cool when would then have ear and na ko streams as well, because then you kind of gathered the fans of each region in each place, and would build up like a community or like a, like a, like a fan base around that. So that I feel like that strengthens the narrative, because then we will have like, you know, it's like when TSM plays and myth ko streams it. Like it's just a giant TSM fan club every time Wardell makes a shot people Oh my god, we're done. You know what I mean? And I think that like strengthens the narrative, and not the other way around. But I do understand the concern, because like, what if, what if, like, the main valorant channel basically just loses a lot of sponsor deals because shroud is bigger than the actual code stream. But I mean, I think that's just down to the way they handle it, like the way they do the actual agreement. And also, one last important thing that we forget to mention is that especially now, when a lot of people are in isolation due to COVID I think a lot of people feel lonely. And when they're watching a co stream, it feels like they're watching the tournament with someoneMitch Reames  that's a really really good point. And again, it gets back to the to the whole thing that if co streaming added 200,000 viewers total say there's no co streams how many is like many people are watching the main channel maybe it's 750,000 brands are stoked to have an extra 250,000 people that they might not get that exposure to now you might talk about you know, maybe they're not doing the same read but most of them had the the casters on already anyway. So you know, I I'm not sure where the missed value is necessarily coming from. And especially from my perspective, as well, I was spending a lot of time switching between different co streamers. And every time you switch you get hit with a with a new ad and so I was actually probably saw 1015 more ads that I would have seen normally because I was like oh I'm gonna I'm gonna watch out for showed us for a while I'm not gonna switch over to myth and switch over to Ludwig. And actually the other benefit I saw out of CO streaming was that I quickly moved away from the from shroud and the main chat and that's because I was watching a week long tournament and covering every single day of it and the chat each of those was just filled with copy paste and I don't Yeah, don't get me wrong. I like a good copy paste. I love a good joke. I love a good twitch chat joke. But what I'm watching a tournament for an entire week seeing those same four or five jokes gets a bit old after time. And I'd argue that the subdivision of viewers are Koshi we actually made chat in each of those places. a much better place for narrative building up because you go to your chat and people were talking about boaster talking about the history. Have Magnum and mystic and these different fanatic players are talking about liquid obviously they know liquid very well. And so I was finding that a lot better for narrative building, then you know the same just send them home and a mere airport like yeah, just filling up Chat Chat.Average Jonas  Yeah, because I think like it is it is a really important thing to talk about to do what is building a narrative in the first place? Because I think it has to be a two way communication. And of course, like, like, I'm not blaming Charlotte, like, if you have a 270k viewers, there's no way you can control your chatty and we're not even in sub mode. But like, and that's why like, again, this whole concept of different types of entertainment kicks in because when I have five to 10k viewers, and if the if the chat is somehow moderated, then it's actually able to, to develop narratives by talking to your chat, because sometimes, well, sometimes the chat actually comes up with something that is relatively smart to talk about. And sometimes they don't. I mean, but that that's the thing, right? At least you have an option. Yeah. But then you at least like have the option to like, read these things and talk about it. And suddenly, you're creating another unique entertainment value that would never happen on an official stream, because it's it's not built for that.Mitch Reames  Absolutely. And I think there's, we're seeing some of those added areas of value. And there's actually a really interesting deal that came out I think about two weeks ago now in the traditional sports where I'm not sure if you saw this, but the NBA partnered with goals, who is a major Portuguese streamer to allow him to co stream NBA games. And I thought that was a really interesting move it because it shows that this isn't just an Esports specific thing. This is one of the biggest sports properties in the entire world. And they see value in CO streaming. And they also don't have those same worries that Monte Cristo brought up about brands and MBAs got a lot of massive brand sponsorship deals. So that to me, I saw that it was like, okay, clearly the brand issue was not a huge thing for the NBA. And NBA is fortune 50, fortune 100 brands that partner with them. We're on board with it. And so I thought that was an interesting sort of CO side of it, because eSports has taken quite a bit from traditional sports. But now we're also seeing that go the go the opposite direction. traditional sports is like, oh, eSports is doing that thing. Yeah, we did that too.Average Jonas  Yeah. And I think that like one thing, too, like one thing I think that montecristo mentioned that he was worried about, is what happens when trout leaves, right? Because that's always the big question like, well, like, if you're basing your audience on cold streams, what happens if some of the CO streamers are no longer there? Are people still fans of the game? Or are they fans of the streamer? And that's always something that is scary, because you don't actually know like, how many viewers with the main broadcast have if shroud was there, but again, when you're developing a new game, like valent is right now, I don't I don't see how valid has a choice. Because if they can, if they can create exposure to 270,000 more people, they should just be like, Hell, yeah, we should do that. Regardless of he wants to stream it in a year because he's still showing a new game to a lot of new people. So that's like still a valid thing. And I think the whole NBA thing is also what I mentioned earlier about how you're showing it to a new audience, which is like it's which is why like, Riot decided to choose the costume race they did. It is the same thing with NBA, right, they're choosing a twitch streamer, which means that people would never watch the NBA, if it wasn't for the fact that he was streaming it on Twitch. So it's just added value.Mitch Reames  That's that's how I see it as well. And I agree, I think in the first year, you know, and and if those people were only watching for shroud, well, then they wouldn't have been watching VCT stage two masters at all. So you know, it's not if that entire audience leaves when shroud leaves, then at least you got 200,000 new eyes on $1 at eSports during the event. And I definitely think, you know, caster wise it was it was definitely something that shroud was moving between which was like, Oh, do we have the Castro value volume up or down? I really thought it was a pretty important to have it at least existing especially again for what the crystal is a caster. So I'm sure that there was a level of like, well, you should you should be able to hear the casters that I think would co streaming and I believe you had the caster volume up on your entire stream well while you were watching and I think that really just adds value at that point where if you start muting the casters, then I can start to see the value decrease possibly where you don't get to hear from them. But as long as the casters are up, then it's just added value to me.Average Jonas  Yeah, and I suppose Something that is like always a problem when you're chat is typing like someone someone more volume, somewhat less volume. And for instance, I always had like other guests from the EU scene as well to try to create this whole idea of like an ear watch party. And of course, when you have a guest and you're discussing, it means that like the caster volume needs to be a bit lower. But again, it provides an alternative form of entertainment, which means that if they think the casting rolling is too low, well, there's no official broadcast for you that you can go to.Mitch Reames  Right? Right. Yeah, that's not blocked off or anything. Now, so I do want to switch to I want to be conscious of your I thought you were talking to me, but do you have a have a dog next years? No, no, it's it's, it's my fan remote. off my fan? No, worry. Don't worry. I'm alone. Okay. I know that original design. I was like, if I say something wrong.Average Jonas  No, it's delayed. So I actually answered to like you, but it's like, there's like a few seconds delay.Mitch Reames  Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yes. We're, you know, I'm West Coast of the US here. Yeah, if we were playing valor right now our ping would be just absolutely skyrocketed. At speaking of the actual game, you know, this show, it's actually my fourth episode of this new podcast, super stoked to be taking over the brand for for nerd Street. But I haven't had a valorant guest on following stage two masters first episode was with me elite, but that was pre stage to masters. And so I'm curious, you know, I did a ton of coverage on this event talking to players after every day of the tournament. But as a noted EU fan and a fan of the game, what were your biggest takeaways from valorant most important event yet, now that we're about two weeks since the since the end of it.Average Jonas  I think that first of all, I think it was a really successful event, especially being the first international LAN and so on. And I think it just shows a lot of like, potential for the future. Because like, we're talking about having worlds sometime in December. And like, already, that production was pretty clean. There was a lot of technical difficulties the first days, but it got better after a while I'm like, I could finally rest my voice from singing and every technical break. But like, I think it just showed a ton of potential especially now that we've started to build a narrative of EU versus na and like Korea coming in just behind and all these kind of things. I think that it just creates a lot of expectations for masters in Berlin as well as worlds but I think overall it shows how great eSports can be when it's such like it's it's a game that is like one year old. And I'm really excited to see where it kind of takes us in the future because we know riots can produce some insane shows with Elysee and LCS. So I'm really excited to see like if they choose kind of those directions again with like music productions where hopefully I'll be involved and other things that can create a lot of entertainment value.Mitch Reames  Well, I think you're a lock for any music productions going forward, they'd be fools not to bring you on with those kinds of parody songs. And you've already started doing a few of those things like amazing darts at the EU event so yeah, I would love to see something like like KDA right did legends but get a little valerate action in there get a gets a different voices in there and it's a great way to have showcasing the worldwide nature of Esports in general and especially now value in eSports as well where music transcends different cultures and transcends different countries as well and so it's really cool especially at international events to showcase how international a game is through music activation something that rides stuff for league of legends that I expect they'll probably want to do for valor and as well speaking about the YouTubes in particular fanatic clearly impressed everyone especially with how young that team is and I know you're obviously on the liquid roster yourself fanatic and liquid went back and forth in the last few challengers events to then they eventually met up in the lower bracket semifinals at stage two masters in your mind is that any question? Whether they are the top two teams in EU or if they just submitted themselves hey there one and two and then everybody else has to try and get to their level?Average Jonas  I think it's a lot of it has to do with timing on how the metas shift with the different agent buffs and nerfs because we have regions that are like not really adjusting to the Viper met as much as other regions do. So I think there's like like at the top it's very close like fps or ascend could easily be in the spots that liquid and fanatic were in. So I don't I don't I don't think will necessarily see the same teams anberlin masters, but that like we have to Wait and see. But it's a lot closer at the top than people seem to remember. And sometimes it comes down to like insane individual place in some rounds. Sometimes it comes down to like people were discussing, for instance, if the Turkish teams were playing worse due to them all having Ramadan at the same time, and therefore, like players were underperforming due to like dehydration and, and being hungry because it was like in a region that was very hyped up. And they talked about how, like a lot of the other EU teams were getting destroyed by Turkish teams in scrims and stuff. So I think that we don't actually know anything about what's gonna happen in in Berlin. So depends on first of all, if there are any agent changes, like how are people going to play breeze and our braces a map that favors players like scream, for instance, who's like, very naughty with the vandal, because it's definitely a vandal map. It's very open, it makes jet really good. So so like, I think that it's really hard to tell, before masters three, what's going to happen. And it can come down to like small details, even the fact that like, I think that liquid has a lot better chance against fanatic and the best of five, then in the best of three, because like the way their Mac pools work, and like when we played best of five against them, fanatic had a very weak split. Of course, they've worked a lot on their splits since then, but like their strategies to qualify for, for masters was basically to not to play split, because you can always plan a map should never have to win the Best of five to qualify for Iceland. So their strategy was actually to just get really good at four of the maps and just constantly band split, because they knew that they never had to play it, unless it was in the best of five and that best if I was against liquid in the Grand Finals, but that was the seeding match. And then they last split and they lost the finals, but they still qualified and then they beat liquid in a better three later.Mitch Reames  Yeah, and then you get to the Grand Finals. viceland suddenly had to play best to five as well, that you've got play settles on, on split. But yeah, it's I mean, it's a strategy that clearly worked for that they were able to qualify as a young team again, a qualify for I said that running all the way to the Grand Finals. You know, you can't be mad at the results. Results there. So you threw out some teams as well, that are really good teas in the EU that I think our audience is mostly na base but they're big valor fan, so I'm sure they're they're well aware of SPX heretics ascend. g two. Is there a dark horse team from Europe that maybe our na audience isn't as familiar with that you think could you should be we should be watching out for and is a dark horse to getting one of those four slots that Europe, Middle East and Africa get in Berlin?Average Jonas  I mean, so the the thing here is that there, there was recently a big shuffle on three of the teams jeetu heretics, and ascend switched around their players a lot. So we don't actually know the actual level of any of these teams can say all switched players, and they all feel like they had the better end. And like obviously, some of them have to. I mean, I mean, it would be insane if all of them had the better anyone else can. Rog. Yeah, exactly. So so so you don't actually know yet. But we know that like, for instance, C net is one of the best jet players in the world. Like he does absolutely nutty things with jet especially with the operator. And like one of the reasons why sn won a lot of their matches earlier, was like Park partially because people didn't find a way to stop him. Like you can't just like you can't just drive peak angles, if he's holding that would operate he will, He will punish you for a 10 out of 10 times. So it's really hard for me to say who is like the Dark Horse right now, to be honest, but I'm really excited to see the new jeetu If anything, because like jitsu is a big organization and like it's an organization that have a lot of money and they have a crazy CEO Carlos is He's a good friend. He's a good friend of mine is mine. But but it like it, he's he's something else. He doesn't care to get his hand their hands dirty, if that can make this team better. And that's like eSports needs these kind of CEOs and these kind of teams again to create narratives, because jitsu is now currently the bad boys if you're right. And then and then illiquid, and fanatic are the good guys. You know, they're the good guys that like it's like the station wagon and the dog. It's like the guy you marry and then jitsu is like the leather jackets guy who will break her heart but he's probably good or bad. You know?Mitch Reames  It's a perfect analogy. It's a perfect analogy. That's a that's actually so funny. Yeah, I think I don't think Carlos would balk at being described crazy. That's something that is, is core to him. I remember, I had a call site before this I used to write for ad week and I had a call with him and the CMO of MasterCard around the time that gt did that MasterCard, and it was such an interesting mix of two people. You've got like the C suite executive for one of the biggest companies in the world. And then do you have Carlos who is a fantastic businessman, but definitely a little bit out there. So doing that interview with both of them at once was a was just a great dichotomy of like eSports business and how these deals are getting done. I thought it was I thought it was fantastic. So that's the that's my best experience with Carlos right now is talking to him with the CMO of MasterCard on the same line just picture those to do business together is millions upon billions of dollars their deals, which is just very, very fascinating. Yep. So average Joe, this this was that was my last question for you. All that's left for me is to hand you the mic. Let people know where they can find you on the internet. What they should be watching out for coming up for you.Average Jonas  Ah, yeah, so I mean, I'm streaming on twitch.tv. Slash avid shown is pretty much seven days a week, I stream 2400 hours in one year now, and I'm not stopping anytime soon. And the grind is real. My goal is to reach a million followers in another year, so I don't have any intentions to slow down. So if you want to come by and watch me sing or play valorant or co stream or whatever, just hit me up, you'll find me on the socials. And if not, then that's okay, too. As long as you're having a good day.Mitch Reames  I love it. I'll link all of his socials down below the show. Be sure to follow him. His streams are very unique. I mean, hey, most streamers don't have a singing voice. But he he's got it. I have to ask. I didn't want to do it. But can you give me a line from you don't know your silver for? Just to close it just for me.Average Jonas  Okay, okay. Okay. Let's see. Let's see it has it. Which which line is the best one and that one?Average Jonas  Even my grandma, it's better. Amen. When you stare at the ground, it isn't hard to say I don't actually remember when you're sober for Oh, wait, what I you know what it's been? It's almost like it feels like it's 10 years ago.Mitch Reames  Internet years five years ago is 10 years ago. That's true. That is about how long that was? Yeah. You you flash your team when you remember? I remember I remember. Yeah. It's like It's like, would you flush it? I was just watching it because I remember watching it when it came out. And yeah, I was just watching again. I was like, this is a masterpiece. This is so so good. So I'll be sure to link it below. It's a it's a when you flash yourself. It ain't hard to see the silver fork. Right, exactly. I won't say it. I'll spare you that. I'll spare you that. IAverage Jonas  think I'm gonna share a throwback to one of those songs on Twitter today. That's a good that's a good thing to post.Mitch Reames  You should do it he should do it like like he said average notice of all the Twitch streamers. He is definitely not average. He does so many things. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate you coming on and looking forward to seeing what you do coming up. Thank you.

The summer of 2011 proved to be formational for modern esports. Twitch is founded by Justin.TV in June, the first League of Legends Worlds happens in Sweden a few weeks later. The first edition of Dota 2's The International and Call of Duty XP Weekend become the first two esports events to offer prize pools of $1M in August and September. Ben Goldhaber, one of the founding employees of Twitch, was there for it all. On this show, we talk about the ten year anniversary of the launch of Twitch, how the Amazon acquisition affected the company, some of the ways Twitch is coming full circle now compared to the days of Justin.TV and Ben's new company, Juked.GG. Follow Ben on Twitter @Fishstix. Ben's quotes will also be added to a series of articles on nerdstgamers.com. The first article, looking at the top ten games on Twitch for the last ten years is already up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After two decades, the sun seemed to be setting on Super Smash Bros. Melee. But as one door closed, another opened, this time in the form of Golden Guardians, the esports division of the Golden State Warriors. The Golden Guardians are best known for the org's LCS team but also have invested heavily in NBA 2K and World of Warcraft. In the last few months, Nintendo's Super Smash Bros' Melee has become a new focus for the org. From a grassroots fund to signing a talented roster to hosting events like the Octagon, Golden Guardians are all-in on Melee. With the future of major community tournaments like The Big House in doubt and Melee being removed from EVO, the esport coming up on it's 20th birthday needed someone to step up. In this show, Hunter Leigh, the Head of Esports for Golden Guardians, talks about what the org is doing to support the entire Melee scene. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The full transcription of this show is available below:Mitch Reames  Hello and welcome in to loosely scripted a podcast from nerds. for gamers. I'm your host betriebs Today we are talking about Super Smash Bros. Melee. It's one of my favorite games of all time, and it's one of the most iconic games of all time, melee was a dominant esport for well over a decade go belly up or two decades now following the game's release in 2000, and what stars like mango ppmd Mewtwo King Armada, and hungrybox became known as the five Gods plus there was left in the godslayer melee is a true community sport eSports Nintendo was downright absent or even a hindrance towards Bally's. eSports eat at various points over the last two decades. Over the years. Other special titles like brawl is fast for released but never gained much attention compared to melee on the esports side. It wasn't until recently with the release of Super Smash Bros ultimate in 2018. The Smash Bros eSports seed has put a new title in the spotlight the melee is still at all time beloved title and now another organization is stepping in to help support the scene. The Golden guardians the esports affiliate of the NBA Golden State Warriors are investing heavily in melee. In April the golden guardians side none ppmd and tofu contracts. With Zane already signed, the guardians had the largest roster of melee players of any major org. In addition, golden guardians who started a smash bros grassroots fund which is committed 50 grand to grassroots tournament organizers to support Super Smash Bros Melee. In addition to that grassroots fun guardians are also hosted the octagon the first event ran last summer with the rematch between mango and zayde. set for June 5. Today we are talking to hunter Lee head of Esports for golden guardians. Hunter Welcome to the show. Thank you so much happy to be here. Golden guardians flagship team is the League of Legends squad. That's what you guys are best known for. Beyond that you got dog dog, a TFT and a bunch of Warcraft players as well. Why did you and the Guardian is what to invest so much at the melee to make the game the third one with a big investment from the orc.Hunter Leigh  Yeah, we did our we started in in League of Legends and we have to Kate team as well. And those were the kind of the more traditionally sports structured eSports that I think felt like a safe investment and sort of more understandable or digestible setup for the warriors to get into. And we were we were looking to expand after kind of getting our feet under us in those two games. We were looking for scenes that were a little bit more open. That would allow us to kind of have a little bit more runway to do our own projects experiment and be creative and and smash was on was on the shortlist at that point. For me, I had sort of run events in the Smash scene before as in my time in eSports, and knew a lot of the people and it seemed like a natural fit. And it just happened that around the same time Zayn was coming up for contract. And we hit it off right away talking to him. And so a year into that about a year later, as we were sort of looking around, okay, we're a year into our initial expansion efforts, what's going well smashed and gone extremely well, even despite COVID Zayn had had had an amazingly strong year and was was looking like the best player in the world. And the engagement from the community was, was as we expected, or maybe even better as we were kind of riding xanes coattails as he made the journey up. And it just made sense to kind of double down where we had seen success. And that really was in the Smash scene. As you stated in the intro, it's with the lack of developer support, or let's just say like an extreme openness from the developer side, you know, it's a natural place for orgs that want to do a little bit more to spend a little bit more time and money. Because there's so much space. So you know, it let us flex a lot of muscles and continue to do a lot of what we had seen success doing the first year was saying just bigger, a bigger and better stuff.Mitch Reames  Absolutely. And it was a tide that the bay like community really needed somebody to be like, Hey, we're gonna step up, we're going to invest in this seed. Because it's been a rough couple of years over over the COVID period, it was officially removed from the EVO roster place from ultimate, the big house online was shut down by the tendo with some issues with trying to play it online through emulators and things like that. So as these events are coming down, what do you see the future looking like for the esports scene in the absence of these events that represented sort of the biggest events on the annual Super Smash Bros calendar?Hunter Leigh  Yeah, and it's a great question. I do think I think those are, you know, troubling points, certainly in the history and i think i think what really has shown is that, that it's going to be successful despite all of that stuff, in some ways in spite of it or on the back of all of that trauma and difficulty and you know, sort of tough climb, merely just get strong. Right. And I think I think it will continue to do that. So those weren't particularly deterrence for us. I think it's coincidental that we were coming in after that, I think we'd be coming in right now. It did shape I think the nature of our of our expanded efforts. But to be honest, even if the scene still had those major tent poles, you know, going strong, I think the what were the work we're going to look to do on the grassroot side would be would be just as important. Even in that case, so you know, I think when when we were looking and talking to Zane around, okay, we want we want to expand here and we want to do more, what should we What should we do? I think it I think it helped clarify how to expand that, that some of those things that happen. But they weren't warranted to turn by any means for us.Mitch Reames  You mentioned the tenacity of the Smash community, in a sense that what door will close it has closed over the last few decades. And then another one has opened, somebody else has stepped up. But like, No, we love this game. We're going to support it. It seems like with those big Doors closing, you are one of the doors that is now opening, is that something that you're really hoping to do for this fast community be like, okay, hey, we might not have those events, but we're gonna invest we're gonna create things like the octagon, for example, that given time, could that become an event? Sort of like that? Was that one of the goals for you like, okay, it's just a basket of petard here from, from one institution to to now we're gonna take that?Hunter Leigh  I think so. I think so. I don't know if I think about it quite that in that sense that the big house goes down, you know, we're going to step in and fill that void, or we're going to build the next the octagon will be the next Ebo suddenly, by next year, I think, I think the health of most scenes is in its floor. And that is what makes the you know, the Smash scene so strong is that the floor, the grassroots scene is so strong. It's something that's built word of mouth, at these tiny in person events, and things grew up from there. And I think that the fighting game scene in general kind of tendency to, you know, the bulk of attendees at an event or people who play the game passionate themselves often are competing, technically sort of competing in the giant open bracket, draw whatever for the event itself. I think that that's sort of unrivaled. Most people who attend League of Legends, events play League of Legends, but they're not playing in that league of legends event in the same way. And the investment that comes with that the accessibility, the interactivity of the pros, the way it is often just like people standing around a CRT, right, they're really just like, it's a community in a very physical sense. And that is the strength of the machine. And I don't think our our role in this is to take over any part of it, where we're trying to be additive to this step, you know, sort of, from the beginning, and those were one of the four pillars that we kind of built this expansion on one, find, find some amazing people support them, let them do what they do bigger and better and, you know, accomplish their dreams in the space to put them together and see if we can make something that comes out of the you know, sort of the synergy of these personalities coming together is is really unique and interesting and make some content out of that. Three, have some events that that you know, sort of check some unique boxes in the space. And I think the next octagon, octagon will do that. And I think slippy and some of the stuff we can do creatively in the online version of the game, you know that that's come out of COVID. And in a more serious way, I think it's really interesting. And there's a lot of customization and other stuff that you've seen the trailers that that you'll see at the event itself that I think is that is really exciting. And then for I think the grassroots fund return and get back to the, you know, to the bottom of the of the scene, the funnel that is making all of this so, so strong in the beginning. So I don't think it's our role to take anyone else's place, or to try to replicate something that was there before. I think it's to add to what was already there, and maybe try to pave the ground for some new stuff that people haven't seen before.Mitch Reames  Absolutely. I love that. And I think it's you know, I want to ask about each of those individual things that you put forward following up on the article, but I do want to talk about slippy is sort of the online play at how that's opening up and that the grassroots fraud as well because that's I got chills as you're talking about standard route a CRT monitor and play because I don't think I'd be sitting in this chair doing this podcast without attending events like that back in like the 2011 2012 2013 rage really was one of my bursts of of Esports in general. But at octagon two, which is coming up on June 5. The influences pretty clear what this is going to be like it's like a price fight. It's an octagon so us fees, you UFC seems like a natural influence here. Why don't you guys feel like that type of format makes sense for balay where you to put two of the game's biggest stars head to head and really bill it like a prize fight.Hunter Leigh  I think the sort of grudge match history within fighting games is something that we wanted to lean on when we were coming But the first octagon last year, and I think Remote Play, it was just going to be really hard to see your you know, especially in the early days where it felt like the west coast in the East Coast might be strongly bifurcated. And in online play, the idea that you might not see Zane versus mango, or, you know, pick your favorite East Coast player must go play or play play each other for a year or two, or who knew, you know, I mean, we really had no idea what we were getting into, and all of that, that seemed like a natural way to try to do something different and interesting. And I think Zane and mango have always, you know, had this kind of rivalry or budding rivalry that that has just continued to grow as they've been, you know, two of the best players performing and all these online tournaments. So we wanted to double down on that when we came up with the octagon last year, I think, extending that into this year, you know, feeling like this kind of prize fight structure, somewhat in the art style, which I think has been incredibly successful in the team has done a great job to sort of old school boxing style, I think moving that forward. Again, I think, taking a bit of a cheekier tone to it this year, and in the animations and stuff that the team has come up with, I think in general, all of that is just resonated fighting games are fighting it is price fighting, all of it is fighting for money, it's digital fighting for money, and there's, you know, there's, there's, it is different, but I think all the intensity and passion of of going get somebody that you know, is going to be an incredible match for you and seeing whether, you know, it's the young upstart, taking down the the old guard, or the old guard, standing strong and casting somebody back down to earth or whatever. I mean, I think this the stories are as old as time. And this is just, this is just the sort of smashed version of them. So, you know, for this one, I think having more personalities in house to, you know, throw more directly into the competition. And, and sort of take on, you know, the golden guardians mantle went a different way, I think, I think just ups the stakes for everybody.Mitch Reames  I love it, because smash is one of those games that has those people, those old gods, the people that can sort of be the challenger, the champion, versus the challenger in the sense that we see in boxing in it. And in UFC so often it's so think that's really cool. You mentioned the regional rivalry, something else that's pretty unique to melee was the location based ranking systems, which really offer this complex path to pro as people climbed. Hey, there's 16, the Nor Cal, and there, you have this, nor caliber, So Cal rivalry or the Ontario or Michigan or wherever you want to be you have this ranking list of the best melee players and I don't know any other esport that could say that most have a right bladder that exists, but not that location based kind of thing do to really the older nature of melee. Now you guys are introducing this grassroots fund, how do you hope that will help keep those systems running those location based regional tournaments that helped create rankings of the best players in Washington and the best players of Texas and the best players in all these different states around the US? Yeah, soHunter Leigh  the core assumptions is that, you know, this competitive structure, that kind of path to pro or competitive crucible that starts with people just playing in their dorm rooms, or you know, with their friends after school, or whatever, you know, is really strong. And it honestly, it's the kind of system that most other eSports should be envious of. Because it takes this like deeply social element of like playing games on the couch with your friends, and actually starts them directly into a funnel that can lead up to professional play, and it still has actually produces results regularly where someone like Zayn can go in a relatively short amount of time from playing in college to being one of the best players in the world. most traditional eSports the big successful ones League of Legends, etc, have left that phase of their sort of talent development behind a long time ago, and are actually looking to replicate it in some form in this like larger, higher stakes, you know, bigger money way. So I feel like that structure is kind of there regardless. But I we do hope that a little bit of money just to keep things flowing along the way can go a long way and kind of greasing the wheels and making that easier for everybody. You know, again, as with everything, there's no, there's no interest or attempt to kind of put our stamp on what's happening at a local level by on those kinds of doing great work, like everybody around the country is doing amazing work and some region is stronger than others, there's sort of rise and fall over time and like where the talent is coming from, well, we just want to be there helping all of those people continue to do what they do and see if we can help make things a little bit better. So you know, we put we committed $50,000 to the fund. We're not looking to drop that in 510 $1,000 chunks on, you know, the Texas region and just sort of come in and flood one event with something we really we really looked to dole it out and $500,000 you know, maybe 15 $100 for some bigger regional events support thing and just help people in market Efforts prize pool, you know, sort of, sometimes it's going to be literal logistics of the event, getting space getting equipment of one kind or another or, you know, working with an artist or other people to help promote, you know, online, getting getting your twitch stuff set up, whatever, whatever that might look like, we're gonna, we're gonna trust those people at the local level to know how that money is going to best serve them and just look to step in and help where we can.Mitch Reames  I think that's ideal in so many ways, where it's those types of regional tournaments are difficult to organize. And usually it is a small amount, not a relatively small amount of money that sort of is the barrier there between, hey, we've got a bunch of people who want to organize this heard of it, but oh, well, we have to get this, we have to get that and just grease the wheels a little bit to be like, Oh, we can tap into 500 bucks here or grad that'll help you know, put up a prize pool, make sure we get everything we do make sure we get the space that we need for it. You know, it's those kinds of things that people don't think about at this age of massive eSports events that still are what makes so many eSports scenes go round, and especially melee game that has so many routes to these regional players. I played a tournament back in University of Oregon, like dorm room, not not a dorm room, it was like a conference room on the campus. And the top prize is a $50 gift card to the yo duck store. And yes, and it was one of my favorite things ever. First of all, because I was able to compete because I'm not good enough at any other eSports actually compete. But if that's the kind of thing to write, think about what it takes to put that on. It's not much, but it brings all these people together. And if it if they didn't have just a couple $100 here and there, that event wouldn't have been possible, probably.Hunter Leigh  Yeah. And I think people get like, people get hooked into eSports. And I think we all know this from our, from our years doing it in this small thing where they did something with a friend, and they want a game, maybe they didn't think they were gonna win or whatever. And they're just like, this is the greatest thing ever. I'm going to do this for the rest of my life, you know, one way or another. And I do think those kind of like, dorm media room sessions are exactly that. And if we can make sure that the pizza is there, and it's hot, and that gets like four or five extra people and one of those people is like yes, I am now going to play smash for the rest of my life and becomes the next Dane or mango or whoever, like I think that success I it doesn't have to be transformative things that that take that college event into something that's never been before. I mean, that's fine. We're not against that by any means. But the simple things can go a long way in making events successful and a little money can do can help do that.Mitch Reames  Absolutely, absolutely. I think my dorm room was the like, unofficial tournament stopped by dorm room was just opened it was on the TV. All the time is either fascist or NFL street at all times on my GameCube. But it was just a rotating cast of people covered it tried to challenge people would come in from other floors or other friend groups who thought they were the best, it was great. So I have a special place in my heart for that type of like grassroots especially melee organizing. Not that I did anything really official, but it's just fun to bring people together in a game that almost everyone has played, which makes baileigh unique as well is that it's this game that everybody has some history with it, whether it's just Kirby dow being like playing as a kid or if it's actually getting good with a specific character or trying out unique strategies, developing them with your friend group. And so I've always loved that about about melee, in particular is that anybody can pick it up, and they probably have some sort of history with the game.Hunter Leigh  And I think that's that spirit is the I think the energy that's behind the YouTube channel that we put together and the content that's going on there, which is I think this can get lost sometimes in eSports, as well. And, you know, again, not to be overly critical of the bigger scenes or whatever, but i think i think there can be an effort in general in eSports you know, especially with the aspirational name to try to say that this is serious business and it's serious people and it shouldn't be dismissed or laughed at or whatever. And that that I think desire for credibility which is totally natural in this especially as people are putting more and more money in can sometimes take away the fun and we want them the YouTube channel to remind everybody and and sort of celebrate the fun of smash which is this crazy chaotic game, leveraging these characters that we've all been playing since we were very little in this often quite silly and strange way and that community has come up with tons of for fun game modes and other things and there's this rich history to draw on and I think eSports should be fun. I think all of this should be fun. I think that was when I you know was first talking to Zane and then when we were talking to Zane about who else to bring in that kind of core element. We want people who aren't afraid to be silly or you know who are having fun with all of it and and have built a community around themselves that sort of is you know, is sort of celebrating the the fun, the fun side of this stuff that We're looking for that. That's what the YouTube channel I think best embodies. And the goal of it is to, is to bring these great people together and have fun. And I think that comes from, you know, the sort of thing that we were all doing as we were kids with characters that we all know from when we were kids. And I just like spinning in circles is link like, it's not a good strategy. But I really like doing it. It just it's very satisfying for me. And you know, that is at the core of my love for the game and one sense it's just spinning in circles and whacking people as far away as like,Mitch Reames  the doubt throw into up be on the ground is one of my all time all time favorite boobs just just so much fun. It's actually a very nice segue, because there was this pretty famous interaction. I don't want to do a direct quote, but it was back around 2008, the 2012 I think Nintendo COVID. It was like, hey, people are plagues Smash Bros Melee in a way that we didn't intend. It's so competitive. It's sucking the fun out of it. I thought that was kind of a again, that's a paraphrase of the actual quote that came for Nintendo. But it was kind of something i thought was broad in some senses, which is that people love playing Smash Bros competitively, because they had so much fun playing the game. You don't you don't play a game for 10,000 hours because you're not having fun at it. And so it's just the people that took it to this last agreed Yeah, there are people play the game that the developers didn't attend, they created a really complex esport but they probably were attending a casual party game. And it's that's kind of that dichotomy of like fun versus competition was sort of at the core of the Nintendo's Smash Bros eSports. relationship and battle at times. As a tournament organizer, how is it navigating that relationship with Nintendo now two decades on, they're now investigate ultimate, and they seem to be investing more heavily in the ultimate eSports scene, but still sort of leaving melee by the wayside here and there. So how is that navigating that relationship with Nintendo? Yeah, um,Hunter Leigh  I don't want to get into too many specifics. But I but I will say is that I think that characterization that they're leaving melee by the wayside, I think that can sound negative. And I think what the community has has proven is that that's actually maybe the strength of the melee scene is that is that in the absence of a top down direction for this is what you know, Meili eSports should look like and we mean in in a serious way, and Nintendo is going to put their stamp all over it, or any developer is going to put their stamp all over it, the community has sort of been able to decide what they want it to be organically. And the rich history that comes out of this continues to define what smash is going to look like going forward. And frankly, probably influences ultimate more than ultimate wishes, that it did in a lot of ways, not just because people move back and forth between the scene or our, I think there's always a lot of attention to read, do you want to be in the more official, you know, officially recognized and supported esport are not, but just that these characters have, you know, the, literally the champions within the game, right, have a rich competitive history already, that is going to be sort of subconsciously influencing everything that happens in the new generation. And so I think in the absence of, you know, a top down tone, or direction that's coming from, from Nintendo itself, the community gets to decide and that lets soon sort of silly things happen in a lot of ways that are still competitive at its core. So for the octagon, you know, we're flying mango to Tuesday's house, they're actually going to play in Jane's basement, just like you would with your friend that you invited over after school, whether you love them or hate them, or somewhere in between. and it you know, it is kind of this, this tremendous, you know, sort of combination of old school tech and CRTs. And I think Zane has been talking about folding chairs, I don't know, if they'll literally be folded, you know, something that feels really retro, you know, that is now streamed across, you know, across the country, and combined. And it is that exact, you know, sort of jump between this kind of old school physical thing that was happening into this digital product that everybody can consume, from wherever we are that that is, I think what makes smash truly special, and for the Warriors, building a new stadium, you know, a basketball product that is also trying to do the same thing or already has and want to learn about, that's exactly what they're excited about. Not just in Smash, but in eSports, but especially in Smash, how do you take this physical thing and digitize it and make it somehow even better than it would be, you know, in the room in this product that's going out everywhere? How do you you know, bring people into that space or whatever. And yet saints basement, you know, on Saturday, and we'll see what that looks like. And I trust him to make that something and we'll see. But you know, it's Evo or these other events. That's Genesis, you know, this amazing event with this huge crowd. You know, I think I think Nintendo doesn't have to tell us or tell that tell the Smash community, what smash should look like i think i think the community knows they've proven at this point that that's something that people want.Mitch Reames  Yeah, you make a really good point is this fast beauty for years was like, hey, well, we'll take this, you don't have to do anything. But also don't put roadblocks in our way. Don't step in and pull this away or try and try and do these other things. So that's, you know, I think just an absence, there's is the best case scenario for melee at this point. So final question for you, I know you got to run. We're talking about this new online age of playing melee. So the big house on lie gets shut down because of a mod because you can't play GameCube games offline. So they are playing slipping you with a dolphin emulator or something. I actually haven't looked into that too, too deep yet. So I get why the tendo has to step in there. But do you feel like there's a different solution or something that's in the works right now, where we're fighting this way to play melee online, and the tendo is gonna be okay with it either with Nintendo stamp of approval on it or just that stopping off? Is there a way that we can play competitive melee online going forward without the worry of Nintendo? stepping it?Hunter Leigh  I don't know, is the short answer. My guess is that worry will always kind of be there. I think it's, you know, it in some ways, it is core to the to the Smash scene at this point in the melee scene at this point is that there is that that fear? And I don't expect that that's going to go away anytime soon. And I think it speaks to maybe one of the larger concerns is that a lot of people look at smash and are worried about what it is. And you know, without Nintendo's blessing, what what it isn't as a result, and all I would say is that what I think with the last year's proved is that we would do far better to look at what the melee scene is instead. And what it is is thriving, and strong and super resilient. And that's not going away anytime soon. And I don't think it needs this specific online solution or, you know, some other tech solution that might result or whatever i think i think you know, what we're doing right now is flourishing, I think Nintendo's probably happy enough with it, that they're not that they're not doing anything about it and that that's successful for everybody. So, you know, I think Nintendo has its own reasons for pushing ultimate. That makes a lot of sense if you're Nintendo when you know, who am I to tell them how to how to do what they do. But I think what the music scene has shown is that, that that resiliency is here to stay and it will find a way to continue to thrive regardless of what exactly the exact mechanisms that are needed right now to compete are.Mitch Reames  absolutely absolutely the Malay seed is not going away. They're a beautiful community and they're not going to let this game die and with places like golden guardians stepping in, to help out help grease the wheels help make sure the melee community has those resources they need to keep on going. We appreciate golden guardians and thank you hunter for coming on the show. This was a pleasure I hope you all enjoyed this podcast Be sure to check out the oxygen God to odd Jude fifth. If you catch that broadcast hunter anything else you want people to know about how to watch octagon to what they should be looking out for.Hunter Leigh  Yeah, check out our twitch channel that's where everything will be. We're super excited about the event. You know, hint hint, there's gonna be an octagon three and an octagon four and other things after that, you know, but we're really excited about this one and and we have a great lineup and I'm really excited. ppmd is going to be casting, it's going to be casting nuns playing xanes playing. It really is the best of you know what we've assembled here on display with the brightest lights,Mitch Reames  beautiful, beautiful, so many amazing names so many amazing stars in the Smash melee scene and they're going to be competing at the octagon out a format that really makes so much sense for where melee is. I hope y'all enjoyed this podcast if you want more content like this just the second podcast I've hosted for nursery gamers. But last one was with Emily we talked about women it gave me the differences between Riot at Valve in the valerate and CSGO sphere, things like that. And then the next podcast coming up next week is with Ben gold haber one of the founding employees of twitch for twitches 10 year anniversary so be on the lookout for that as well. We talked about a lot of twitches history, and some of the ways that Twitch is coming full circle from the Justin TV days to now so be on the lookout for that podcast coming up. I hope you enjoyed and please remember to like follow and subscribe depending on whatever platform you're on today

5-Time World Champion Emmalee "EMUHLEET" Garrido joins the show to talk about breaking barriers for the next generation of female esports players, why Riot's hands-on approach to VALORANT has been refreshing compared to Valve and the similarities between nursing and being an IGL. Loosely Scripted is a regular podcast from Nerd Street Gamers talking with top players and streamers in all the major esports. Full transcription for this episode below:Hello and welcome into loosely scripted a podcast from nerd street gamers. I'm your host Mitch Reames. And this is actually my first episode of this podcast where we're going to be talking to some of the biggest names in eSports and gaming around all the top titles. We've got a fantastic guest for y'all to kick off my time hosting this show. Our first guest is Emily Garrido, but you probably know her as Emma leet. Emily is a true eSports veteran. She's been competing eSports tournaments since 2014. it burst on the stage with the electronic sports World Cup in Paris. Previously competing at local tourneys. Emily brought together a squad at the team paid their own way to the event, making it all the way to the Grand Finals in the female event, says that she's gonna be five time world champion in CSGO. It could be absolutely dominating Iam canovee says female events since 2017. She's beside the Dignitas, where she's the captain of the Cisco and Valerie Teves. Oh, she's become one of the most successful female eSports pros of all time. She's also been working as a nurse by day well gaming by night. It's not an easy schedule to hold for anyone, much less a five time world champ. Emily, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me.So I can only imagine this last year has been insane. On the gaming side, you're the captain of a brand new esport team, a team competing in a brand new esport I should say. And on the nursing side, we're dealing with the largest public health crisis of the last century with the pandemic. Have you had a chance to breathe it all through last year?Well, fortunately for me, I, I'm only doing per diem nursing, so I'm actually just doing full time gaming. But I do have so many friends that are working during these times who I absolutely love and support and adore and just talking with them. Like it's making me exhausting. Like, so many of them are just constantly working and constantly trying to put in a way to help and um, yeah, I just, I'm just so glad that we have so many wonderful nurses that are there during these times. I think we're all so thankful to have the nursing profession. And that's it any point, you know, much less a pandemic, nurses are always under appreciated or under.They always deserve our appreciation for the for the role they take on and in this last year, it's taking on that another level of importance. And again, another level of stress probably on the same time.As someone working per diem, how have you seen the pandemic impact the profession through your friends?Well, so, so I used to work at a rehab center, where I would help people who were struggling with addiction mainly. And so my co workers and I are still really good friends. So I was talking to them, how about how it's going. And it's it's extremely difficult in their particular field, because, um, contact and like communication is super important. And having to follow all these precautions for someone that's already struggling with their mental health is kind of a scary thing at first. But through through the month, we've slowly developed a way to kind of adapt in a sense. So at first, it was a little bit worrisome, just because of the field that me and my friends do. But luckily for us, we have to be able to adapt in any type of situation. And that can apply to gaming too.Well, I was gonna bring that up because I was thinking about it. And you talk about as as a nurse, you have to make decisions quickly and confidently. And it definitely feels like there's a crossover between that and the skills you need to be an effective itl in a game like cs go or Valerie, can you talk a little bit about how those skills actually do translate? Yeah, well, I used to be the lead nurse of where I was working. So there I definitely acquired a lot of leadership skills, having to think fast and adapt fast. And all of my nursing skills in this sense is definitely something I applied into leading my team and eSports. You know, like, you have to think about as a nurse in your environment. It's one time I had a patient who had overdosed, so I had to think super fast, because my next decision was absolutely crucial for this patient's life. So what I did during that moment, instead of panicking and freaking out, I had to just do some deep breathing, gather everything that I'm confident in of my learning and my skills and save this patient with my co workers and applying that to endgame. You know, sometimes we have a bunch of utility that's coming at us. We have a team that could be rushing into us and being able to think fast and not panic in this situation is what's going to make or break winning this round.Absolutely. It's it's something that I don't think people would know about having not worked in theTwo things is sort of just how complicated that role of an eye GL can be. And how similar it can be to to really high stress professions that that make you think on your feet like that. Yeah, and for me, honestly, like I, I used to work a job before where I was working as a waitress at a slower restaurant. And for me, I really think like the highest stress is fun. Like, I enjoy it. I think that is exciting. And I enjoy the challenge and being able tokind of be a shoulder to lean on for my co workers, for my teammates, in that sense to rely on in a certain situation is exciting for me, I absolutely love what I doThat's amazing. So when were you able to make that transition to full time gaming? Was that a relatively recent thing over the pandemic, where you're like, Okay, I got to make a choice between these two things, or, you know, at what point in your career, were you able to be like, okay, I can start making gaming my full time career. Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. Because I really, I love nursing, it's something that I just love to do, especially in my field, like, I just have a really good connection with my patients at my rehab. But making the decision of just going part time and focusing full time on gaming was so hard for me. But I had to do it, essentially, because I started having to request two weeks off of work, because me and my teammates are traveling so much, we were traveling to tournaments, you know, all over the world, we had to take two weeks off to go to Europe, compete in these events. And I just felt like, it really wasn't fair to my patients. My boss was super cool about it, everyone was so supportive, but I wanted to give my patients the best healing process that they could get. And I definitely had a really good connection with so many of them too. And I just felt like, you know, it wasn't fair to them, for me leaving for me to go play in a tournament. So that's when I decided that it was probably best to step down No matter how hard that decision was.Absolutely. Do you still stay in touch with some patients and former patients that you build those connections with? Unfortunately, we're not really allowed to, you know, yeah, it's, I really wish I could because man, I just only want the best for them. But they will always leave me like these cute little cards and notes. And you know, I kept some of them on the side. And I I wish I could connect with them. But we're not allowed to.So switching gears a little bit as this transition to from Cisco to valor in it's happened, one of the really cool things to come out of it has been a really that treads the tradition of female tournaments that happens in CS GO expanding to valerate as well with VCT game changers and a lot of top tier orgs. Citing teams, I was just going through them all before this. And so you've got your team switching over you got CLG red switching over c nine white TSM. Eg he's got a mixed roster and Genji just signed a new team they announced this week. Why is it so important to have those household names in eSports orgs, those tier one orgs searching for inciting female tolerant invalid?Well, I think for us, in general, my team switching from CS to valorant was a very smart decision. Because valorant and Riot really listened to the community. They're constantly updating things on what the players asked just to make the game better to make it more of a competitive environment. And I really felt like five never did that. And I started playing Counter Strike 1.6. So I've been playing for about 15 or so years now. And I definitely know that the community is what made the game what it is, we are the ones that hosted our own tournaments, and just really grew with scenes within ourself for for valve not to expand and ask for a request is kind of a little bit of a slap in the face. So switching over to valent I think is a very smart decision because look at how big the game is already. We have these huge name organizations like you said, already signing. And so to me that only confirms that I made the right decision to switch with my team. This game is a fun challenge. It's not as easy as Yes, in a sense to where I could do the same strategy that I did five years ago and see us and it work you know, and we're in Fowler at this games, adapting things are changing. There's different agents different ability cops are so many different things you can do. And we've really enjoyed this challenge me and my teammates. So yeah, we're loving valorant so farIt's a really amazing thing to see so many organizations investing in the women eSports scene. I think it's absolutely awesome to see and you mentioned valve, I mean, notoriously completely hands off with everything in CS andbasically eSports in general besides ti, they're just like, Hey, you know what? Yeah, you all do you. And then Riot notoriously hands on building the League of Legends eSports ecosystem, especially as a female player in this game, does that hands off nature of valve? Did that cause issues at times when it comes to things like moderation? like making sure tios are creating safe spaces? In a lot of these cases? Is that something that you think there's going to be a difference with, with Riot led events versus valve? A valve title?I think that's a difficult question to answer. Because when when CSX first came out, we were kind of living in a different time, a much different time than we are now. I used to be a closet gamer. I didn't tell anyone that I played video games when I was younger, because like, I didn't want to be perceived as a loser or nerd. You know, that was just a stereotype of people. But like video games back then. And same with being a woman, like, not many girls did play video games back when I first started. So it's a hard question to answer because it's such a different time we're living in right now. There's so many women gamers now before there was a lot of fans, but now we have female competitors with people that want to compete. And that's what I've always strive for with my team. So this is a great, a great time to be here. But I guess along the way, there were so many amazing female rappers, representatives that helped pave that way. Like my teammates. We did panels, we did charities just talking about it. Um, and yeah, it's only right that right, it is listening to like, hey, there's a lot of women that want to compete. And that just shows it because there's so many girls that are signing up. So just a different time and a good time right now.It certainly is. And as you talk to some of the young women that are that are competing in this is there, an air of mentorship at all that comes with that. It's like, Hey, this is what it's like to compete at these these top level events, because I talked to see nines. Mel, who's one of the best young female players out there right now. And she mentioned players like you like Miss Harvey, like Potter that helped open those doors and paved the way for girls like her to be able to compete at the top level. Yeah, I mean, well, when I first started playing, too, I didn't have a female gaming role model to look up to. So I wanted to kind of do essentially, like, go through all the obstacles and learn how to beat those obstacles so that once I made it towards the end, I can teach ways. So women's in my panels and stream or whatever, to not have to go through all that hard stuff.And so now that we've kind of paved the way almost we have these amazing teams like Sina and Mel's team that are doing so good. They there's not as many obstacles now to be a professional eSports player with valor at least. And so for all of us, people who started in the beginning, we we've kind of broke those barriers early on, and hopefully made it easier and create a pathway for people to follow a little bit better.I don't think there's any debate that it has gotten a lot easier and valor it in particular being you bring up the the change in error. And that's a really good point, because bellerin is the first new major esport said Overwatch I guess, depending on if you call each new Call of Duty title and new esport, I wouldn't. But it's kind of the first new major esport right. And that helps reduce that barrier to entry. And it's also the first new major esport to come out in this era where it's a lot more socially acceptable to game and we've seen that have an impact because the new game comes out and suddenly there's all these female players in a way that other eSports didn't usually have at the start of it. It developed over time. Sois that because it's a new game? Is that because of what riots doing is that because of the era that we're in, how do you see that? Or is it just a combination of all things that we're seeing this influx of female talent? Definitely a combination of all things. I mean, Riot has dated it right? They're so smart and what they've been doing, they've been kind of just sitting back a bit for a few years and just kind of studying and watching what works doesn't work what people need and don't need. So a combination of everything.I think Counter Strike had the most women=That we're competing. And that's because we had women only tournaments, not to say like people don't know me, my teammates only played a woman tournaments two or three times a year. Other than that we played in mixed tournaments played an online League, so only two or three times a year. But the idea is having these women tournaments to get more women that are a little bit uncomfortable, and don't have as much experience as my team to just get out there and get started. And that's what valor and Riot are doing in creating tournaments, like with nerd Street, the VCT game changers, so many teams are just getting that experience and forming and learning how it how it is. Andit's just so amazing to see because this is something I always wanted when I first started. And I think the idea is eventually to not have women turn with then we can all you know, it's just to get started just to get more women that are playing. So it's exciting. Yeah, that's absolutely the long term goal. And we're already starting to see I remember see ninetook down renegades, I believe it was in a qualifier. So we're already starting to see those renegades is a solid squad there. So we're already starting to see those mixed tournaments come into fruition and start to see real success on that front. And the female tournaments help provide that platform for now. But yeah, long down the line, it'd be awesome to have eSports is amazing, because it's this level playing field between genders. And we need to do more to to help make their even split between genders at the top level as well.Which brings us to the next thing, what still needs to be done better to increase female representation in eSports as a whole, you know, Valerie's doing a good job of it, but maybe more of an anomaly in the Cisco world than in some other eSports, where you just don't see very many women competing, oh, what is eSports as a whole need to do better to increase female representation?Well, I live answer this question to be for the same to kind of support each other to like, you know, a white knight, it became a term for anyone that wanted to help somebody that was like being bullied. And I think it is so dumb, and I hate it. And I've seen on social media actually lately that a lot of professional big athletes are talking about this that like, it's not okay, you're not a white knight, it's just not right. And so I think these type of discussions is what we've always wanted, especially from like top streamers, they have a huge fan base. So if their fans see them being supportive and not being toxic, then naturally the rest of the community is going to follow this type of behavior. So this talks and discussions on social media is a really good start to kind of elevate the way that we're already going right now. But I, I feel a pathway for everybody just rising and everyone just becoming as one and that's what makes gaming to me. so unique is so many people from so many different places can connect. It's one of the most beautiful things about it. And it's I think we all love gaming for that reason for a variety of reasons. And yes, seeing the conversations change and seeing those dialogues happening from the biggest names of the community is is awesome to see and isa like he said, a really important step in towards making this a better thing. TWITCH chats always gonna be a little bit toxic. But if we can, if we could change the percentage of toxicity to not toxicity that's, that's great, right.So I want to switch up a little bit, we have seven questions that were asking every game or just to get an idea of their complete background in video games, how they reach the point that they're at today. So you mentioned that you've been a gamer for a long, long time and a closeted gamer as you described it. What was the first video game you remember play?My first game I remember playing his golden eye on the Nintendo 64 I just have I don't remember much from when I was younger, but I do remember specifically playing golden I mean, my brother would argue very often on his term it was the play and just really good times that that game. Amazing game my friends. I never owned that one and whenever I go to play with my friends, they just smoke me because they could practice on it so much and I was so I've ever getting very frustrated. Like it was cuz I was like, I was like I did this game. My parents wouldn't buy it for me. Oh, oh. Alright, so how about your favorite video game vlog type CS fire. But what is your favorite video game and why?I mean, my all time favorite game has to be CS because I've played it for 15 years, maybe more. I've met so many incredible friends from Counter Strike. I've met lifelong friends, my teammates. They were broughtTo my to my wedding, I met my husband from Counter Strike so many great memories from CES. I think this game is just my favorite. It's the funnest to play. I lasted that long Counter Strike. But right now my favorite gamesI'm passionate about it because it's, it's such a fun challenge. It's it's a fun change. You know, I just want to cook I'm always thinking, How can I get better? How can I improve? So those are my two favorite. Like they're a game you played for 15 years I think deserves the spot just purely on like the time alone.But yeah, the valorant has been such a nice, I think for a lot of people who are playing CS. It's like, like you said, you can run the same strategy you're running five years ago and Valerie offers that change and that depth to the game that Valve never was really going to change it because CS is a great game, but valor it offers that extra level of strategy that I think a lot of CS players a lot of veteran CS players were really looking for.So that I imagined CS was also your first competitive video game, although I guess you could call golden diverse your brother a pretty competitive experience. Oh, that was a very competitive.did I win? Probably not.My older brother, actually, you know, fun fact. A lot of people don't know my first competitive game. I played Medal of Honor one time online in the league. That kinda is my friend.Medal of Honor. Interesting. Okay, yeah.Then how about the handle? I mean, Emily, very similar to Emily is there when did that develop that you wanted to go by Emma leet.I wanted a way to kind of combine my name with something. And I don't know if you know, elite talk is some people don't know, at least talk is. I think I've heard of it. But please explain. So gosh, this is so hard to explain. So lead talk is kind of where we used to be my friends used to talk to each other without using actual letters.They would use like numbers like little slashes, little dashes and create words from not word. So that's kind of how I decided to combine my name with a lead. So that's really mo 1337 just kind of a way to combine my nameclassic, I love it. I always find it so so interesting to do you talk to players and they're like yeah, I didn't necessarily realize this is what everybody would call me for the next 10 years of my life or or longer.I talked to a sudah and he named him his character after Anna Bay cuz some other character he wanted was taken he's like yeah, I probably wouldn't have kept this because I don't really watch that animate anymore. But he knows me as soon as so it's I find it so funny that people just kind of make that decision it's just like oh now this is your your new name in this world in this professional world foreverwould you change it if you could?Like if it wasn't like a huge process? No, probably because I just I wasn't very good before this like my very first name was Angel war. And that is not very creative, I think but Emily it was it was stupid.Hey, go it takes it takes a few iterations before you come up with the right gamertagsHow about in your free time who is your favorite gamer to watch I can be on your team can be on your org can be invalidated or can be completely separate. Who do you like to watch in your free time?To be quite honest, I don't have much free time our like II schedule my day to the tee even when I need to go shower like I have my whole day scheduled. And it keeps me sane because I'm so busy. So what I do really enjoy to watch on twitch is actually nerd straight because they're constantly hosting tournaments for Valerie. So this is my way to kind of chill watch the stream but also, you know, get some inspiration for my team. So I watch that a lot. I we appreciate that. Of course. We love that people are watching it and I was just talking just published an article with renegades Roy has been killing our summer champs lately. And he talks about how the meta is really evolving in those tier two scenes in a really interesting way as and so he feels like there's a lot of innovation happening in those tournaments right now. And I think that's cool that other people are watching it as well trying to take notes on what's working what's not.So I know we're running out of time here. This is my favorite of all the questions and I think it's so addressed because you can take it in a wide variety of areas.If you could be any video game character, who would it be? And why?I will have to say, probably sage. Okay, and I don't play many. It's funny. I'm a gamer, but I don't play many video games. I just stick to like, what I know with fpswith Sage because like, I love being a nurse, and I wish so badly I could be a sage to where I could just heal people that are struggling or in pain. I just want to be like, yo, yo, you know, like a sage. And also, I think she could be like a real life. Elsa with her little ice. Build a little snowman here, you know, that'd be fun.Yeah, if only heli people was as easy as just hitting the button or using it all, you know. Yep, I wish. Well, Emily, thank you so much for joining this, I appreciate you being the very first guest on this podcast that I've hosted. So I you set a lofty standard that everyone else will have to live up to and I appreciate you coming.Thank you so much. To our audience. If you enjoyed this show, we'll have a lot more episodes coming for you soon, we're gonna be talking a bit about valerate of course being nurtured gamers. We're also gonna be talking about Smash Bros, CES Overwatch, all the good stuff, trying to talk to people from all the DOP eSports and really just get a wide look at the esports industry. And then if you want to learn more about Emily, I'll be publishing a story. You'll probably recognize some of her quotes if you listen to this episode. But I'll be publishing a story with those quotes and a lot more details about her story. And being an absolute champion in CSGO, Cisco and now in valorant, as well. So Emily, thank you once again. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you

Join us for this episode of Loosely Scripted with our special guest, CS:GO caster Tom 'TomBizz' Bissmire.Loosely Scripted is a weekly podcast with no scripts, no filters and most importantly, no rules. Each week we will bring in a member of the esports community to discuss their life before during and potentially even after esports. Follow Nerd Street on social media!Instagram: https://bit.ly/2vVHWBgTwitter: https://bit.ly/2UBBqYJFacebook: https://bit.ly/2JhRmtRFollow our host Boq!Twitter: https://bit.ly/2QMaSmvFollow our guest TomBizz!Twitter: https://bit.ly/3aCxA8nCheck out our websites!Nerd Street Gamers: https://www.nsg.gg/National Championship Series: https://www.ncs.ggLocalhost: https://www.localhost.gg/Lobby: https://www.lobby.gg/Nerd Street Gamers is North America's leading amateur esports pipeline. Through the use of Localhost facilities across the country, Nerd Street Gamers looks to empower gamers across North America to further their career in esports. Head to www.Localhost.gg to find one of our facilities near you, or www.NCS.gg to look up how you can compete in our National Championship Series!

Join us for this episode of Loosely Scripted with our special guest, CS:GO caster Conner 'Scrawny' Girvan. Loosely Scripted is a weekly podcast with no scripts, no filters and most importantly, no rules. Each week we will bring in a member of the esports community to discuss their life before during and potentially even after esports. Follow Nerd Street on social media!Instagram: https://bit.ly/2vVHWBgTwitter: https://bit.ly/2UBBqYJFacebook: https://bit.ly/2JhRmtRFollow our host Boq!Twitter: https://bit.ly/2QMaSmvFollow our guest star, Scrawny!Twitter: https://bit.ly/39j7NjZInstagram: https://bit.ly/33Owzr7Check out our websites!Nerd Street Gamers: https://www.nsg.gg/Localhost: https://www.localhost.gg/Lobby: https://www.lobby.gg/Nerd Street Gamers is North America's leading amateur esports pipeline. Through the use of Localhost facilities across the country, Nerd Street Gamers looks to empower gamers across North America to further their career in esports. Head to www.Localhost.gg to find one of our facilities near you, or www.NCS.gg to look up how you can compete in our National Championship Series!