March 11th marks the return of Contenders under a new format with its link to the Overwatch League. Season one will have the British Hurricane be one of 12 teams fighting it out to be crowned champions and known as the best up and coming team in Europe. Before Contenders starts I’ve been able to ask the guys who’ve been picked up to represent the UK as the academy team for the London Spitfire a few questions.
Hangar Talk is going to be an interview and information series for the British Hurricane that follow the same pattern that you may have seen from the Aces High series. If you’re interested in learning a bit more about the Hurricane as individuals, then I’ve got you covered here. I've been able to ask a few questions to the team as a whole, so for the purpose of this interview the answers are going to be as a collective unless stated. Now we have this out the way, lets gear up and get into the action.
Hi all, thank you for taking the time out to answer a few questions, For those who aren’t aware, who’s idea was it for you guys to band together as Those Guys, before you were picked up as the British Spitfire and how did it come about?
Shifty and Noukky helped form a team to band together the best European players that OWL mistakenly missed out on through a rigorous 2 month trial process with many well known, and not so well known but promising talent to get the right combination of players not just in skill, experience, and potential - but also making sure they had the right chemistry with one another as well. We finished the process in late December.
As we know, the British Hurricane are the only EU contender team linked to an OWL franchise. How does it feel, being chosen to represent the team? Also how does it feel for Kyb and Crusade to technically be returning to the organisation they played for in last seasons Contenders?
It was a long negotiation process getting picked up by Cloud 9 as they were in talks with other teams at the time they reached out to us. We are really glad that we were able to secure the spot and being able to use all the resources they provide to win Contenders!
Crusade: "It feels good to be back on C9. It's a big organization and gives great exposure. So I'm looking forward to playing under their name in contenders."
You come into Contenders Europe as one of the favourites to win it all after winning Overwatch PIT Season Two. How does it feel to be labelled as a favourite?
For the most part it doesn't affect any of the players too much. However, it does put us under some pressure to replicate our strong performance in PIT while also adding fuel to the players' drive to show to everyone that we can do the same thing in Contenders. All of the players are eager to prove themselves in front of the audience and especially in the eyes of OWL.
We now know all 12 organisations that will partake in Contenders. Which teams do you feel will give you the biggest challenge?
It's really hard to point out just one of the teams because there are some really talented teams in this tournament. Even internally we couldn't really agree on just one answer. We think our biggest competition at this point in time is "Gigantti", they have been around the scene for a good amount of time and Seita has shown that he can build teams to succeed and develop talent to get picked up by OWL. Another suggestion that I (Noukkey) really agree with is "Orgless and Hungry", with their strong performance in open and a meta that they really enjoy playing they are the runner-up when it comes to upset potential.
You’ve had a considerable amount of time now out of the Mercy meta. How comfortable as a team are you with heroes such as Sombra becoming meta?
We've been scrimming on PTR with the Sombra patch pretty early after its original introduction. The team feels overall comfortable with this meta both playing with, against, and without Sombra as needed. Luckily for us, we have several people able to play Sombra - and not just our DPS Kyb and Kragie.
Being the academy team to the London Spitfire, how much interaction do you have with them and if you could pick one of them to be on the same team with, who would that be?
We did not have any interaction with the London Spitfire yet, but in the long run, it's definitely planned to happen. We hope to have the opportunity to practice with them really soon, maybe even before playoffs! Most of them would love to play with one of the strongest DPS in the league, Profit!
Fusions: As the team's main tanks, I would really love to play with Fury sometime in his career, I admire him as a strong offtank player.
Crusade: I on the other hand, would really enjoy developing an indestructible backline and peel for Bdosin.
Finally, you all work well as a team so what can we expect to see from you all during the tournament?
One of the most important things we expect to show our fans is how good our team synergy is as well as our ability to adapt to the different playstyles that we both expect to encounter, as well as the ones that might try to surprise us. People should expect to see a ton of great gameplay as we have the advantage of having one of the most flexible core of players capable of running a variety of strategies at the highest of levels. We know that there are high expectations for us, and you can expect us to show up and give our all to make sure we do everything we can to win the entire tournament.
Contenders EU starts tomorrow (March 11th) and the games will be streamed live on Sunday's and Monday for you to watch. Meaning that you can watch your favourite EU contender team between now and the seasons end in May. Make sure to catch the boys in action in their opening game against Singularity.
No comments
Post a Comment