I was able to catch up with Challenger League caster Fellow after the first playday of CL Stage 3. We discussed CL expectations, the place of IGLs in T2, and more
First place I like to start with these interviews is where you got your start as a commentator in esports, and in Siege.
Okay, so this goes all the way back to the beginning of COVID in 2020. I was still playing on Xbox at that time. But because I had so much free time, I was doing sports that had ended because of COVID, I got back into playing a lot more Siege. An unhealthy amount, but what else is there to do and you’re stuck at home all day?
And a buddy of mine who I used to play against, in Xbox comp asked me if I could spectate his scrims, and if I wanted to cast over them, I could do that too. That ended up snowballing down into getting known in other Xbox leagues to continue casting for them. And then I ended up saving enough money to then purchase a PC. That’s how I got my debut doing PC casting and again, that snowballed into getting more known in the R6 community and then getting into R6 casting all the way up to Challenger League now.
Interesting. So it was just kind of a natural progression from Xbox. There wasn’t like any aspiration to really do casting, it just kind of happened?
Yeah, I had gotten a lot of very receptive and good feedback that people enjoyed my casting on Xbox. And I was like, “Maybe I could turn this into something productive.” So I ended up saving some money again, to get that computer and I just kept it going. And I kept just receiving feedback and improving over time.
But with the game as complex and information dense as Siege, how do you prioritize your casting, to mention all the important stuff that you need to mention without just absolutely flooding the airwaves?
It’s kind of like Valorant, you have to know a lot of defaults. What is expected to already happen, for example, your hard support player droning the entry in the first minute or something, so he knows how to create space and what have you. That way everyone else can do their job. There’s a lot of stuff you’re going to want to, I don’t want to say push to the side, but for me personally, when I cast I like to focus on one thing at a time, and try to elaborate on that specifically, and the bigger picture of that play.
So again, a lot of defaults. If you’re playing Church/Arsenal, and you see a Mute/Mozzie or maybe a Castle, like, Okay, they’re going to extend up above yada, yada, yada. And that’s going to waste more time. It’s kind of that building the storyline aspect off of it. And then when it comes to more specific things again, that’s just regular game knowledge that you have to know.
And that brings you to Challenger League now. With Challenger League, how do you think T2 NA compares to T3, or even Xbox? Because PC and Xbox are completely different beasts, right?
Absolutely. It’s a lot harder to control certain guns with recoil on consoles for example. It’s whole other metas and people don’t really take it too seriously over on Xbox for the most part. In comparison to T3 and T2, I’d have to say there’s probably a lot of small things that you wouldn’t necessarily think of. You’ll look at someone on T3 that has really good mechanics, but are they very communicative on the entry role? If they’re not very vocal, that can lead to a lot of major issues.
It’s the small gradual stuff like that, because you’ll see examples of people that are in T2 that are incredibly good gunners, then they get sent to T1, and they just don’t do well at all. It’s those small micro things that you don’t really take a second to think about that really make a big difference when you make that step up.
So what are your favorite playstyles to cast? Do you like more chess-match styled plays? Or do you prefer when it’s just a bare knuckle brawl, just gun skill v gun skill?
It probably depends on the map. One thing I like in particular, a guilty pleasure, I’d have to say a lot of people hate is N∅kk. Her emphasis on the meta, not just the nades obviously, because they break utility, they get kills, all standard stuff. It’s helping players attack from more than one angle. You’ll see a lot of teams especially in T3, or less coordinated teams in general just funnel into one area and that allows a lot of issues to be capitalized on by their opponents. With N∅kk, you’re going on some sort of lurk. So you either deal with some sort of roam game early on, or you set up in a way where you can coordinate with the rest of your team to attack one part of the map from multiple angles, maybe establishing cut off angles. Which again, are going to be really important right now during this stage because of everything you’re going to need to try to deal with that roam game early on to get the man advantage. So N∅kk in general, always a personal favorite of mine, and now that she’s had a whole stage to kind of wreak havoc not only in T2 but also T1 and that major events, people have been banning her a lot more.
You have the freedom to do so because of secondary EMPs, and all those little minut things that aren’t completely busted as they are now, I wouldn’t say Thatcher’s busted, but he’s not going to be the only operator that can do one particular thing of disabling multiple pieces of utility. So it allows for a lot of different things to be found out by players. And one thing they found out is N∅kk is really annoying to deal with. So we’re going to remove her because she denies info from our team, she still has grenades. One of the only operators, I think it’s her, Iana, and then Sledge. Those are the only three that have grenades. So one of the three nade players have gone, so you’re probably going to have to run a Sledge almost every round, if you want to have grenades, even if he can’t do much vert on a round. Again, that also leads to you being able to gather info, having better audio to hear if there’s someone trying to work on you. So it’s a little more challenging to get the same bang for your buck.
Talking about Challenger League more in depth now. We just started the Challenger League season. Playday 1, as we said, already gotten underway. What are your expectations for this stage of Challenger League with the first game out of the way, so a little bit of data to base it off of?
I think in terms of the meta, things are going to be a lot more even. I was talking with P3NGU1N about this too. Utility is still going to have a major aspect to help remove any kind of important pieces of the map being played by the defense. For example, cut off angles. I think a really good example of this, funny enough, was the one Bank matchup we saw between Luminosity versus Vipers. Where there’ll be a lot of roam on the top floor, and then they’d be able to work a pick, that being Luminosity, then they would fall back down because they had Castle barricades and stuff like that for safety.
If you don’t have a lot of the right utility to get the job done, that’s going to facilitate a lot of early entry games and since the playing field of weaponry is so even, with almost everyone having like a 1.5x, and having the new recoil changes plus no LMGs. It really does benefit you if you can work that first kill and just keep that momentum throughout the rest of the game. If you can guarantee they don’t work, any kind of trades, you’re going to be set in that right direction. So a lot of teams that are very good at working those kinds of aggressive gunfights in their favor, I think they’re gonna really thrive. A good example of that was probably RealityTV’s game against Ex-Elyssar. If they were down a 2v4 and they had to work a gunfight they’re like “Alright, let’s just go shoot back” and they did so fantastically
Gavin was insane. Back to back 2v4s, one of which was a post plant ace, and then he just kept it going for the rest of a match that was absolutely insane.
I think he really did prove that day that he was not just a Finka crutch. He rocked the LMG religiously last stage, and then everyone saw him on the alibi, and we’re like, “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. He can just shoot.”
So, talking about more teams, who are your breadwinners this stage? Who do you think is going to rise to the top and who do you think is going to struggle, and might not even be competitively relevant if you want to go that far?
I think for sure a top team is going to most definitely be RealityTV. They might not have as many games where they’re flat out blowing up the competition, but they’ve always been a top contending team. And they’re one of the only roster changes that no matter what, on paper had only benefits. There were no cons to them picking up Tristan and we always saw how constant and how reliable Gity was last stage. He’s going to replicate that most likely going into Stage 3 and Tristan, they had been practicing with all during SFCL. So they’re very comfortable with him on their team as well. Literally, they’ve just only improved from their changes. We’re probably going to see that kind of stopping power throughout the rest of the stage except maybe dwindle down a little bit when they face better teams.
Ex-Elyssar is going to have to go through a lot of growing pains, and they’re probably not going to be able to get past all too much this stage. I’m probably not going to have to deal with Rails. But that’s kind of a whole nother debacle.
Briefly, what do you think about Mr.B’s open challenge in that postgame interview?
Lachlan and I are pretty good friends I’d say. He’s probably one of the players who I talk to the most and he always sets the bar high; he never downplays himself or his team in any which way. He’s always confident in his ability to win a game or just do well. So that’s just perfect, textbook Mr.B right there. Mr. Biblical as CJ [Cookiez] calls him. I’m not too sure if they’re gonna get the “flawless” run. But again, I think they’re gonna most definitely be a very top team throughout Stage 3.
I think 1Shot is going to be very good. They made no roster changes, and they’ve always been a good team. So that’s looking good on their resume as well. Aqualix, they may have thrown away one point against Arial Arise, but eventually they figured out their play style on Clubhouse. It was mostly Arial Arise rushing in every round, and they [Aqualix] were able to eventually counter that relatively well.
Vipers is a bit of an interesting one. I mentioned this on the broadcast, it felt like they were trading out brawns for brains and if they’re not able to kind of fill that hole, now that Dexter has now left as he has ascended onto Mirage and Pro League. That could definitely lead to some major issues. And I’m also interested to see if any kind of IGL issues could arise with you know, having both Poison and Filthy. Filthy, he’s always been known for being a good shot caller. But I feel like personally, watching Poison play for so long, I feel like he only does incredibly well on his role when he is just the only guy leading the charge on any kind of communication except for maybe those minute shotcalls. So if there’s any kind of disagreement or back footing on a play, that can lead to some major issues with how Poison IGLs, especially since he goes for a very methodical and like unorthodox play styles that really are going to work out in an in a one off environment where everyone knows what they’re doing. So that could be really problematic for them.
You think that Viper’s map pool is an issue at all? Because they’ve been essentially a Bank one trick for the entirety of Stage 2 and first playday of Stage 3. They were playing Bank again, do you think that’s an issue? Because towards the end of Stage 2, they kind of got figured out to a certain extent.
For context, Vipers were Renfree back in Stage 2 and yeah, they played Bank religiously. I think the idea behind it was if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. They had probably been scrimming other maps pretty well. I would assume the default picks, but they were just going back until they lost it. Then they finally changed things up a little bit by trying out maps like Villa, for example, where they did relatively well. So I don’t necessarily think it’s going to be that much of an issue.
They’re just going to have to learn things kind of the hard way. That’s all right, if we’re not able to facilitate that early entry game like we did so well with Dexter and then either Filthy and Butterzz backing him up on secondary entry with that roam that we might need to try things a little bit differently, which I think is totally fine. Again, I think their team has changed relatively drastically. I think all their players can shoot just fine. But to the degree of having like this one man unit where he’s going to just be able to take any kind of gunfight and almost when it might not be the case.
Mentioning how Dexter was such a huge piece of Renfree, what do you think about all these T2 players being called up to the big leagues now? What are your expectations for those players? Are there any players you’re expecting to just absolutely hit the ground running or that might take a little time to get used to the environment and then thrive?
Well, since we’re still on the topic of Dexter, he already played the T1 level, he played with SSG during the major that occurred in UAE. He did fairly well, and I’m sure he’ll be able to continue that. Especially since he has the same kind of backup. With Kento for example, who was a really good entry player back when he was in an NACL. He’s got Mohesse now too, who I’m really glad to see him go to the league as well. He had been a really good impact player for Arial Arise and him and Freak tag teaming together were just an absolute nightmare, especially on a map like Clubhouse. I feel like in some rounds in that Best of 1 against Aqualix, you could really see that they were missing out on Mohesse. Although Tonez has been a really good step up player a majority of those rounds. Except for the Twitch 2v1, that was a little bit awkward, but it happens.
It’s always nice to see all of the T2 talent begin to ascend upward into Pro League and get their shot. That’s kind of the whole point of Challenger league in a small aspect, is to give these players an opportunity to show themselves. A lot of pro players will end up watching CL to see who’s doing well. They’ll be keeping track of any updates that occur throughout that. And it gives them a good opportunity to try to poach these players and give them a better chance at something more to see how well they can do in the pro environment.
So it’s always good to see that. I think I already mentioned it, Dexter, I think he’ll do just fine. Mohesse will be good as well. And although Kento’s already been in the league for one stage, I’m glad he did not get the boot. Because I felt that put in a better environment, he would do a lot better as some sort of entry player. I’m interested to see if they’re going to have Dexter as primary entry, or Kento is still as primary entry? Or if they’ll kind of alternate that. I don’t really know, but I know they can both do well put in that kind of or that kind of area.
When it comes to showcasing players, it’s obviously a lot easier to showcase mechanics in a game like Siege than it is necessarily like communication, In Game Leading, that kind of stuff. Where do you think the pipeline for in game leaders going into T1? How effective do you think that is? Because supr is gone, he was a big voice. You know, Skys, notoriously a very vocal player who’s retired, LaXInG is no longer on OXG. There’s a lot of big name In Game Leaders in the region disappearing. So how do you think that pipeline for getting new blood into the scene is going, or is there one?
It’s really rough. I don’t want to say it’s non-existent because you have people like Gasher, who got picked up by TSM. Which is something nobody, and I mean nobody expected. I didn’t even expect it either. But Gasher was a really big reason why Aqualix did well, everyone trusted his kind of IGLing of being very aggressive. Again, like I mentioned earlier, with trades being a really big thing now in the meta. In my mind, I think Gasher could definitely help with that aspect of being able to take heads up gunfights.
But in general, it’s very harsh as an IGL to try to make it not only into Pro League, but also trying to make their way into Challenger League as well. Probably 10 times harder, because normally the IGL is that “Captain,” so they will have the license. So usually that’s going to be really hard to get into unless you make it out of quals and then beat the team that’s getting relegated. We’ve had the JJ [JJBlazt] saga for I don’t know how many Challenger League open quals. But he’s still just falling short once again, he’s probably going to be stuck in there for, I don’t know, the rest of eternity unless he finally breaks that cycle somehow.
Again, usually it will be just a lot of roster changes that go on amongst people in the NAL. That’s what I kind of see happen most of the time. And then yeah, for IGLing, for T2 going up, the same thing applies with T3 going into Challenger League. Your team most likely has to win relegations and then you move up into T1. So it’s a lot easier as a secondary entry or like a primary entry to make it. But there have been examples of people that are more in a supportive role that can go into tier one. It’s just again, it’s less likely. It’s something a lot harder to acknowledge as a good thing.
I also think it’s partially because with those supportive roles, like In Game Leading, it’s a lot more intangible. How the hell are you going to look at a stat sheet and go, “Mr.B, called 5 mid round reads that won them games in the past 7 matches?” We don’t have a comms, so how are we supposed to know that? And that’s true of pro teams as well. So like, it is definitely a lot more of a gamble for them to pick up IGLs than it is to pick up “Oh, gee, a mechanically skilled player?” You see exactly what you’re getting.
Especially with other regions, because NA, we’re known for planting a lot and getting those kinds of objective base things to go down. Which is usually your hard support, which then is usually your IGL, because it’s much easier to shot call in the backline than it is when you’re trying to entry at the same time. Although in entry is also vocal, just a whole different aspect with that.
So if you’re like a LATAM team looking for an IGL, and most people have very low plants in that position, then you’re probably looking at like 1VXs, or maybe trades during the execute, which again, it’s a very big silver lining kind of thing. So exactly like you mentioned, the proof isn’t always going to be in the pudding when it comes to looking at stats for a good IGLs. So again, it makes it even more difficult for those people to really show their worth.
Talking about ops, what do you think about the most recent batch of them? Azami is obviously very prevalent and very powerful, very flexible. But Sens maybe not so much, and then where do you think Grim is going to stack up when he’s finally unleashed?
You know, when I saw the operator leak of Grim, Mr.B and I were in a call and we saw it, and we thought, “Oh, this thing’s gonna last for the whole round, this is gonna be like a brutal flank watch.” “No one’s gonna get anything accomplished on the roam game, this is going to completely change how the game is played at a higher level.” And then we realize it goes away after like 8 or 10 seconds, like, wow, this thing sucks. He’s all right, in very situational aspects, let’s say, you’re going to execute the bomb site, you can kind of use him as like a weird, pseudo-Lion pick, you just spam your bees into the objective, and it gathers you instant info. You can work the execute with that information to either get aggressive and take a gunfight with a heads up play, or you try to plant, and because they’re being scanned and they don’t want to pick you because they don’t want to get just immediately shut down when they try to swing.
So he can be good in that aspect. Also, okay for [utility] burn, because he has five of those things. But there’s other ops that can do the same thing with a better gun, and a better primary gadget too. So he’s not very good in the current aspect of the game. I’m hoping they change him. I also hope they give him maybe slightly better secondary util because he has what, claymores and breaching charges? The Commando with no optic that’s above a 1x. And then for your gadget, you have to completely remove your weapon and just be completely exposed when you’re wide swinging with your big gun. You’re just asking to get shot. He’s very, very situational.
And then for Sens, not too bad. People have been able to use them a little bit more, Aqualix, a great example. Funny enough, I saw them use that exact same play in the past, I was able to like color commentate, what exactly was about to happen. So in situations like that, where you’re not too expected to see a Sens in play, it can be a little jarring for the offenders, and they’re gonna have a lot less time to react on that the right way. So in those aspects, they’re a little better than something like Grim where he is hyper situational. But still situational at the end of the day is where Sens lies. To the point where they’re going to be like, meta defining? No, again, it’s going to be a couple of one off strats here and there for specific bomb sites that you have already practiced, like countless times, and you know exactly what’s going to happen when those projectors start rolling out.
Do you think just having a numbers buff to the gun might help Sens a little bit? Having talked to Mr.B about the operator, one of the biggest detractions is like, the util is situational, but that’s not a deal breaker in and of itself. But then you get this really, really rough gun. It’s just numerically so, so bad. It’s worse than most defender guns. Do you think like buffing the gun would help?
I wouldn’t say necessarily, because the pro players and the you know, the T2 players as well, even some T3 teams, they’re not going to have too much trouble using that gun recoil wise. They’re going to put themselves in the right situation to use that weapon. And if you don’t, you could use the 417, that’s one of the best DMRs in the game currently. So it’s not that big of a deal. Again, I think it’s just the primary gadget that’s usually the problem. It has a very high skill ceiling, and again, everybody has to be on the same page and in the perfect storm environment.
If someone dies in the early round that you need for the execute, well, then you’re SOL, you’re not going to be able to get the same thing accomplished that you would when you’re bringing out that Sens strat. So it’s a very finicky thing to use in the right way. It’s just something that a lot of teams are not going to want to pick up on because of how situational it is. Also, there are a lot of things that can counter the ROU. A lot of people don’t think about this mid round, but you throw an impact grenade and the projector is gone. While you’re walking through that little safety shield, essentially, it just gets blown up and then you die. Because you’re not going to think about that, quite literally no one thinks about impacting those things. I’ve talked with a bunch of people when they were trying to use it, and it’s just something that completely goes over their head. Same with myself when it happens on broadcast. So yeah, there’s just a lot of counterability. Also Warden. Not a lot of situational play thats going to benefit Sens.
What are your thoughts on the Challenger League format? We’re obviously are in the middle of Stage 3. We’ve had to, 2 and some change stages of this Best of 1, round robin, with points good carrying over for CL Finals. How do you think this format treats T2?
I think for the teams that already do relatively well from the get go, it’s gonna benefit them. Unfortunately, for teams that either get brought on midway through the year, like Renfree, although they were an incredible team at the beginning of Stage 2, I could imagine in the back of their mind, they’re not even thinking about playoffs because they’re not going to make it no matter what. So it has some of its pros, but also it has its major cons as well.
I wish I could give a lot more info about it. But with only being in CL for not even a year, just starting this year, I don’t think I can insightfully give a lot of info on that. I think a good thing to ask would be the players for that, because they know how it’s going to directly affect them or not. But again, for teams that are very comfortable with their players that they have picked up. And if they’re already doing really well, it’s going to benefit them. And technically, if those are the top teams, those are the teams you’d want to have for playoffs anyways. So it kind of works out. But again, it also does shush aside anyone that could have been good in playoffs that just frankly does not have enough points because they already started a 100 meter dash when their opponents already were 50 meters ahead of them.
With relegations being paused, or whatever the proper terminology Ubisoft is doing. Pausing it, ending it, we don’t know. What in your eyes is the end goal for a team in Challenger League right now? Because for individual players, you can still get called up into an NAL team, like we’ve seen all this Stage. But for a team, now you can’t just make it to the big leagues as a unit. So what’s the end goal?
So in terms of at least this year, obviously, there’s still going to be rels. So there is going to be a team to potentially have their shot at you know, making it all the way to the big leagues the old fashioned way. But we can never know what Ubisoft and FaceIT is going to do. They have said X, Y and Z, and they end up doing a, b and c. So, fingers crossed, we still keep things for the most part the way they are now.
But if that doesn’t happen, I think a lot of players are going to unfortunately start playing more individually for themselves stat wise. We mentioned earlier how easy it is for an entry player, if they’re mechanically good to on paper just look fantastic. So I think a lot of people that don’t think twice about it are going to inadvertently sacrifice their team to just do well individually to hope that they make it into Pro League and then other teams might opt to not do that. And all look fantastic on paper, and maybe some of them will individually get their shot while others don’t. It is what it is.
It’s kinda like what’s happening now, we saw eight people from Challenger League get picked up into Pro League although we still have rels, we might just have that happen. And then just no playoffs. So as long as you are doing well, there’s a chance that you can still make it to Pro League and hopefully that can also apply to the teammates of that good player as well, especially if they’re all doing good too
Well that was the last question. So take the stage, anything you want to say, anyone you want to shout out?
Well for shoutouts, I guess all the people that gave me receptive feedback on doing casting, if I didn’t have as much positive feedback from this, I probably wouldn’t be doing it. I’d be in college right now becoming a teacher probably, which I think I’ll still do. I don’t know who I’d want to really shout out really, I guess shout outs to you for letting me do this interview. It was a lot of fun. I did hear good feedback from Mr.B about it. My Twitter is @FellowTheCaster. I don’t tweet on there all too much unless Challenge League is happening. Do what you want. I’m not your dad. But I guess shout outs to all the fun people who I’ve met along the journey, all the players who have been an absolute treat to talk to and get to pick up their brain. All the other pro people who have helped me along the way. You know, the usual stuff.