Esports are complicated, this isn’t anything new. What many assume is all about aim and mechanics at a cursory glance are proven wrong time and time again. “Just shoot the head” doesn’t work much as soon as teamwork and effective utility come into play. Siege is no different. With that said many recent NAL pickups have a very heavy focus on mechanical prowess. Mirage changed their tune from “Support players are better than you think” to “Look at all these gunners” after poor performances and a clear lack of firepower. As a result, I want to take a case study of a player that brings a lot to the table despite average mechanics. Yeti was Spacestation Gaming’s roster change. One that on paper seems like a downgrade in firepower. But the reason this change was worth it in the eyes of the team are the intangibles Yeti brings to the table.
What are intangibles?
To better understand intangibles, In Game Leaders like Canadian and Supr serve as the most effective examples. These are players that aren’t mechanical gods, and never have been. Yet they’ve remained top competitors thanks to the other aspects of their character compensating for that “lack” of gunskill. Things like shotcalling, midround reads, decisiveness, a good attitude, inspiring teammates, etc. All of these can have a massive impact on the way a team plays, but are usually hard to notice from the outside. In League of Legends, everyone on the 2019 G2 team was notoriously clutch thanks to the presence of Perkz, but when he left the team so did the clutch factor. Which player brings what aspect to a team can be hard to know from the outside or see in the server, that’s why they’re called intangibles.
While the IGL is the most obvious role to highlight the value of intangibles given the importance of shotcalling and midround reads, other players can bring intangible values worth their weight in gold despite average or below average mechanics. You’ll notice that some of those characteristics I mentioned aren’t gameplay related. Having a good attitude or being motivational has no bearing on Siege, and yet it’s an aspect of a player that can be beneficial to a team. Yeti is a good example of this.
What Yeti brings to the table
Since his time on Soniqs, and now on Spacestation Gaming, Yeti has been a player filling roles to enable other teammates without being in leadership positions. But the biggest value he has is simply his personality. From the outside looking in it’s pretty obvious that he’s just generally a pretty cool guy. Easy to get along with, positive, and a good competitive attitude born from competing in sports. During matches you can see him get animated and encourage his teammates and taunt the opponents without getting too focused on his own performance. All in all, just a really good teammate and fun guy to hang around.
All of this may not seem all that important, but this can bring huge value to a team, especially if the other players are a bit more mentally fragile. Getting tilted or giving up early both drastically impact performance and having someone who naturally counteracts those issues can do wonders. Team Liquid’s CSGO team were notorious chokers until Stewie2k energized the lineup for their dominant 2019 Summer run. Having a fiery personality that refuses to lose can drive others to stay in the match themselves.
Similarly, being able to get along with teammates is way more important than you might think. Yeti being personable is important if there are already strong personalities present in SSG. Strong willed players are great because they can help shape the idenity of teams, but too many of them with differing views and there are bound to be clashes. And as far as being friends with teammates goes, sure competing in esports is a job, but working with people you like makes the good times better and the bad times much more bearable.
Being able to bring good vibes is an attribute that someone on the team has to have. There are countless examples across numerous games where the glue guy gets removed from a team for bad numbers and results get worse rather than improve. JACKZ got tons of mileage from being very personable and good enough to stay on G2’s CSGO squad for 4 years while other players were gradually upgraded. Glue guys like these may not be the captain, but they hold the players together in a social sense outside of the game and their impact is well, intangible in it.
Intangibles aren’t always good…
But intangibles aren’t always good. Being toxic or hard to work with can also affect a team, just not for the better. A single player can drag down the mood of the whole team if they aren’t careful and for some this behavior isn’t even conscious. You all know that one guy who tilts as soon as something goes wrong and it kills the vibes in the stack. What was once a fun and lively discord server turns into a ghost town of mumbles and “I have to go.”
This happens at the professional level too. These players are good at video games, that doesn’t inherently mean they’re adept at managing social situations or preventing their attitude from negatively affecting others. Think about it, how many hours does it take to get good at a game like Siege and what opportunities had to be skipped over for some of these players to get that good? Players with positive intangibles like Yeti not only act as a counterbalance to some of those idiosyncrasies that other players have, but can also tip the scales in the other direction by completely redefining the nature of the team.
As previously mentioned, sometimes it isn’t even outright problematic behaviour, but simply strong personalities that don’t get along. This is the most common reasons for superteams don’t work. Being really fucking good at something means you have to figure out your own philosophy and constantly improve it. When in isolation or paired with another superstar this is fine. You can build a team around a super star or two so long as they aren’t in the same roles and don’t need the same resources. If everyone on the team has completely different philosophies on how to play the game (They will) then all of a sudden you have problem.
This is the inherent flaw in superteams.
When everyone’s a superstar no one wants to compromise because they usually got to where they are by sticking to their guns. Look at players like NiKo or S1mple in CSGO. Being in crappy teams early on in their careers forged them into the star players they are now, but being on a good team now doesn’t mean they’ll give up that formula for success easily to give resources to someone else on the team.
What’s the point of all this?
Intangibles are something that doesn’t get discussed enough in the Siege space. There’s some discussion of what IGL’s bring to the table but not much else. A player like Yeti highlights just how much a role player can do for a squad with their intangibles. Intangibles are everywhere and they aren’t always a good thing. But when someone brings good intangibles to a team already stacked with talent, they don’t need to be the next Beaulo to bring success.