I spoke with RealityTV’s coach Fettuccine about their Challenger League victory, what he looks for in an analyst and coaches, Gity’s impact on RTV, and more.
So you guys won CL a few days ago with a near flawless run. Now that the adrenaline’s worn off, it’s been a few days since the match. What do you think of RealityTV’s playoff performance and the final in particular?
I mean, yeah. I think we just worked hard and we got what we worked for. In all honesty, probably the most underwhelming emotional experience I’ve ever had. Because we just worked our asses off, right? And then when we won it’s like “we won, now what?” Right? That’s like, that was it, we just won. I think most of us agreed that when we won we just felt nothing like there wasn’t really as much happiness as maybe going undefeated felt. But you know, it was good. We got what we worked for, We practiced a lot and really hard for it. So yeah.
Actually, on the topic of the undefeated streak, the team seems to have a surprisingly mature mentality when it comes to competing and winning. When I messaged Packer going into playoffs, one of the things he said was we don’t care if we lose the map, which from the outside seems to run contrary to what Mr.B’s been saying, “we’re gonna go flawless. We’re gonna go flawless.” So where does that mentality come from?
Yeah, so I think it just comes from a little bit of trauma from like me and Packer and Mr.B. I’ve been on a team that’s come short of being first place, Packer’s come short of being first place. And we’ve been in scenarios where we “should” have beaten, like everyone expected us to beat the teams we were going up against to secure first place back when I was an Arial, I think Packer Stage 2, and Mr.B. And you know, we lost those games and then couldn’t secure first place because of that.
So I think coming from that kind of competing mentality it was super important throughout the entire season to kind of reinforce like, “Hey, I don’t care how much we’re winning. I don’t care how much everyone thinks we’re better than these guys. We are still the underdogs and the contenders.” Right? It was actually kind of funny, Packer would get really mad at me. But I would give this speech before every single game that we are not champions, right. We are contenders every single time. We go out there to play for the undefeated streak. We’re not defending anything, because the moment you play like, there’s like a Kamaru Usman clip out there, it’s like “the moment you start thinking about defending your title, it’s like you’re playing defense, you’re no longer playing to attack.” And I think the overtime 1Shot game was the first real scare with that mentality, right? It’s like we went to overtime, and we were playing like, we were playing like pussies, honestly. After that, it was just like, I gave the talk. We switched up our mentality and yeah, every game, every map one by one, we’re contenders.
Speaking on that one map that you did lose before closing it out. What happened on Bank?
So essentially, they played like, they turned up. They played extremely well. And we died. Like we came into that map completely lethargic and I mean, I knew at some point it was going to happen, right? With every team there’s always a game where there’s a map where it’s just a bad map. Like where you just come in, everyone’s tired, no one’s like saying a word to each other. You know, the negativity was really dragging us down like every time something bad happened in the game. It was just one of those maps, right? Like we just weren’t talking at all, we had no energy at all. And we just had to put the foot on the gas right after to get back up.
Were there any worries with how long the Best of 5s can be? Was there any worry of like, “oh man, some of our players are gonna get tired we’re gonna not we’re gonna get sloppy, get loose because we’re running out of steam” or was that not even a concern?
Definitely a worry. Right? Definitely a focus in the week. The main goal, I usually do goals week by week, and the main goal the week leading up to playoffs was stamina. Like make sure every map and practice were coming with full energy. My take on like energy as a team is; it’s okay to be an energy driven team. If you have the ability to revitalize your team over and over and over and over. I think because we have Mr.B because we have like me between maps, like I get so unprofessional and I scream between maps just like get them hype again. They can tell you just the ridiculous things I’d say like get them to laugh and get them like, be happy and, you know, get really hyped again. And then on top of that, just managing burnout, right? Just like whenever people ask for breaks, I’ll give it to them every single time. Even if we scrim like twice a week, if people just don’t want to play, there’s no reason you shouldn’t listen to your players if they’re feeling burnt out. So I think we trained and preserved our energy really well. And I think we knew that at the end of the day, like when it comes down to like a five map pool, they [Arial Arise] cannot beat us on more than two of those maps.
Talking about the map bans, did those unfold the way you expected? Or did Arial Arise sneak a map or two in there that you weren’t expecting?
No, they went exactly as expected. Us and Arial have kind of like a similar map pool, so their comfort maps are our comfort maps. Though we were pretty confident going into it just because we’ve ego challed them on Bank before in the regular season and we beat them. Obviously they they destroyed us on Bank this time but I think our confidence spoke for itself on the other maps. They were literally all their comfort maps and we just were able to beat them on them. Chalet was our permaban throughout the season and I think they were prepping that one, I think that’s why they left that map up. But we were also ready to go to Chalet, right? We have eight map pool so we were just like, you know, screw it let’s just go take them to the permaban and see what happens.
Interesting. Talking about individuals, you guys have a lot of talented players, obviously you guys won the league but you also have some pretty good support staff, like you yourself, but also Killhungry, a manager, and Valorr was like off and on analysts or was he an analyst for the full stage?
He was off and on, yeah.
When it comes to coaching and an analyst that’s a bit more clear on what they bring to the table to benefit a team, but what does a manager like Killhungry bring to the table for a team that doesn’t have an org backing?
Well Killhungry. Killhungry, he left very early on actually. So we didn’t have him for like 95% of the season, but he scheduled scrims when we did have him. I mean, it really just took the load off like my shoulders really. That was really it. But yeah, he kind of had to leave to do, like being busy in real life and stuff
That’s always something that is good to know, especially the scrims. I remember when I was playing our coach almost entirely handled that. And thank God he did, because when we couldn’t find scrims It was a huge pain in the butt.
Yeah.
Valorr was off and on, but what did he really do for the team? Because I’ve heard some really good things about him. Just like from random tweets and all that stuff. What did he bring?
Yeah, so I brought on an analyst because basically, when you’re in the middle of the season, and people have played a lot of maps already, the match prep work kind of gets really hectic for one person to handle. Like when I have to write down like, seven, eight maps between like the two teams we’re playing in one week, and I’m in college, I’m not being paid to do this, it gets a little bit like drowning. Especially on weeks like midterms. So I brought on Valorr because, like low key I don’t want to dis anyone but like, the reason I look for a player- I feel like there’s two types of analyst right? You have your statistical analyst and you have your like counter strat/match prep analyst. And when you have a scouting analysts like Valorr, or just in general, I prefer to have an experienced player that knows how to like counter people as opposed to like your your average or your regular analysts. No discredit to their work, they do great work but I don’t really think a gold telling you how to counter the enemy team is very helpful, right?
Like, for example, like a gold analyst, who creates really good spreadsheets, you’d be like, okay, yeah, they play aggressive. Right? But like how do they play aggressive, where do they play aggressive? How long do they stay in their aggressive positions? And what parts of the maps are they playing aggressive on? That’s something only Valorr will be able to tell me. Because he’s played, he knows, he has a game sense “Oh, this will beat this. This will beat this.” And he understands my philosophy once he got integrated into the team. So that’s why I trusted him with that kind of work
Yeah, and I also think that kind of speaks to like the stats are useful, but at the end of the day, they’re only stats and they need context. And players or former players are able to give out context a lot better than like, someone who doesn’t fully understand what happened but like they saw one team got an entry and the other team got an opening death so mark the spreadsheet. So I know the responsibility of a coach can vary dramatically based on how a team is run and how the team plays, what is your role and responsibilities for RealityTV.
Blatantly put, everyone does a lot of work. But I create goals, I scheduled practice, I create strats, I determine the match prep, what maps are going to every week. Kind of like an all around deal, but I think my main philosophy behind coaching as of right now is to create the optimal environment in which everyone can perform. And that’s not only like mentally, but also strategically, right? You want to put people in the best positions that they feel most comfortable in. On the best operators that they want to play. But also beyond that, managing burnout, making sure that they’re happy, making sure that we’re having fun, making sure we’re playing the maps we want to play and people are saying the things they want to say. Right? I think that is number one. And I think whatever it takes to create that environment, I will do it all to make sure it happens, right? Because I think the real way to achieve success on any team is to enable everyone to the absolute max, I think forcing a system on people that just doesn’t work for half your team is the way to literally cost your entire team games and seasons. So yeah.
Cool. That’s really good to hear. Because I know some coaches are like, all in on the mental aspect but then they can’t always keep up strategically or vice versa and all that stuff. So it’s really cool to hear your priorities and how you do your work.
Yeah, and I think low key when you’re all in strategically or mentally as a coach, I think at that point- I feel like I’m dissing, but like, I’m not really like thinking of anyone in particular. But like if anyone takes a dis, I’m sorry. If you’re at some point when you need a all in mental coach or all strategical Coach, you’ve already lost. You really need to have that off rip, you need to know how to manage your players’ mental off rip and like, create a good environment off rip and that’s what being a leader is all about.
And there’s different approaches to it, right? I’m super unprofessional and informal. I joke around all the time we scrim. Like we lose some rounds. Like I’ll literally just be like, “Wow, like, Y’all played super well positionally. We just all lost our gunfights.” And that just happens, you know. I think that’s vital to my style of coaching. I know, like Arial back when I was on their team, they have a very professional, not very energy driven, but consistent environment. And that’s not my style. But you know, it’s what you got to do to make it work for your own team.
Cool. And actually speaking of leaders, what’s it like working with somebody like Mr.B? Especially since you came from Arial Arise and I believe Read Adams was IGLing for that team?
Yeah.
What’s it like coming in and coaching Mr.B?
So, Mr.B is amazing. He is awesome. He’s got an ability that I think very few IGLs have that I value a lot in an IGL, which is to constantly bring the vocality. There’s so many teams that they have an IGL that when they’re winning, they can be vocal and energetic, but the moment they start losing, they will shut down and that will lose them the entire game. And Mr.B never shuts down. I think that’s his number one trait. I think that’s amazing. And he’s also super talented as IGL.
I think coaching him has honestly been a pleasure. Because obviously, with being smart and talented comes ego, and I think in the very beginning of the season, I noticed a lot of clashes happening within the team. And we very early on just established a system to talk to each other. Like we established like hey, you can’t expect someone to not get mad if you’re literally saying the things that will get them mad right? So we established how to talk to each other with respect. We established how to work things out and compromise and I think it’s been very good ever since Right? Like our arguments have been very minimalized and like the weeks that we do argue, sometimes it’s even due to me, right? Sometimes like [Mr.]B and Packer are telling me like “hey Fett, you have bad mental now” I’m like, “Oh, you’re right. The tables have turned now.” So yeah, we just learned to talk to each other and we learned to talk about what works and what doesn’t work. I think B is the type of person that if it works, he will adopt it no matter what. Like if something works logically and in practice he will adopt it. He’s not stubborn enough to like just do something that doesn’t work.
That’s really good to hear. And it’s also really cool to hear that you guys like very early on established a way to communicate and be very honest without angering each other. Because I found, especially across other esports egos really can just break apart super teams if you’re not careful. And I think at this point, it’s kind of hard to say RTV isn’t a super team because well, one map dropped in a stage and playoffs.
Yeah. Sadly, one map still dropped.
So this roster is obviously star studded, super team, as I just said, but Gity isn’t someone who’s been highlighted as much in this past stage and playoffs. Players like Packer, Gaveni, Tristan, and Mr. B have kind of taken the limelight but I feel like he brings a lot to the team, clearly because you guys are doing so well. What does Gity do that the average viewer doesn’t see?
Yeah, so I think the perspective of Gity has been super skewed. I think he does a lot very well. Like very well all the time. And I just think when he does something bad, it gets highlighted above like all else. I don’t know why that is. I don’t think he’s ever angered anyone, but I think like, supr likes to hate on Gity and he gets hella viewers and then like, whatever. Like Gity has lost literally like two to 1v1s in the past entire stage, but those are like what everyone remembers him for. If you look back, statistically, all our games, Gity is like rarely, if not never done that, I think, right? Like, Gity just always done really well, positive rating, super impactful. And plus, he’s our backbone. He is like the backbone of RTV. He holds us down, he fills in all the utility gaps and micro stuff that B can’t see, because he’s like, a macro IGL, right? He’s like, “you do this, you do this, you do this,” but Gity makes sure the utility, the people, and the drones are in the right place for what Mr.B is calling to happen. He holds it up mentally. And yeah, there’s just no RTV without Gity, he’s a beast.
So he’s pretty much the, not necessarily secondary caller, but like he’s had secondary voice that are second in command to Mr.B?
No, not really. But I just think there’s an archetype of player on Flex that, because you have the util and the drones, and you’re not necessarily in position to entry, but more so to cut, you develop kind of a sense for what needs to be where in order things are happening. So he doesn’t really shot call, but he fills in the gaps to make sure everything happens smoothly. And no one notices it. But when they [Ubisoft] did their update and people were having lag bug and Gity got the lag bug, we literally could not win a map during those practice sessions. Because Gity couldn’t put his drones in the right place for us, because he was rubber banding all over the place. Right? And that just goes to speak like yeah, he is that impactful. He is the one making sure that drones are in the right place. His util, his vert, his Ace charges, whatever, like wherever he needs to be, people are cut off, his pressure on the map to make sure stuff happens.
The great enabler, love to hear it. What is the next step for RTV? You’ve won Challenger League, it was nearly flawless. You’re in contention if not outright one of the best Challenger League teams to ever go through the league. What is next for this team?
I think obviously, there’s a lot of Pro League interest. And we’re just gonna wait. We’re all just waiting to hear on that. I think we’re in that position where it’s like, we can’t really build for the next stage of CL because we just don’t know what’s going to happen with any of us. But once we get confirmation on that, then we can take the next step forward. I think all of us are just enjoying that time off. We’ve just worked tirelessly all season, right? Despite saying what I said earlier about the contending mentality, it’s like yes, like the pressure has been a lot honestly. Just being expected to win every single game is a lot more depressing than you think. It’s not like it’s heavy, it’s just kind of depressing. You know, you just go in, and like winning is expected. It’s not happy anymore. It’s just like, “Okay, we won like we’re supposed to win.” So yeah, we’re just kind of enjoying this time off. And yeah, hopefully most if not all, my players go to Pro League and hopefully I do too. You never know. But if not, back to CL back to grinding and hopefully back to winning another stage right?
So want to close out with anything you’d like to say? Anyone you’d like to shout out or kind of highlight?
Shout out my entire team. I mean people like to look at our team in so many ways but you know, we were the only ones there to see how we’ve done throughout the entire season right? We were the only ones there to see the work being put in. And regardless of what everyone was saying, like I’m just so happy we were able to work harder and accomplish what we were able to accomplish. Packer, Tristan, Gity, Gavin, Mr.B, just, it was so fun. Honestly, like practice was so fun. Like, I wish I could make it like a scrim like funny moments video because, honestly, like, I’m glad that we created such an environment that we were able to show up and like have fun and practice every day and play our hearts on game day.