After the series, I got a moment to speak to Mochrie from Easy Money and AlexDidz from Upstanding Citizens to just get a feel on their team’s morale and how they were feeling heading into week three!
Beckwin: “You’re known for your Tracer gameplay, and unfortunately she was banned in all three games. Do you believe the outcome of the series would have been different if she wasn’t banned?”
Mochrie: “Life is suffering.”
Beckwin: “Upstanding Citizens had a pretty rough start in week one, making this week even more important for your team. Knowing you were playing against a team that also struggled week one, what were you feeling going into this series? Were you nervous at all or were you confident that you guys would come out on top?”
AlexDidz: “There was absolutely zero confidence coming from me, which might’ve been an advantage. For me, I just wanted it to be close, winning the bo3 was a pleasant surprise given the circumstances. It may come as a huge surprise to some, but we don’t practice, and those of us that do, we’ve only played a few garbage quick matches. Things clicked into place sheerly through role swapping constantly. Heading into game 2 after we lost the first against Easy Money, Mewn said: “Alright, this isn’t working, we need to change things.” And we did just that. He became the support main hyper carry Ana that could shot call, and everything else fell into place. Coffee and Aullora got their comfort picks, Turk continued to be extremely high, and I continued to be the only constant from the start, the tank player.”
Beckwin: “Bless Turk’s soul. So! Next week you’ll be playing against Down to Dongle. There’s a rich history between Mewnfare and Trikslyr, do you think that will affect Mewn’s ability to play against his friend? How are you feeling heading into week three?”
AlexDidz: “I don’t think Mewn really cares. DtD made some poor drafting decisions regarding bans and picking Deathwing twice. Not banning Auriel? Not picking the most consistently strong Rag pick on Tomb in a must-win situation? Was an off night for the team, they might’ve been a bit psyched out by the strength of the kT-Ls. Plus, it’s important to note that indeed, one team plays the game still and the other doesn’t. I still consider DtD the powerhouse of the league; they just need to be extremely careful with how they manage drafting. Very possible their knowledge of the game is outdated; I know it can be that way with our team e.g. Mewn having no clue that Mochrie is a Tracer main and having to repeatedly explain to him that we need to ban that character.
As for how I’m feeling about next week, I’m feeling significantly better than I did going into week 2. Week 1 was demoralizing, week 2 was vindicating, and now week 3 we’ve got an opportunity to contend for the championship. Our team is comprised of pure memery, which is our strength and weakness. Strong in that nobody knows what to expect from us and we’re skilled individually, and as I previously stated, we’re weak because we literally don’t do s#$* for practice. We’re not to be underestimated, so it’s going to be interesting to see what changes DtD makes with a week’s time. If they’ve got their eyes set on the potential rematch with KT-Ls and not week 3’s match, they’re in trouble.”
Seems like Mochrie is feeling a bit defeated, no pun intended, after the games this week. Hopefully heading into week three, where they’ll be playing The KT-Ls, we’ll see a more cohesive unit from Easy Money.
AlexDidz had some fair criticisms for Down to Dongle and it sounds like Upstanding Citizens have plenty of tricks up their sleeve still. It seems they’re an extremely momentum-based team and heading into week three off of a win is going to help them set the pace in their games against DtD.
In the second match of week two, we had The KT-Ls versus Down to Dongle with The KT-Ls taking the series in a surprisingly clean 2-0.
Game one we were sent to Towers of Doom, where The KT-Ls drafted their signature Auriel for Lakefu and Yrel for Liam. However, we saw something a bit out of the ordinary for them. A Cho’gall. With an extremely heavy control-oriented team, The KT-Ls maintained a two-level lead for a significant portion of the game. As always, on the side of Down to Dongle, we saw a strong showing from Kiyeberries as Anduin. Triksylr played a consistently strong Valla throughout the game as well. Interestingly enough, DtD also took a bit of a risk with their draft this game and went with Deathwing. In the end, The KT-Ls wiped DtD in a big team fight and took the map.