Coach's Corner #3
COACHS CORNER INTERVIEW #3: FIGSY
disclaimer: the opinions stated by the interviewee aren't reflective of the coachs views. dont cancel me.
figsy: hello i am figsy, most known for playing medic in ugc platinum and more recently pyro in rgl invite
COACH: How are you doing today?
f: doing swell, thanks. and you?
C: I'm good. I'm drinking my protein shake right now. So you play both Pyro & Medic. Which do you prefer more?
f: pyro and medic are equally fun to me within a team environment, i enjoy supporting my teammates and both classes are able to accomplish that
C: Damn okay okay. I rock with that mentality. Seeing your friends succeed gives you a blessed feeling. But which one are you better at though?
f: easily medic, i've accomplished much more on the class placement-wise and until all the recent bans wiping out many top pyros, there were alot more good pyros playing than good medics.
C: Why did you make the switch?
f: i took a year-long break from playing competitive tf2 and got back into it by grinding a ton of pyro lobbies and pugs. i was actually a pyro main before i got picked up on fast forward as their medic (shoutout to HEAVY s23) and was curious if I could hang in invite on the class
C: Do you like to play any other class other than the two?
f: if i spent a season playing a different class in advanced or something i'd be most interested in trying engineer or scout next
C: Why engineer or scout?
f: not being in a combo for once would be a nice change of pace and i can't play projectiles for the life of me
C: dont discredit yourself i know you would lay people out on demo
f: one day... the world isn't ready yet
C: For both Pyro & Medic, what is a pet peeve of yours that you think pyros/medics should be doing but just don't do?
f: medic: when i was trying out medics for squirtyay in s4 and s6, i was really shocked to learn that most medics, even advanced+, don't track uber. it's something that every medic should learn because it's extremely easy to do and can be huge for your team.
pyro: a trap that i think many newer pyros fall into is trying to do too much in order to frag out for their team. most of the time it's way easier to let the frags come to you as a pyro (sacs, following up on your demo's damage, spies) because it's hard to accomplish a lot on your own unless you're given the opportunity by the enemy team.
C: Damn new medics don't track uber? That's crazy, I'm not even good at doing it but I just take a guess based off of respawn timers/their previous uber.
f: exactly, the entire meta revolves around uber ad/disad so there's not much of an excuse for not doing it because medics are usually sitting around looking at their teammates butts for most of the game.
C: How do you practice? What's your routine?
f: my favorite warmup is playing pugs. when i have the time and drive i like to watch my povs so i can fix my mistakes and when i'm lucky enough to find a soldier player nice enough to suffer through soldier v pyro mge is pretty beneficial as well
C: Okay. Tell me about pugs, what kinda pugs do you like playing?
f: I go for any advanced pug group that's alive that month
C: Why not invite/HLpugs.tf?
pictured: anti-troll taskforce members: the coach, mad ringme, pablo
f: i don't get picked in invite pugs :(
C: I know those ones. What are your thoughts on the trolls that are so prevalent in highlander pugs?
f: personally i think trolls ruin pugs whether they're on your team or not, many people might not agree with me but i wish the pug climate could be closer to a scrim than a tf2center
C: Big facts. A previous guest on Coachs Corner by the name of Galaxy Spy told me about how there are too many trolls in pugs and its just become too uncontrollable. Someone needs to stop them. Myself and a few other people have started an initiative to start policing Pugs in order to apprehend these nasty trolls from messing about & making people take Ls. Playing under the influence, feeding into the enemy team, only comming to call your teammates shit. All of these are the type of behaviour that is ruining the highlander community. It's time to Change Pug Culture.
f: i couldn't agree more. thank you for fighting the good fight on us non-trolls behalf coach bucks
C: Facts, I can't do this alone. I have assembled a good team with me to fight against these trolls. But enough about my initiative. Lets move on. Tell us about your current team.
f: currently my team squirtyay is 0-1 in invite playoffs, we're gunning for placement and i think we have a pretty good shot at it.
C: Who's on your team? I casted your team but I forgot.
f:
scout: sandblast
soldier: jel
pyro: figsy
demo: arzt hispanian
heavy: sand
engineer: perenne
medic: reigh
sniper: percy
spy: hino
f: that's our roster, you might have casted us yeah, we've had some good matches this season
C: Arzt Hispanian... The HL Titan himself... Every match that I've watched you guys play. I was amazed to say the least. What do you feel are the strong points of your team?
f: sandblast and percy are definitely our standout players but imo we have a strong roster all around. i'm really proud of how far we've come especially considering how many of us are advanced moveups or low invite warriors
C: Okay okay, good to hear. What are the weak points of your team?
f: imo my team has a bit of a mental problem where we can give up too easily and start trolling if we're faced with a tough opponent but now that it's playoffs that hasn't been much of an issue.
C: How do you feel about playoffs?
f: honestly i'm pretty confident we can get at least third and even have a chance at winning the league. i believe in every player on squirtyay and i might be biased but imo our roster is very strong when we're at our peak
pictured: spring rolls when he cops the louis sidebag
C: I like that mentality. If you can't even believe in your own people then you may as well call it. Who are the fearsome players that you've faced off against this season?
f: giraffe from owl and zuchima from mcm always put a lot of pressure on our combo when we play them. i really miss the one-sided rivalry i had with spring rolls before he got banned
C: Damn. How do you feel about Spring rolls getting banned? I literally know nothing aside from the one post. I can't read very well.
f: honestly i feel very strongly that he should've never been banned as he rang in one single scrim on his alt and never even rostered or scummed the league in any way on said alt. if playing in a scrim on an alt is a bannable offense i know of many RGL players, even admins, who should be banned right now. sigafoo is siganoob.
C: No comment on Sigafoo. Who do you feel is overrated or just plain mediocre?
f: no comment on that one
C: Fair enough. What are the win conditions for your team to win playoffs?
f: we need to focus up and play to each others strengths more often
C: Can you elaborate on that?
f: what i meant by that is not get discouraged if we have an uphill battle, listen to comms and protect percy so he can carry
C: That's good thinking Figsy, I like it. If playing doesn't work out for you, you definitely have a future in Coaching.
f: if fred needs an assistant coach for their 2021 run you know where to find me
C: Damn.. I don't know if I can fire Bowl of Mayo like that..... Moving on, many know you as someone who loves their teammates; from your binds and how you gas them up. Do you love some teammates more than others?
f: some teammates i've had in the past really stick out to me, namely fallen, satan and exile. they will always be some of my favorite people i've gotten the chance to play with. this season i can't say i've gotten to know many of my teammates as people but jel and reigh have both really impressed me in their gameplay even though this is their first season in invite
pictured: $k scout syath
C: Yeah eh. Can you name your top 5 teammates? (Not in any ranking or order)
f:
fallen
exile
satan
chinatown
syath
C: Okay.. But why am I not on there?
f: the fifth spot was really close but i wanted to give it to someone who i've played with in the rgl era Sad
C: Okay I see you. Just know I'm more longer, tanner & handsomer than that goof kid. How do you feel about this season of invite?
f: in the preseason s6 looked to be really strong and competitive but teams dying, players getting banned and krusty krab's roster switchups made this season not as great as it could've been
C: Do you think it was organized well? How would you improve the division if it were your responsibility?
f: i don't really have a problem with the way rgl dealt with the unfortunate circumstances of teams dying mid-season, moving up home depot was really their only option. it's more up to players to stop leaving their teams causing them to disband
C: Okay okay. What are your thoughts about aim assist? Should it be allowed in league play?
f: that's a silly question, of course not.
C: Damn. That's tough. As an old time player how do you feel playing with the younger players that are coming into the scene?
f: it's great that newbies still have interest in getting into high level competitive tf2. the scene can never die as long as there is a steady stream of new players coming in
C: That's an optimistic way of looking at it. As a girl playing competitive tf2 how has your experience been so far?
f: now this might be a controversial statement but i've definitely experienced misogyny throughout my 8 years playing competitive tf2. i think the tf2 community is toxic for everyone to some degree but certain things such as gender identification can make harassment seem more personal or hurtful than just calling someone bad at the game. in some ways the community is a lot better than other competitive gaming environments (for example: i've never once been told to my face by a tf2 player that i'm bad at the game because i'm a girl, but in overwatch even turning on voice during setup time would be enough for some people to decide to throw a ranked game) but tf2 hl being such a small insular group contributes to different means of harassment as well. there have been a lot of times where sexual harassment and stalking have made me want to quit the game, and most of the extended breaks i've taken from the scene have been because of such events.
i've just accepted it as something unavoidable at this point. it really sucks because i used to love being involved with the community by trying to make friends and spent a lot of time mentoring new players, but i can't bring myself to do that anymore because of how many times someone who i thought was a close friend would do or say awful things behind my back. as sad as it is things are still way better than when i first started playing as a 15 year old girl back in 2012. i don't want to get too into it but i was groomed by someone 9 years my senior on my first hl team and at one point i got harassed and made fun of by a bunch of high-level tf2 community members i had never even spoken to (fuck you rando, dashner and serv0) for getting groomed i guess and not knowing any better.
it makes me feel a lot better knowing that victims today are able to reach out to league administrators in order to get creeps and pedos banned and that community members as a whole are more aware of the shit that goes on within the community and don't tolerate it like they used to. things like sexism and racism will probably always exist within tf2 competitive but in my opinion admins are doing the right thing by banning people who harass others in the league and i'm hopeful that things will keep changing for the better
C: I'm sorry that that happened to you. To be honest it's a lot to take in. I'm kind of speechless. Not discrediting what you said just now at all; lets move onto you: what do you like to do outside of tf2? any interests? hobbies?
f: honestly if i compiled a list of my experiences playing this game i think people would be pretty shocked. contrary to popular belief there are a lot of activities i enjoy outside of tf2 namely: mycology, hiking, knitting, drawing, and crochet. follow @figdroid on twitter or instagram to see my art or photos respectively
C: Damn. I wish I was worldly like that. I remember you mentioning in the past about your parents knowing about your competitive tf2 endeavors. Tell me about that.
f: yeah my parents are pretty supportive of everything i've ever been interested in or wanting to pursue, i'm pretty lucky to have them. sometimes if i'm in a casted match my dad will put the match up on the living room tv so my mom and grandma can watch
C: Damn, that's crazy. I'm honestly very very jealous that you have family that love you and support you. Lets move on, I got some pictures I wanna show you.
f: let's see em
f: he looks like he's having the time of his life; head in the clouds
f: useful application of laser eyes
f: is that chubbz? cheers man
C: Yes. God bless him. I miss him so much.
f: at least he's honest, i hope he found someone
C: All righty, lets move onto our reader submitted questions. From jel: figward how did you get your alias?
f: it's been my alias online since i was really little, i think i first used it on neopets when i was like 11
C: From concepting: can you teach me how to play pyro? And what is your favourite food?
f: i think i've seen you in rgl twitch chat and you have more passion for pyro than anyone i've ever seen, so: i don't really mentor anymore but hmu if you want to. my favorite food is sushi or crawfish etouffee
C: From boy_genius: who are the toughest spies in invite and why?
f: any spies who know how to use their gun give me a lot of trouble, in particular when dimento was still playing spy it was always hard for me to counter because he's so unpredictable.
C: From gramps: figsy why do you only use shotgun?
f: this season i've been using shotgun a lot less actually, scorch shot is so op on certain points and maps it's hard to justify using shotgun on them. overall i think shotgun/flare are still the best secondaries which is up to personal preference
C: From high impact dolphin: do you think the rgl rule on scrims that caused your ban is justified?
f: i think the rule is pretty dumb and my situation in particular is a stretch for reasons i won't get into, but it was only a week so i'm not too bothered
C: From abra goin ham lincoln: how did your ban affect your team roster-wise?
f: to be honest, my hl team was completely unaffected. we had a relatively easy match (sorry ihm) on one of our best maps. my 6s team kinda got screwed over in the first round of playoffs, it's not that serious of a team but i feel really bad about it.
C: From perenne: figsy whos ur favorite and least favorite teammate on the team for this season,
sandblast asked us this on product week so everyone else already ranked everyone 1-9 so its just you who has to do it
f: ask me after playoffs, that seems kinda mean. standouts this season that i love to play with are sand and reigh
C: From dimento: figsy why do you love your teammates so much, enough to spam it to the enemy team every match?
f: i really like playing tf2 and it makes me happy that there are people who are willing to play it with me . i unironically appreciate all of my teammates
pictured: picture of norf norf
C: From norf norf: snap?
f: i haven't used snapchat in years. sorry norf
C: From proton: who is the biggest simp in invite?
f: i don't think i have any simps
C: Before we conclude this interview, anything on your mind that you would like to say?
f: ffgang
C: fast forward is shit
Thank you very much to Figsy for being the 3rd guest on the Coachs Corner. I certainly didn't expect the interview to be this raw. Again thank you to everyone for the support, and for spending time to read the entire post. Again thank you to Galaxy, Ghost & Figsy for being a part of the interviews; without the guests this wouldn't be possible. The top 3 from the last strawpoll are going to be going into #5. Feel free to post nominations, that being said...
We have a special tip (credit to Jebus) that a player by the name of tacos just got banned, and people seem to want to hear his side of the story. Like I said in the beginning: I will interview anyone but it's all up to the reader to decide.
https://www.strawpoll.me/20731186
I have a feeling I already know the results of this strawpoll, feel free to post reader submitted questions for tacos along with your nominations for #5.
Feel free to post suggestions, critiques, hate, etc. I really do read every post posted in here. Nominations for #5 (#4 if tacos doesn't work out) will end tommorow evening when I get off of work. Thank you very much.
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