Coach's Corner #15

 

COACH'S CORNER #15: REDDITOVERLORD

disclaimer: the opinions expressed by the 1 interviewed are by the 1 interviewed. the coach may have completely different views dont cancel me.

 

mustardoverlord: Hi I'm mustardoverlord, certified tf2 boomer. My first ever season was actually all the way back in ESEA season 7, in late 2010, which I think leaves only three or four active invite players who have been playing longer than I have. 

HL fans might be more familiar with my time leading Dead Ringer Storage back in the UGC days, or that one extremely weird season where I teamed up with dK Karl and won plat on Dunning Kruger Effect. I've been around forever and am known for spending ungodly hours talking and thinking about competitive tf2 and posting cringe on the forums. 

I've also dabbled in casting for rgl and tftv a bit and I'm secretly a god at that. I still believe that I'll return to actual comp and take invite by storm, but the game may die before that happens!

COACH: So did you expect to see yourself still out here in 2021?

m: Honestly, I told myself when I graduated high school that I might quit when I got to college. That was in 2011 lmao. So yeah definitely not, super love-hate relationship with the beast that keeps drawing me back in. I still wanna have that one surprise glory season before I ride off into the sunset though, and I also really enjoy (god this is gonna sound lame) being the 'tf2 historian' who remembers the players, teams, drama and memes that have been memory holed.

C: Say word. Before we get to that, how are you doing today?

m: I'm chilling, just watched jeopardy reruns with my mom and ate some steak so I don't know what more I could ask for. Also spent last night setting up my new PRO GAMER PC RIG so that's always fun.

C: Okay okay, I see you. So yo.. you gonna write some history books for TF2 lore? We need at least like 7 volumes for all the big events that has happened since like.. 2007 or something.

pictured: mustardoverlord documenting the "edating" politics in TF2 Lore vol. VIII

m: Honestly man, I wish it were possible. Other than the fact that actually writing all that shit sounds miserable though, the problem is that so much of the knowledge lives in my head, and I feel like I'm forgetting most of it as time goes on (unless someone reminds me of thing x or thing y). Gotfrag is dead and a lot of the people from that time have retired, so it's hard to like do research. There's still esea and eseanews archived, if that lasts longer. 

I dunno the whole idea of 'comp tf2 lore' might seem ridiculous to some, but our community has always been so small and close-knit that it'd be cool to see a place for all that. I remember once that I was watching some Thorin video and he was talking about the greatest Quake World player of all time. i got curious and tried to look him up, and it was basically impossible to find any information on the guy- and this was the best player in the history of maybe the hardest fps ever made! We're not in THAT shitty of a situation, with plenty of people still knowing about b4nny and classic mixup and epsilon and 7 and all the others, but it's not as good as it could be either (like compared to SSBM or something).

C: Interesting. If you had to write only 3 volumes of the TF2 Lore, which arcs would you pick persay?

m: Hmm lemme think about that...

Ok the first one would definitely be about the sheer chaos that was gotfrag. For those not in the know, gotfrag was the original forum for competitive tf2 discussion in na, and it was the pure wild west out there. Tons of alts, over the top drama, walls of ASCII art, and half the people participating in the chaos were like IM and invite level players. To me, it brings to mind an earlier era of the internet in general, when places like somethingawful and 4chan were in their heyday. Whether things have gotten better or worse I have no idea, but it was definitely different.

As someone with NA bias, I think the next really interesting one would be to talk about the b4nny-platinum rivalry. For a long time, we had two teams that were super equal in skill, and would essentially trade seasons with each other, and the team captains did NOT like each other at all. That rivalry was probably the most exciting thing ever in na tf2. Lastly, I'd just say a history of all the big LANs in tf2 history- especially ESEA, iSeries, and Rewind. That would be a fuckin behemoth but itd be worth it.

C: Sounds interesting. What's  your personal favourite TF2 lore?

m: Aight, I'll give one serious/gameplay-related answer, and one more drama/memeworthy answer.

For the former, definitely i46, the first time NA and EU really met on an even playing field- and we annihilated them! Get absolutely waxed europoors!! Nah honestly I probably watch more EU (and AU) tf2 than most yanks, and it always bummed me out that so many people weren't really exposed to the best names from the other places except through like fragsvids. When the aussies showed up at i49 and i52 it was insanely hype as well. It also makes me a bit sad, because if we were a REAL ESPORT we could have these sort of matchups all the time, and not worry about it just being a bad season for NA or EU.

For just ridiculous antics, it's gotta be, honestly, TLR stealing the trophy when x6 won season 8 of ESEA. It happened relatively early in my tf2 career, and it was just so wild and such a weird turn of events after his team had literally just destroyed every other team and crowned themselves as the best. The weird audio or like vertical cell phone video that leaked, the way it started as rumors on gotfrag and people couldn't tell if it was real or not, the actual impact it had on the league (mixup and b4nny teams becoming the top 2 to fill the void), hard to top mang.

C: Wait, so TLR won but also stole the trophy? I don't get it. If you won don't you receive the trophy to keep?

m: Well basically, there was only one trophy, and x6 decided it was gonna go to Kalkin because he was the team captain. But TLR decided that he was the MVP of the lan, and therefore deserved it, so he snuck into Kalkin's hotel room while the team was celebrating their win and planned to make a clean getaway and drive away to Oklahoma before anyone found out. Of course, he got caught and the rest is history. Shit was wild. Just found the video too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM4Rgnx2s2s

m: this is not a joke, I swear. I'm sure some people think this is staged, I promise it's not.

C: Holyyy this man thought he was slick 😂😭😭

m: they got him in the exact opposite of 4k like 240p and I'm sure there are so many wild stories like this that either I don't remember at the moment, or never even heard about

C: Okay okay.. You know if RGL got trophies tho ? Im tryna see somethin 😈😈😈

m: hell nah, they dont even have a lan. they prolly dont even give you a signed diploma from sigafoo or anything

C: Yeah eh. What benefits you even get from playing RGL?

m: Honestly, just the benefit of playing where the best teams are. Back in the day, whenever people talked about leaving ESEA (with all the bitcoin mining/lpkane being a general scumbag/LAN dying so what was even the point), the fact that mixup, froyo and all the other best teams didn't wanna risk it was what kept it alive. If froyo switched to a diff league, everyone would probably follow suit, but I don't see that happening right now. I also have no faith in any other league being much better at the moment, but I'm just a pessimist I guess.

pictured: mustard bouta hit his first c-tap on his new setup

C: Yeah eh. We'll explore that topic a bit more later. What class you main mustard ?

m: I main demo, the most patrician of all classes. We aren't just DM donkeys like scout or sniper mains, but we still need hands to a certain extent.

C: All right okay, you play for a team right now mustard?

m: nope. I attempted to make/join a few invite teams in the last two offseasons to varying degrees of success, the first of those seasons we had some decent scrim results but it didn't work out. I've been taking a break and totally redoing my setup (pc, mouse, keyboard, mousepad, even desk)- might be placebo for a 13 year old game, but I think feeling better about my surroundings will help motivate me. 

C: Say word. New computer new me. So who u think is nice thats playing right now?

m: right now um, even though they're middle of the pack in invite rn, I think a few of the players on witness gaming have hella potential. toy and lizar have been good for a long time, and soapy has been killing it lately. I also think animus has a lot of potential on pocket scout, and scratchh if he ever gets unbanned. for more established players, I've always been a big believer in alex.exe, and he's pretty nutty atm.

C: Yeah eh. Toy's playing Invite now? That's crazy to hear. We never really interacted directly all that much but she was one of the starting players on Fred V: The Brampton Warriors and was one of the reasons why we were so successful. As a Coach I'm glad to see one of my own continuing to reach new heights.

m: Yeah we're seeing more and more cracked zoomers realize they can just go medic and, if they develop even 2-3 brain cells, their mechanics will prolly be better than half of the invite medics after a week or two.

C: Okay mustard. Lets get down to business. Who's shit?

m: Hmm, let's see how spicy I feel like being.

I'll start with: almost all engie mains. Why would you do that to yourself? What a joke life decision lmao.

Next up: the people who seem to show up in every single tf2 stream chat and talk shit but I've literally never seen play a real game. That's low-hanging fruit but cmon man!

As for who in invite is overrated, that's a bit harder to say. A lot of the guys on MAL are people I thought were overrated on previous teams, relative to their actual carries, but they seem to be doing pretty well so maybe im just salty! I think even in invite, a lot of main callers aren't particularly impressive either outside of froyo. I watch like the virgil team or the (ex-)luc team or witness with sandblast or whoever play and most of their calls are pretty basic, the same kinda stuff you hear in IM or whatever. I think main calling well is maybe the rarest skill in tf2; I could probably count the number of players in NA who can do it at a truly elite level on one hand. There are a few things that I think would make teams a lot better other than just getting better players that aren't really prioritized. I'm sure as a coach yourself you can understand.

C: Of course. There's levels to this shit: in the lower levels and with certain teams you have "retard wrangling", for better teams there's "main-calling" and you have true maincalling when you have the key player. I myself mostly see retard wrangling these days though, but I don't really go out of my way to participate in the community. Speaking of that though.. what pisses you off when you watch others play tf2?

m: It definitely pisses me off when people bait and play for stats rather than helping their team, or when they don't listen to what their teammates are saying. Also, when watching streams, you often see players whining to their stream chat about their team fucking up. I have no problem with that when it comes to blowing off steam, but sometimes there are actual important things they're noticing that they're not bringing up and then they wonder why their team never fixes them! 

Also, people who have the energy to scrim and pug like 12 hours a day, but put so little thought into any of the games, because I'm the exact opposite. I'd rather scrim for 90 minutes, but do a map review or at least go over what you're gonna do on mid fights or last pushes, and spend at least a little time thinking and talking about what to do better.

pictured: mustardoverlord about to lay out whoever comes through those doors

C: Okay okay. How do you feel about the current state of TF2?

m: I'll break that question into two parts, cuz if you haven't noticed I like the sound of my own voice (or the look of my own text I guess). In terms of the competitive scene, I don't agree with the optimists who think TF2 will ever grow significantly, or the pessimists who think it's gonna die any day now. We've plateaued, but we're in a decent spot as a small DIY community. We're kind of a living fossil, one of the last games before the dev-sponsored esports era, where the actual makers of the games in question throw massive amounts of money at tourneys as basically an initial PR push for the game. I mean, I don't see why else so many people would have played overwatch.In terms of game balance, I've gradually come around to the idea that the demo nerf ain't ever gonna be reverted. There are pros and cons to games with constant patches to change balance, like league of legends, and games that almost never change, like most fighting games or RTSes. I like that we've been able to change the meta so much over the years just from people getting better, but I do think we've been stuck in too scout-dominated a meta for a pretty long time- there are just too few drawbacks to solo ubering a scout and following him around everywhere. 

A lot of people complain that there are too many 5cp maps and that they're inherently stalematey, but that's never bothered me THAT much, and at least we're getting more koth now which is cool. 

As for HL balance, that's a bit of a diff story, because I just feel like sniper is too influential- it's such a boring black and white dichotomy, either your sniper is popping off and life in 10x easy for your team, or the other way around. Not sure how to fix that though.

C: Interesting. So u been on the net for quite a long time. what has changed since when you first came on to now in terms of social politics, behaviours, etc.

m: Well the list of no-no words has definitely grown, which I personally don't have a problem with. It's really not that hard to just not say them, and I think there are bigger issues with how admins conduct themselves. I think twitch culture has gotten super big and so many people talk in like 'emotespeak' which really confuses me because it seems like such a boring way to live, but w/e. Obviously I could get into more substantive things like tech monopolies and surveillance capitalism, but that seems like beyond the COACH'S CORNER scope to be honest.

I do think people used to troll and fuck around more in a very specific way also. With alt accounts and trying to like 'expose' each other and shit. It could have a dark side but also be pretty fun.

C: Expose each other..? Tell me more.

m: I mean there was a legendary thread on gotfrag called THAT'S A MEATSHOT 8) where Hong aka RocketSurgeon just snapped on carnage and went into like him being a high school dropout and shit. that sort of facebook style of fight you know, the AT LEAST I RAISE MY KIDS sorta stuff. everyone is so irony poisoned nowadays, they don't cut TO THE CORE like that. maybe that's not a bad thing lol

C: Hmm. And what's Irony poisoning?

m: y'know, people who are incapable of being sincere because it's too vulnerable. I think people saw how sincere and self-righteous gen x and millennials could be and just think it was more 'CRINGE' than 'BASED' to use the parlance of the day

C: Damn. I'm kinda speechless at that definition. That's something I'll have to think on, thank you for telling me.

m: No prob bob

C: However I think with that sort of business I think people... don't care? Or people aren't that breed of toxic. Fall of the 4chan mans, rise of the Twitter Cancel culture. So to say.

m: reminds me of another one of my fav stories from those early days when an alt on gotfrag (I think it may have even been clockwork on an alt??) leaked the esea join password to EG's roster to troll cyzer and like everyone on the forum joined EG en masse. Later that season they found out one of their players couldn't make LAN so they tried to get a ringer on their roster but they had used up all their roster moves because of the forum gremlins joining up so they literally didn't go and it was a 3-team LAN. those days were wild man

don't sue me if that wasn't you clock lol. thats just how I remember it

pictured: vault full of reddit gold

C: Yeah eh. That's crazy. So mustard... how much reddit gold you got?

m: I wish I could play along but I literally dont know what that is! Is that like when the nazis stole jewish gold? is it like hoarded somewhere? Like reddit gold on the history channel

C: Something like that. You don't go on reddit.com?

m: real talk I used to post a bit on truetf2 but I forgot the password to my account so I made an alt and I have not used it to post about tf2. im good with tftv for now m8

C: Okay okay. What sites do you enjoy browsing & getting information from?

m: im a shameless twitter addict tbh. I spend hours just reading depressing news. thats my main jam. I follow like 3000 people and have about 200 followers so that should give you an idea lol

C: Yeah eh. Okay okay, can you define what the term "redpill" & "redpilling" means?

m: I think thats for people who think that the reason their lives are miserable is because women won't fuck them and that women won't fuck them because they are inherently evil. im more marxpilled tho so, not my scene.

C: And what's marxpilled?

m: I have embraced the objective science of Marxist-Leninism.

C: Oh okay. So do you lay mans tf out by marxpilling them?

m: I mean, I think everyone is looking for like a unified explanation for why everything sucks right now like in general. And most of the ones coming from the right (like some Jordan Peterson shit) entice people because at least they try to explain things but they're ultimately total bullshit so it's not that hard to reach people and find common ground about how atomized and lonely our society is and how quality of life seems to be going down despite all our shiny new technology

I mean uh, b4nny xd die white girls hehe!! I am getting quite far afield here my man.

C: Okay... I read all that, but how do I redpill a man? I'm just tryna figure that out right now. Like if someone pisses me off and I had it with them but I'm not trying to slap them tf out How do I redpill them

m: well the problem with the redpill is: in the matrix neo finds out everything is a lie sure, but he also finds out hes the chosen one and the most important person on earth

C: I ain't watch the matrix

m: but that part is bullshit. no one is better or more important than anyone else. we're all in this together ya dig

pictured: the coach trying to process what redpill is (i still dont know)

C: Yo... I think i need someone else to figure out this redpill theory. Moving on, can you explain to me this thread?

    https://www.teamfortress.tv/58494/mal-players-banned-from-rgl

C: while i didnt read it, ive been told that you posted alot in this. can you elaborate on what's going on?

m: Sure. RGL thinks it counts as a 'slur' when a black person says the n word. I have literally lost thousands of brain cells trying to process how anyone could think that in 2021. But here we are, theres a bunch of other bullshit in there especially when the brits show up but thats the main takeaway

C: So what was the situation here? Who got banned and why?

m: safrix and kev got banned and the other drama was. they were saying it in a pregame map review, not a scrim. it just showed up on logs.tf cuz they never restarted the server, they jumped straight into the game. But people also complained about rgl overreach cuz it wasnt even a scrim and they got unbanned eventually and then tftv mods locked a bunch of threads and all filled our diapers for a week; standard stuff. but I personally never got over that first point: white admins telling black people not to say the n word. im still stuck on that so, the rest is just a bonus.

C: Oh okay. So were you surprised that RGL banned a black guy for saying the N word?

m: well really RGL created a bunch of overly strict and inflexible rules. like they have done for a lot of stuff and then decided to follow the letter of the law, even in a super questionable situation... 

m: so on that level. no, not surprised

C: Yeah, I thought so. So what did you contribute to this thread?

m: a mixture of eminently reasonable points and very low-tier trolling. my house style!

C: Okay but what did you argue in specific? Or troll mans about?

m: ive been really into trolling the eu people on tftv as of late to be honest. it started because all of them say "oh americans are so racist" but every time I go to bed and check the forums at like 10AM a bunch of euros said a bunch of WILD shit and it got +fragged while only they were there.

I actually think the online gamer community in eu might be MORE racist than in NA. If you dont believe me, spend 5 mins browsing the http://hltv.org forums

C: No I believe you. So what's your personal stake with all of this?

m: well other than wanting rgl to not suck, I guess im just a lost soul who wants attention like everyone else. 

m: this is the cheapest therapy ive ever been to

pictured: mustardoverlord catching a mean bubble from a shordy

C: Of course. At the Coach's Corner, I always try my best to make sure the guest are comfortable & welcome. I'm glad to see you're enjoying yourself. So, what you're sayin' is that you're defending the black people's use for the N word was actually all for attention? I'm not out here to get you cancelled; I'm just a little bit confused. And I hope no one else is confused either.

m: I mean, why does anyone post on a forum is what im wondering. obviously I believe in what I said but I also have thousands of forum posts, that's a lot of time I could've spent learning how to play the piano or something but that's life

C: Hey, at least you enjoyed yourself. But yo, what are the issues with RGL you think?

m: well when corporate leagues like esea go bad, it's usually because no one cares, and when community leagues like rgl go bad it's usually because people let the tiniest bit of power go to their heads. In general tho seems like very little transparency there will be all this outrage and then 2 weeks later they put out a statement they dont defend themselves really in the moment and my issues with the anti-sandbagging stuff are still present

C: And what are the anti-sandbagging stuff?

m: RGL went WAY too far in terms of banning people from 'sandbagging' in advanced if they had already placed which leads to situations where like, player x plays roamer, finishes 4th, tries to find invite team and fails so now is banned from mainclassing in advanced which results in player either offclassing or not playing. And I've always thought sandbagging was the most overrated problem in tf2 anyways it's never been as bad as people make it out to be

C: I mean... If you sandbag you're usually shit. And if you sandbag and lose you're really shit. And it's fun to beat "sandbag" teams. Normally sandbag teams aren't all that. At least in HL, whenever I see a HL team sandbag it's usually comprised of players that are dogshit anyway so they wouldn't do well in div above. So I guess they belong in that division they're "sandbagging" anyway. 

m: Agreed! Shameless plug but I ranted on this on stream a few months back and the vod is still up.     

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/754372412    

m: I swear its not for viewers. I never stream, but if anyone has THIRTY MINUTES to kill just listening to me rant about this: it does exist

C: Ok, so what do you believe are the solutions to the issues you mentioned?

m: I generally think it tends to resolve itself. In a community league, admins can use discretion and decide that, if a whole TEAM is way too good, they get moved up, regardless of the experience of their players, but even that isn't always the best Maybe you can say it's bad when a team fucks around and offclasses all season and only tries in playoffs because it ruins seeding, so try to limit roster moves or class changing mid season. But honestly I think most people are just looking for excuses and they point to sandbaggers. Just get good, a highlander player from way back in the day named useoftoaster put it best: every time you're about to complain about sandbaggers replace the word "invite" with "really good" and see how ridiculous what you're saying sounds, like, "we can't beat them, they have too many really good players, it's not fair"

C: Yeah, people get into their heads over shit. Do you think RGL is a good league?

m: probably not. but will the alternatives really be better? I'll believe it when I see it. grass is always greener is dangerous too. the best thing about rgl are the teams that play in it. you don't wanna divide the scene, it sucks but that's the way it is.

C: Ok if you were appointed admin, what changes would you make to RGL?

m: I'd have a lot more things voted on by the community like the map pool, the match format, MAYBE whitelist (that's prolly more for invite), certain rules about sandbagging or banworthy offenses to an extent. that's the main thing. 

And I'd try to get a community manager to talk about this stuff without embarrassing themselves if I could find someone to do it for free or cheap

C: Okay I got some pictures I want to show you and I want to know your thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

m: looks like the sticker that some guy with a beanie and a skateboard would put on his macbook

C: ROFL

m: his eyes penetrate my soul. he has chad posture. I think I am intimidated. hes about to ban some idiots

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

m: keanu better give me my money back after CYBERPUNK am i right lolol

m: defund the poolice

C: all right before we conclude this interview is there anything else you'd like to say? since we have you on the coach's corner. what tf2/social/global issues would you like to bring up? whether they be topics, spiels, etc. any topic you want. the floor is yours.

m: uh not really. global warming is bad. makkabeus is bald. that's all I got