He's one of the last first-generation Overwatch pro players still competing. Starting in closed beta in 2015, competing in the first LAN tournaments Overwatch has had and even making it to the inaugural season of the Overwatch League, Seb "numlocked" Barton has done it all. With us, he talks about his multi-faceted career, recent challenges and his ambitions to get back into Overwatch League.

Let’s start with something topical. What do you think of Echo? What kind of comps could you imagine her in? Is she healthy for the competitive environment, assuming we’ll see some number tweaks?



The hero seems nuts, both in a good and bad way. I’m excited to see how creative people can get with the hero, like the clip we saw from libero (rip nerf already), but it’s only the beginning and things are gonna get crazy. It seems really over-tuned though, just in terms of the numbers it puts out. Definitely healthy, though. Creative kits are always exciting to see in professional play. I do worry about the ult because I know League of Legends developers say Sylas was the biggest mistake they made and that’s a hero that only steals the ultimate ability, not a whole kit. She’ll probably see a lot of play with dive, she seems like she can endlessly roll the enemy team if she has the space and pressure to do so.



You’ve made it all the way to Trials finals this week, seemingly adjusting well to hero pools. Do you like the new ruleset? Would you like to see adjustments?



I’m definitely a fan of hero pools. It feels a bit rough if you’re in trials/contenders each week whilst OWL is going on because you only really have 2 days to adjust to the new meta/bans, but it’s definitely refreshing and keeps you on your toes. Whether or not I think it’s better I’m still not sure about but I’m definitely enjoying having to think about different ways to play the game. I think more consistency in the bans for trials/contenders would be nice, which we have seen so far with the lack of OWL, but hopefully that’s the case when it returns.

Read more - British Hurricane Win Contenders Week 1, Even With Coach Stepping In Briefly

You’ve recently joined Toronto Defiant’s academy team Montreal Rebellion. It seems you can’t escape the French. What do you feel the identity of the team is? How does it compare to past teams you’ve been in?

It’s a little rough just because we have more than half the team on ping, whereas with Envy only me and Haffi had high ping, or in Hurricane we were all on low ping. It definitely creates more of an uphill battle than there should be, but it doesn’t affect anything outside of the ping though. No one is upset about the fact etc. There’s a lot of contributions from people during review, everyone seems engaged and eager, I like it so far.

I think this last year, especially with Hurricane, I was the best main tank in Europe.

We’ve seen a bit of ball from you and it looks really smooth. Where does Wreckingball fit in meta compositions? Are there bans that would help him be generally viable? Is he enjoyable to play in scrims and matches?

He’s mostly being played as a disruptor/hard engage tool in this meta, depending on which variation of the meta is being played. Basically any hero that has hard CC being banned opens up ball to be played. If there’s no Brigitte, Mei or McCree, ball gets so much done. I think he’s probably the most fun hero to play in Overwatch. He has the kind of creative kit I praised earlier where you’re not too restricted in your play by his kit, mostly in your creativity in using the tools provided to you. There’s a lot of different ways to play him and mixing it up to keep your enemies on their toes is really fun.