Interview with Cloud9’s Mendokusaii

One of the best DPS players in Overwatch shares his thoughts on the map pool, tank meta, and more.

Courtesy of Major League Gaming

Mendo was kind enough to take some time for an interview with myself:

“Hey there Mendo, how’s it going man?”

Hey! It’s all good, on the stream grind after MLG. Streaming tons and was grinding for high ladder placement during our winter break.

“In a couple sentences can you introduce yourself for those who might not know exactly who Mendokusaii is?”

My name is Lucas “Mendokusaii” Håkansson, I’m an 18 year old Swedish kid who does nothing but play games all day every day. I play Overwatch professionally for Cloud9 and it’s my first game that I’ve played competitively!

“How has it been playing with Cloud9 over the past couple months?”

Cloud9 has been amazing! Everyone in Cloud9 is awesome, and especially my teammates who I’ve spent almost every single day with for the past few months. We’re all nerds! It’s amazing, we spend a lot of time playing board games together as well as playing ranked Overwatch together.

“Can you give us a funny or serious story that most people might not know about Surefour, KyKy, or one of the other members?”

I have tons of funny stories about me and Surefour. There’s the late night hot tub one, there’s the one where he invaded my room with toilet paper and wrapped me in it. Or when he walked into my room while I was streaming and tipped my chair back so I fell on the ground. There’s just too many!!

“What is your professional opinion on the current meta? Do you think it’s good or bad for competitive Overwatch, and why or why not?”

I think the tank meta is extremely bad for competitive Overwatch, it is not fun to play, it is not fun or “PogChamp”-y to watch. There are not a lot of INSANE plays where pro players can really display just what they are capable of doing.

“Is there a change you would make to a hero or two which could potentially change the meta? If so, what might they be?”

I would want Roadhog’s hook ability to be put on a more utility based support character, and leave tanks to be just that; tanks. I’d like a hook be something that doesn’t mean 100% instant kill. But rather be something where you hit the hook and your team has to follow up for the kill. The hook itself and the means to instantly kill the target shouldn’t all be put on the same character, especially not a tank character. I also think Ana’s grenade should reduce healing by x% instead of completely negating all healing. But these are just my opinions as a player, in the end I want this game to be healthy and successful in terms of competitive play and esports even if I don’t personally agree with all the decisions Blizzard makes.

“What about with the Symmetra rework just going live. Do you believe she’ll see play at the pro level?”

Yes, the general theme of the game in its current state is characters being tanky. Symmetra makes everyone more tanky, she will definitely see play on first points and occasionally last points.

“Do you think Sombra is weak/strong in pro play with her current kit, or will something need changed with her as well?”

I wouldn’t say she’s weak, she’s just not a tank. She has the one trick where she can get a fast ult and you can try to win a fight with that, but it gets counterplayed after a while when people learn to play against it. I don’t think she needs changes, I think the tanks needs changes.

“How was your overall experience at MLG Vegas and were you happy with yourself and the teams performance?”

Overall I had a great experience, I met a lot of awesome people and playing on a stage for the first time was so much fun. The meta this patch doesn’t favor our team at all, and the pre-determined map system was very bad for us because we had to play basically all our worst maps. But I think we did pretty well, sure, we could have done better in hindsight but personally I learned a lot. We learned a lot as a team, I think we should play more towards our strengths and not focus as much on following the meta, especially if the meta isn’t a good one for us.

“I know the map pool was an issue for many people coming into MLG Vegas. Now that it’s after the event, do you have any opinions on why the map pool was good/bad for the Vegas event? And what is your personal preference on how it should be set up for future events?”

Pre-determined maps can work if we get plenty of time to practice the map pool before the event, but MLG changed the entire map pool 1 day before our practice ended. Changing the map pool that close to the event, with a pre-determined map system is not a good thing. Personally, I like drafting, a system like DreamHack’s ban-ban-ban-ban-pick-pick system is an amazing way to decide what maps to play. There’s a risk with having a draft system like this however; this means that some maps will see more play than other maps and some maps won’t get to see any play at all. For example, 2CP will basically never see any pro-level play if there is a draft system, and King’s Row will see very consistent pro-level play.

“I hear you’re Tisumi’s #1 fan, is it true that Tisumi > Surefour?”

Yes, for sure. Surefour is overrated compared to Tisumi. Tisumi is actually the best player in Overwatch BY FAR.

“What’s the last anime you watched that you would recommend to people? VoHiYo”

Haikyuu!! It’s my favorite anime for sure. I love competing, I basically live for it, and this anime is all about competing and improving as a team and individually.

Watching it on Crunchyroll is something I would strongly recommend. ;)

“Alright dude, thanks a lot for joining me for this interview. Is there any shoutouts you’d like to give to anyone?”

Shoutout to all my teammates for being awesome and shoutout to Cloud9 for being amazing. I’m very lucky to be able to play in a team filled with so many amazingly talented players and to be a part of the Cloud9 organization!

Special thanks again to Lucas for joining me for an interview. I wish him and Cloud9 the best of luck in their upcoming tournaments!

Make sure to follow Lucas “Mendokusaii” Håkansson on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Mendokusaii

Also follow Cloud9 on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Cloud9