Humble Beginnings

Many know the story of the current Team EnVyUs in Overwatch, but few can chronicle the team’s journey throughout the history of the game. Initially known as Team IDDQD, the all-European squad established a reputation in excellence. Even when faced with roster changes, such as comings and goings of stars TviQ and Mendokusaii, IDDQD never faltered — in fact, the team boasted an unblemished record for months. As all successful unsigned rosters, IDDQD was eventually approached by Team EnVyUs, and the five-man roster of chipshajen, cocco, HarryHook, InternetHulk, and Taimou was married with former EnVyUs DPS player Talespin.

After a month-long hiatus that saw Cloud9 usurp the title of “best in the world,” Team EnVyUs came back in a dominant fashion. Despite early losses to Cloud9 and REUNITED upon their return, it was clear that EnVyUs would once again be a top tier team. Not long after their re-emergence came one of the team’s most notable achievements: the storied 57 match win streak. In reclaiming their number one spot in the world, Team EnVyUs failed to drop a set throughout the entirety of July, as well as most of both June and August.

Going into the Atlantic Showdown LAN event, Team EnVyUs stood out as clear favorites.

Slipping Through Their Fingers…

Most teams in the scene believed North America to be a stronger region than Europe going into the Atlantic Showdown simply due to the ability to practice against EnVyUs. Indeed, the beginning of the event seemed promising for North America — while Cloud9 faltered against Rogue, both Fnatic and EnVyUs came out blazing by defeating Misfits and Dignitas. After a loss to REUNITED, Rogue almost certainly was the underdog going into their match against the reigning kings, yet the ensuing series was one of the closest matches of the entire year.

In order to understand how surprising the series was, you’ll need to know how the European scene looked at the time. While Rogue was always a top team, they were by no means the best squad in Europe. In fact, the hottest team at the time was Misfits, who were winning nearly all the European online tournaments; Rogue failed to stand out from the “big four” of the time, which was composed of Misfits, REUNITED, Dignitas, and themselves.

Instead of a swift defeat at the hands of EnVyUs, Rogue ended up taking a competitive series 3–2 at the hands of winz’s clutch Zarya. Still, a 3rd place finish to the eventual winners of a tournament was respectable, albeit disappointing for the reigning kings of North America.

Photo credit: Turner Sports

The Overwatch Open was a second chance in many ways for Team EnVyUs. While the Atlantic Showdown demonstrated that Europe certainly had a leg up on the North American scene, EnVyUs was still a contender for the best team in the world. A close loss to Rogue was excusable should EnVyUs take home the next LAN event.

With a “free pass” to the finals given the structure of the Overwatch Open — the bracket was divided by region, with a North American side and a European side — EnVyUs found themselves comfortably waiting in the finals of the event. While Rogue was set to make a deep run after going undefeated in the group stage, they found themselves in EnVyUs’s old spot, staring down a 3–2 defeat to Misfits. However, this was no ordinary defeat. Misfits entered the Overwatch Open fielding two substitute players, as Zaprey had left the team and skipjack had family issues to attend to.

Nobody expected Misfits to join EnVyUs in the finals, and once they did qualify, nobody expected Misfits to win. One of the Twitter polls displayed on screen during the finals showed EnVyUs to be the favorite by a mark of 78% to 22% — a far cry from a fair match, to say the least. Yet, when it mattered most, EnVyUs did not just lose to Misfits; they crumbled by a score of 3–1 at the hands of a brand new roster on national television.

So far did EnVyUs stumble that the community labeled them as “chokers.” While they could dominate the North American teams with ease, EnVyUs continually failed against top tier European competition. No longer were they the kings of Overwatch, owners of a massive win streak; instead, Misfits, Rogue, Lunatic-Hai, and even Ninjas in Pyjamas were considered to be the best teams in the world.

One Step Ahead

Things always get worse before they get better.

A loss to Lunatic-Hai during the group stages of OGN’s APEX was not unexpected—after all, the Korean squad had taken two sets off of Rogue during the APAC premier, and many considered them to be a contender for the best team in the world. Of course, EnVyUs left their group as the second seed due to the loss, and the format of APEX meant that first seeds could pick out their first round opponent come playoffs.

Nobody in the right mind would pick the EnVyUs of old as a first round opponent, but the EnVyUs of the OGN APEX group stage was not the same team—despite the same roster. Rogue’s aKm confidently selected EnVyUs as an opponent, going as far as to say EnVyUs was “only the best team in NA.” All Taimou could do when faced with this trash talk was grimace and take it. Rogue was a 2x major champion. EnVyUs had nothing.

Of course, many wondered why Rogue chose EnVyUs, even in their current state. There were Korean teams that didn’t look half as good as even a struggling EnVyUs, but unfortunately, Rogue knew something that the community did not: EnVyUs was facing both visa issues and internal turmoil.

Despite resolved visa issues, Talespin—the original Team EnVyUs member on the team—released a statement to the public in which he bashed the work ethic of several members of the team. While he never stated outright where many of the problems stemmed from, he made one thing very clear: he did not get along with Taimou. Instead of finishing APEX with the rest of Team EnVyUs before leaving, Talespin refused to even board his flight to Korea, granting only four days for EnVyUs to find a replacement player before their first round match with Rogue.

Enter Mickie.

Photo credit: Fomos

A change to the metagame bringing D.Va and Soldier: 76 buffs was the catalyst for EnVyUs to return to their storied dominance—a chance for redemption. With the new roster came role swaps: Taimou stepped away from McCree to become the team’s primary Roadhog player, HarryHook took on the role of primary hitscan DPS, InternetHulk swapped over to Lucio, and Mickie entered as the team’s off-tank. What people did not yet know was exactly how good Mickie was.

EnVyUs managed to take home hard fought series against both Rogue and the Lunatic-Hai slayers, Kongdoo Uncia. While both victories were by slim margins, the way in which EnVyUs won was clear—HarryHook and Mickie were playing massive roles. Mickie managed to shut down TviQ in the first series, which is a stunning accomplishment for someone on four days of practice given that TviQ is a candidate for best player in the world.

EnVyUs emerged from their half of the bracket victorious and confident. It was no secret that the other half of APEX’s bracket was rather weak, and Team EnVyUs showed exactly how far they had come with their new roster by shutting out the other finalist, Afreeca Freecs Blue, with a swift 4–0.

The story of EnVyUs is riddled with trials and tribulations. EnVyUs was set to make a deep run at their next tournament—MLG Las Vegas—given that only North American teams were invited. Of course, EnVyUs had not lost a single set to an American team in almost half a year, and their victory at APEX only solidified people’s expectations: only first would be acceptable. Once again, however, visa issues struck down the star of Team EnVyUs.

Taimou, afflicted by illness and misfortune, was forced to traverse Finland in an attempt to procure both a temporary visa and an immediate flight ticket. While compLexity, EnVyUs’s first round opponent, was accommodating in terms of timing, they gave an unpracticed EnVyUs a hell of a rough time. compLexity took a solid first map and then pushed EnVyUs to the brink on Nepal by taking a 2–1 lead; however, Team EnVyUs pushed through in the end, as they seemed to get more and more comfortable playing together as the matches progressed.

In the end, EnVyUs took home another victory, solidly defeating FaZe in the finals by denying them even a single point through four maps. More importantly, though, was that EnVyUs finally made good on their old claim—they were finally the best team in the world. Despite the old sentiment of “57–0 don’t mean a thing without a ring,” EnVyUs now has two titles—and a star-studded roster ready to chase even more.