Being one of the first pro players in Overwatch we had the chance to interview Greg 'Grego' McAllen from Cloud 9, who are curently the best Overwatch team in the world.





Can you tell us a little bit about your gaming history and how you got into being a top Overwatch player?

Grego: I started out competitive gaming in Shootmania, when that game died I moved on to CSGO to play at a semi-pro level. A friend of mine (who isn't on the team anymore) wanted me to ring for my current team before they were cloud 9, they ended up liking me and asked me to stick with them.

Do you have any hobbies besides Overwatch and do you play other games in your free time?

Grego: My only current hobby is gaming, aside from Overwatch I currently play Street fighter, WoW, and random new game releases.

At what point did you decide to make gaming your fulltime profession? Did you have to give up any job/study for it?

Grego: I was part time going to school when I was playing Shootmania. Once I got a taste of going to tournaments and competing I knew it was what I wanted to do fulltime and set out to make it happen.

Let's talk about your team a bit. Can you describe each one of your teammates' personality with one sentence?

Grego: Kyky - a bit of a mix of bro and Alpha/leader qualities. Adam - 90% chill 10% troll. Debett - Bro-est bro there is, true homie. Reaver - Similar to Debett but high energy, funny guy. Surefour - A true gamer, he is always playing something, he is a machine.

What is everyone's role within the team and what is their main focus during games?

Grego: Surefour and Reaver shoot heads and do it well. Debett keeps that shield up and puts a lot of focus on the other Reinhardt status. Kyky's job depends on the team comp, but either disruption from Winston or saving people with Zarya. Adam stays alive and keeps people alive. For me I try to communicate when the best time to engage is. When the fight starts I focus on peeling for my teammates with Lucio's Right click.

Let's switch over to the game. Which is your favourite hero and why?

Grego: Favorite hero is a hard choice between Lucio/Widowmaker. But I'll answer for Lucio and its because he's just so damn impactful in so many ways, and his movement is extremely fun.

Blizzard mentioned that they will do balance changes to Mccree , D.VA and Widowmaker. Which hero do you think also needs some balancing changes?

Grego: Zenyatta needs a rework. Preferably a 25 health buff and a minor escape, maybe something similar to Dhalsims v-skill in Street Fighter 5 where he lifts up in the air and floats away.

In tournaments you often play a stopwatch system, what do you think about it? Should Blizzard implement this system in the game?

Grego: It is my belief that Stopwatch is the best to watch and play. Blizzard should just implement stopwatch into the game so that the game ends properly when someone fails to complete the map fast enough.

Some tournaments allow you to only pick a hero once per team to prevent tactics like double Winston or double Lucio. What do you think about that rule, would you rather see it gone?

Grego: I do not like the 1 hero limit, I feel it makes the game more stale. The argument was that 1 hero limit would bring more comps into the meta but I feel it does the exact opposite and that people who are saying that have not done proper research on comps that are working for the tier 1 teams. Seems like they are simply looking at the basic comps that are abused on multiple maps (double Mccree, double Winston etc). While that kind of comp might be slightly too strong, it was not even close to the only kind of comp we used. In fact we still used no hero stacking at times. I think I would rather just rely on Blizzard to balance the game around a 2 hero limit or something.

To wrap up the interview, do you think the game needs more supports and tanks, since there are only 4 supports and 5 tanks in the game?

Grego: More supports please, we need some flashy support heroes that viewers enjoy seeing.

Any shoutouts?

Grego: Cloud 9 and all of our sponsors for helping us out, we couldn't be happier with everyone involved. Shoutout to my team for being the people and players they are, and Mom, hi mom.