S2 of Contenders, World Cup & The Future

Hello friends, fans and family,



I've been meaning to give my narrative from the past months events, mainly Contenders and World Cup. Coming out of S1 Contenders with a score of 0-5, I was obviously pretty worried on what the future held for me, but my performances have always spoken for themselves, and those managed to land me a couple of really good trials both on the NA and EU side of Contenders. There is something about going 0-5 in a season, and still getting trials and opportunities from renowned teams that just made me feel so much better. On the EU side I was trialing with Gigantti and actually had the opportunity to join them, and on the NA side I was mainly playing with EnVision (now EnVyUS). I ended up playing with EnVision in BEAT invitational and continued to browse my options. Eventually I decided to go with OpTic Academy (now GGEA) which meant I could compete in S2 of NA Contenders. Looking back, I'll always wonder about the choices I didn't take, but I'm still happy with the fact that I gave NA Contenders a shot. I want to thank my team for the experience especially Sharp, Greyy and Smurf for the great banter and quality ranked games. Even though our season had its ups and downs, I'm still grateful for all the new friendships I've gathered along the way.



After Contenders ended it was time to focus on OWWC. The World Cup was always something I cherished as a player, so before anything else I want to thank Blizzard, all the production people, the talent and all the other teams for the great experience. Practicing and scrimming in a full Danish environment is super fun, and since we are all great friends, it became an even greater experience. Going into the matches, we felt pretty confident even though our practice regiment wasn't super ideal. I was in Texas and Shax was in California for most of our scrims. We didn't exactly end up playing what we practiced that often, mainly Sombra comps that we had a lot of success with in scrims as we faced a lot more diverse comps on stage than what we'd practiced against. Coming out on top on day 1 with a 2-0 score, we felt super confident in our ability to make it to BlizzCon. We still had some super hard matches to go, mainly China and Australia. The Chinese players at World Cup have always impressed me, and they've always felt super dominant just like last years group stage in Shanghai. We ended up beating Australia 3-1 which meant we were even closer to the reality of making BlizzCon. As I predicted, we now had the hardest match of the group stage, our match vs. China. I still can't believe how close it was. Even to this day it makes me fill up with regret that we couldn't just take one more map. But at the time, a 2-3 score against arguably the best team at the event was still a victory. All we had to do now was beat Sweden, who didn't look too hot coming into the matches. We knew Sweden would probably favor more tank-heavy compositions, and us having practiced against mostly this in our scrims, we felt pretty confident going in. I feel super satisfied with my own performance in this match, but it was pretty obvious that the team felt the pressure of having to actually win to make it. Our decision making was super sloppy and our comms got really hectic, and we couldn't close out the match. Once again, it was just a matter of 'one more map'. Looking back that seems like a concurrent theme in this story.. Just one more map and we would have made it. We still had a chance though, we just needed China to win 4-0 against Australia, but having played both teams, that didn't seem likely. Even though we beat Australia, they still performed super well and are a scary team to go up against. That match ended up going 3-2 in Chinas favor, and unfortunately, the point system doesn't favor head-to-head. Which meant we were out. Regardless of the regrets it was still the best event I've ever attended. Thanks to all the fans for coming out and cheering so hard, not just for Thailand, but for every team, you guys are truly the best.



As for the future, I'm not entirely sure what it holds, but I'm hoping that I will be playing on the mainstage of The Overwatch League for Season 2. That's been my sole goal since it was announced, and I'm working harder than ever towards achieving it.



Thanks for reading and always supporting me.

With love,

Mads 'fischer' Jehg.

Reply · Report Post