As the founder and CEO of Cloud9, Jack Etienne is one of the most prominent esports organisation owners in the industry.

Cloud9 has successful teams in League of Legends, Counter-Strike, and a number of other esports, but tonight Etienne will be focusing on the efforts of the London Spitfire, Cloud9's Overwatch League team.

Mail Esports chatted to Jack Etienne about the past, present, and future of the team ahead of Spitfire's crucial OWL playoff match against the Los Angeles Gladiators.

London Spitfire won the Stage 1 title match, but can they make it past LA Gladiators tonight?

London Spitfire started off the season extremely well. They won the Stage 1 title, beating New York Excelsior who are currently favourites to win the whole thing. But, after what Jack Etienne describes as 'bumps in the road,' Spitfire aren't in quite as good a position going into the season playoffs.

'I think we've got a good chance at a run at the final, but we've got our hardest boss in front of us,' said Etienne.

So far, Spitfire has lost every single game it's played against Gladiators, including in the pre-season. Right now, they're one game down in the playoff too, and will have to make a strong comeback tonight starting at 9pm BST.

'It's our turn to win,' said Etienne. 'I want to knock these guys down because they've repeatedly knocked us over and bullied us around all year. It's our turn to shine.'

So, what do you do when you have a bogey team that you just can't get past?

'I think you have to focus on your own game and not stress about the other team. Just focus on your strengths and try to come up with the best game plan possible, and also be flexible to change.

'A big weakness of ours is we stick with something that doesn't work over and over again. A lot of preparation has gone into being flexible, and if something isn't working, then we have to fix it on the fly. Those are the mistakes of the past, and we're going to try and learn from those and change in the future.'

Spitfire are coming up against Los Angeles Gladiators, a team they've never beaten so far

Spitfire started off the season with one of the biggest rosters in the league. The roster comprised of players from Kongdoo Panthera and GC Busan formed one of the most fearsome squads in Overwatch.

It also allowed the team to do internal scrims. 6 vs 6 with of the best Overwatch players around. But when it came time to select a team for OWL matches, Spitfire struggled. It seemed like almost every match featured a different lineup of players, and the inconsistency started to hurt the team.

'We had 12 guys that all deserved to be on stage. The players wanted to give everybody else a chance, and we had a hard time locking in the six guys we should be putting on stage. There isn't enough experience on stage to give everyone an equal share of time, even though they wanted to do that for each other.'

Over the course of the season, Spitfire has offloaded players to other teams in the league, and into developmental teams. With a squad cut down to seven, more effort can go into developing these players.

'Now we have a clear focus on developing these guys to being the best roster we have, rather than trying to swap out guys for a different situation.'

Jack Etienne is owner of Cloud9 and Spitfire

The core group of players is now working to understand recent changes to the Overwatch meta, and Etienne says they're feeling confident in their progression. They think that the Gladiators will be their biggest hurdle in getting to the grand final. And now, a game down, it's going to be a tough one to overcome.

Of course, if Spitfire doesn't reach the OWL finals, it's not the end. Season 2 will start up next year, and they'll go again. During the offseason, Spitfire management will be looking at any opportunities for improvement.

Luckily, they have one of the best Contenders teams to choose from. British Hurricane, European Season 1 champions, is also owned by Cloud9.

'Coming through their first Contenders season, winning it, and also beating the top North American team, proving that EU is better than NA, made us all feel good,' said Etienne.

'Once the season is over for Overwatch, we're going to be looking for opportunities to see which players can potentially cross over to the Overwatch League. We're going to continue to really develop European talent in our Contenders team and when we find players that are ready for OWL we'll pull them over to the squad when we can.'

A problem with this plan is the language barrier. Every member of the London Spitfire team is Korean, while British Hurricane is made up entirely of European players.

British Hurricane, also owned by Etienne, are the European Contenders Season 1 champions

'Their [Spitfire players'] English is getting stronger and always getting better. I've been successful teams with multi-language teams before where everyone learns to communicate in English as a base language. I've had mixes between Western players and Korean players for years so I know it's possible. We've seen it's been very successful in Overwatch League, so it's definitely a possibility we will be exploring.'

If there aren't any spots on Spitfire, then Cloud9 will be helping the Hurricane players to find spots on other OWL teams.

'It's the ultimate goal. All [Hurricane] players that are ready to get onto an OWL team that's on our Contenders team, we help them make that happen. Definitely we would've of course tried to see if there's a fit on Spitfire first.'

Looking further into the future, Spitfire will eventually be playing home games at their own HQ in London. Etienne says they are keeping their options open right now, and that they haven't signed with any partners for a potential venue just yet.

'I've honestly been so proud of our fans, having to stay up into late hours at night to watch and support the team. I can't wait to get to the point where we have our games in our region at a region appropriate time. It's something I've really been pushing for, to get better times for next year, until we get out to London. I'm super excited about the future for when we actually have our games there.'

People in London can join together with fellow fans tonight at the Spitfire viewing party at Loading Bar's Server branch in Shepherd's Bush. Attendees will be hoping that one day they'll be able to go to matches in person.