Tim "Manneten" Bylund began his Overwatch career nearly two and a half years ago. It’s taken him to South Korea, all across Europe, and even venturing into Australia for competition. While he and the Florida Mayhem may have parted ways, this Swedish native is unphased. Esports Heaven caught up with Manneten has he prepared to depart for Bangkok Thailand to represent his country in the 2018 Overwatch World Cup Qualifiers.

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It has been amazing so far and for some reason feels like it went by so fast! I even remember writing that interview and living in Korea with the team like it's in the back of my head. Coming into Overwatch and hearing what Blizzard’s idea about the game [was] and how they wanted to really invest into the esports scene really made me confident in that the game would grow as an esport every year. Now looking back I don't think anyone expected it to grow this much in just a little over two years, it's unbelievable.

The first thing that comes to mind is the double map pick drama with both us Misfits and Gigantti picking the same map twice which if I recall correctly is the first time it was allowed in Overwatch. Other than that it was an amazing match that went back and forth and truly showed how good a team can be on their pocket map, but the match eventually ended in a tight game of Illios and some crucial clutches from LiNkzr.

I don't think there was a single main reason for our Season 1 failure but more like a ton of small ones. Our starting staff roster was obviously a bit too small and we were, for some reason, really nervous on stage at the beginning of Stage 1. [This] made our practice very different which is not good and took us way too long to fix. [We also had] delayed visas and many other things. So I would basically just summarize it as some unfortunate things combined with a lot of personal and team failures around practice.

The trade offer itself started after the world cup where this all-star Swedish roster was on people's minds, But it required a three-way trade to bring us all together and it was pretty stressful as it was a big decision and no matter the choice I would have let one team down as well as having 3 owners who obviously want as good of a roster as possible but somehow they managed to make it happen.

Thank you, Frank, Ben and Steve .

Yeah, Mineral is the longest standing friend I am playing with now with around two and a half years and our only time apart was the period between early Swedish Misfits and 2-3 months later as we picked him up as head coach.

And for people that don't know him, [Mineral]

is a very strong leader and also very experienced in that role both as a player and coach. He also works well around helping players with personal problems on the side and getting everyone on the right foot for practice and officials.

Most players would be surprised by the intensity of the league and how every day of practice is 1/3 of the time you have to prepare for a team. Also, don't overwork yourself. If you play extra hours of ranked, but can't show up in practice with 110% energy then don't force ranked games. I can't stress enough how important consistent practice is and if just 1-2 of your teammates are not fully ready it can destroy the team's engine.

I would love to play the DPS role again, but it would require a ton of grinding and I would see myself playing in Contenders first to prove myself. I do believe I could be a good DPS mostly because of my communication and how I have kind of a different perspective now after playing flex for one and a half years. And looking back, I always had the aim for it, just not the experience or confidence that I have now.

With aWesomeguy, Sayaplayer and r2der coming in, especially so late in the season with the delayed visas and et cetera, I think it was hard for them to really bring in their culture and more that they had to adapt with the small timeline we had. Overall, we mixed very well considering, but it was obvious that if they could change and rework our structure, they would.

I worded that story pretty poorly and it was more r2der explaining how different the cultures are and not him being super strict. I think again it was hard for r2der to come in so late in the season when we had already set the way we practice and work as a team, as well as us thinking he didn't need a translator because his English is actually pretty good. But for him to be able to help us with all the tiny details and be more hands-on we needed a translator which we got a few weeks later. Maybe if we prepared r2der’s integration a bit better and tried his way of everything maybe it would have been better who knows.

The practice has been going fine even though half our team is always on like 160-200 ping because of half our team living in LA currently, so it's going to be amazing to see how we can play with no ping on LAN. It feels great to play for Sweden once again, but this time, it feels like there is more pressure since I can prove myself again, but it's also going to be fun playing on stage again and hopefully, we will be sliding through into Blizzcon once again!

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Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLGs of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at

@Volamel

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Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.