Of all the teams playing in the upcoming Alienware Monthly Melee, perhaps none have more to gain than Spicy Boys. The only participants not signed to an organization, they’ll be looking to put on a strong showing, hoping to follow other teams like Kingdom (now Renegades) that built solid reputations through the Monthly Melees.
Although this is Spicy Boys’ first appearance in a Monthly Melee, several of their players are veterans of the series. Dan “spOh” Street participated in the July edition with Sea Algae, and was a sub for Tempo Storm in another edition. Ryan “sycknesS” Mitchell played the May Melee with Xensity. Spicy Boys, who briefly played under the name The Sombrereros, have been together only since November, but have put up an impressive 25-8 record, including winning 18 of their last 20 games.
GosuGamers sat down with spOh to get his thoughts on the Melee, the meta and Spicy Boys' search for an org.
So first, tell me little a bit about yourself. What brought you to Overwatch? Is it your first competitive game?
The first two games that got me into gaming competitively were Counter-Strike and Warcraft 3. While they are two completely different games, I had no aspirations of trying to go pro in them at the time. My focus was just to try and constantly improve at the game however I could, though knowing how to even go about that is also a learning process in itself. I was able to attain some Cal-i experience in Counter-Strike and was in the top 20 on solo/arranged team ladders, and third on ffa ladder in Warcraft 3. I had also entered high school around that time and in addition to my studies, I was also pretty invested in athletic sports, so my time was limited outside of that.
After graduating high school, I decided to take some time off before attending university and got interested in a game called World of Warcraft that was coming out soon. Previously, I never had the time to invest obscene hours into a game and dedicate myself to see how successful I could be, so this was a new territory for me. Fortunately, a lot of that dedication paid off as with the release of their first expansion, Burning Crusade, arenas became the focus of the PvP side of the game, and the competitive scene took off. That's where my professional career started, with World of Warcraft arenas in 2007, where I've been part of teams such as Evil Geniuses, that have won/placed in tournament circuits such as MLG, IEM, Dreamhack, and Blizzcon.
Fast forward to late 2015, shortly before Overwatch beta released, I started playing CS:GO to refamilarize myself with shooters as I had some interest in Overwatch and hadn’t played an FPS in a couple years. Between this time and my WoW career, I had played several titles that had promise of a competitive scene, most of which went nowhere. Going in, I had no expectations about Overwatch or pursuing it as a professional career, but shortly after getting into the beta upon release, I was convinced this game was going places and I wanted to give it a real shot once again.
So you've been around the block when it comes to esports. Speaking of being around the block, you've been on several teams since Overwach came out, most notably Sea Algae. Now you're on a relatively new team, Spicy Boys. How did the team come together? Also, I have to ask: where did that name come from?
I'm pretty sure it was TiG, who I only knew from the competitive ladder at the time, who had asked if I had interest in a roster that he was trying to put together. The story for the rest of the players is pretty much the same, except for Syckness who wasn't on the original roster, but ended up joining about a week afterwards. As for the team name, I'm honestly not sure who came up with it as we had a plethora of ridiculous names that we could choose from.
So "ridiculous" was definitely a criteria for the team name? I think I saw "The Sombrereros" was a name you all went by very briefly. What were some of the others?
We had some memeworthy names, some names that were plays on actual organizations (like Sea Algae was), and some that were designed to troll casters because of the difficulty of the name (i.e. Sombrereros). We entered one of the minor tournaments only having scrimmed together for a couple hours and the casters kept messing up the pronunciation of Sombrereros, and asked if we could change it. While that wasn't the reason we changed the name, it was amusing that we were asked to in the first place. Our current team name came from a petition to change the name of fire ants to "Spicy Boys".
Based off these performances, I'd say our team is a contender for winning the tournament, but not the favorite to win. None of these teams are easy matches and we will have to take every match seriously. We've got the opportunity to be here, now we just have to make the most of it.
So speaking of tournaments, you guys have been invited to the Alienware Monthly Melee that's taking place this weekend. You'll be in a group with FaZe, Denial, and Rise. What are your goals heading into the event?
Our goal is pretty simple: show up, play our best and give 100%. We've been scrimming several of the top teams for a while and have had pretty good results, dating back to the NGE qualifiers. While scrims are a rough barometer at best for how a team is doing, consistency in performance whether its in scrims or tournaments, has usually been one of our strong points. Based off these performances, I'd say our team is a contender for winning the tournament, but not the favorite to win. None of these teams are easy matches and we will have to take every match seriously. We've got the opportunity to be here, now we just have to make the most of it.
That’s certainly a worthy goal. So as of right now (Tuesday evening), the PTR changes haven’t been pushed live. Have you had an opportunity to scrim on the PTR? Do you think you guys will have a better shot this weekend of the changes go live or if things stay as they are?
We've scrimmed a decent amount on PTR in addition to all the practice we've had on live. We've been experimenting there a lot to see what works and what doesn't so we will be prepared whenever the patch hits. Five of the six of our players on our team were originally on fragger roles, so a less tank-centric meta won't be a problem for us if the patch hits prior to the start of the tournament.
The patch will open up the door for a variety of fragger heroes to be utilized once again, but I don't think it will completely phase out tank heavy comps, just make them niche picks. This will also open the door to Zenyatta and Mercy getting experimented with more as Ana becomes less of a mandatory pick. Based off our experiences versus other top teams on the PTR, it's hard to say if there will be a defined meta and what exactly that would be. Teams seem to be either experimenting with different comps to see what's viable or tailoring comps to revolve around some of their best hero picks.
So, one last question. Spicy Boys will be the only unsigned team at the tournament. A few other teams have used previous Alienware Monthly Melees to catapult themselves into the public eye. Tell me about the chase for an organization: what’s your “elevator pitch”? What sets you apart and makes you a team that organizations should take note of?
There are some out there that believe an unsponsored team has no place in a tournament like this, but they wouldn't say that to us at LAN. We have the chillest comps, executing the freshest strats, and getting the spiciest frags.
On a more serious note, we've been approached by several orgs so far, both big and small, but we're still searching for the right fit. It's about finding an organization that we're happy with and one that is confident in our ability to perform at the highest levels of competition. Finding the right organization where both sides can mutually benefit can be tough, but we're committed to it. This is our moment to show we belong with the top teams and we'll make the most of it this weekend.
Thank you so much for your time. Do you have any shout outs you'd like to make?
I'd like to give a shoutout to our spons... um... heh, just to my teammates then and to those who gave us the opportunity to play in the upcoming tournament. And thanks for the interview.
Thanks again, and good luck this weekend!
You can follow spOh on Twitter at @TeamSpoh, and Spicy Boys is at @SpicyBoysOW. You can follow me at @PestoEnthusiast.
For more competitive Overwatch news, follow us @GosuOverwatch.
