TeaGuvnor -- The road less traveled!

Written by Kary

If You Are Not Willing To Risk The Unusual, You Will Have To Settle For The Ordinary. -- Jim Rohn

Success is neither magical or mysterious, but normally involves us choosing the road not taken. Similar is the story of Robson Merritt, also known as TeaGuvnor, who chose to pursue esports as a career -- a place where only a handful ever make it, a road not chosen by many. The savvy Brit chose to pursue esports out of sheer passion, all thanks to ESL One Birmingham 2018, which inspired him to take his first steps into unchartered waters. As Robson says, “ESL One Birmingham 2018 was the first event I attended as a spectator, and just being in that crowd and the atmosphere gave me the chills”. With the love and support from family, Robson set out on his journey in the world of esports with all aspirations and no public image,knowing there'd be no certainty in his endeavors. After all, holding a degree in Robotics could have led to interesting career opportunities but rather went on to chase his own pursuit of happiness. He adds, “You don’t know if you don’t try. I set myself up to be able to fail and my life not be stifled by the pursuit of esports. Finishing my degree in robotics allowed me to then chase it head on.” Driven and determined to pave his own path, he started grinding solo queues to enhance his knowledge and opinion on the game. Climbing his way to the Top 300 of European MMR Leaderboard, he quickly got acquainted with a lot of high level players and one such name was Rasmus "MISERY" Filipsen. Little did Robson know the future that awaited him in the coming months. Forming an emotional connection with ESL Birmingham 2018 crowd favourites Pain Gaming, Robson got the opportunity to meet the players at their team signing session. Hadn’t it been for his friends, he’d never make it to the signing nor would he have the chance to lay down a Google document spreadsheet (albeit a messy looking one at that) outlining ‘breaking down of replays, mannerisms of teams and the way to approach drafts against such teams’ to Misery and Co. At this point, having struck a conversation, he got his maiden call up that saw him being flown to Romania for a three day boot-camp just prior to Chonqing Major in China. A big break and suddenly Robson found himself in an important role as a coach. It seemed as if he had the knack of cooperating with people and identifying attributes to fix and work on. To simplify in his own words, “You have to have aspirations in life. A boyhood dream is to be a player but let’s be realistic, I am British and we don’t produce DotA players (Exception TANNER). But through my upbringing I felt suited for a coaching role!” As the old saying goes, all that glitters isn’t gold, an apt saying that relates to Robson’s journey so far. A journey is nothing without any hurdles and Robson had his own share of hurdles to overcome. An introvert by nature, slowly trying to grow out of his shell, had an uphill task ahead of him post his work at Pain Gaming/Chaos Esports. He further adds, “As an introverted person slowly coming out of his shell, this in itself was my biggest hindrance of potentially securing future work after my time at Chaos as I focussed on my immediate connections rather than looking to create a larger frame of work. I just loved my team :)” With great power comes great responsibility and Robson had plenty of it. Coupling that with the emotional state of a guy just starting out in the industry, it must certainly take a toll on anyone’s mindset.There’s always a thought hovering over one’s head, questioning whether they have finally “made it” or how far will they go moving ahead. Robson certainly doesn’t feel like he has made it, yet. He casually talks about getting the opportunity to coach a Major/TI attending team, however, is also quick to mention that it’s difficult to make a name if someone isn’t a tier one talent or if a team doesn’t make good runs at events. Robson chimes in further, “I never really looked at building my own image during my time with Chaos outside of maybe a couple streamed community coaching sessions. I have not made it and I look forward to the challenge of being able to approach the broadcast side of Dota with the aim to provide analyst work that is aligned to the perspective of what pro teams do.” He continues, “Analyst work is where I am out nowadays and the lows come when you read every single bit of feedback from the likes of twitch / reddit and try to use it as a learning aid. It puts you in a weird headspace of always doubting yourself. It feels like I have gone back to square one after transitioning from coach to analyst. But I enjoy the challenge of it all and already have learnt so much from being around the experts. For example sheever during interviews or Kyle during the weplay pushka league. Invaluable advice!” Robson made his first appearance as an analyst at ESL Birmingham 2019, at a time where he was still finding his footing in the industry.  This occurred a year after ESL Birmingham 2018, which preceded his TI9 stint with Chaos. Few more offers and gigs later, he seemed to have found his vigour, i.e, broadcasting. Expressing his interest in pursuing the goal of becoming an analyst and providing detailed analysis, by using his experience with Chaos to his advantage, Robson wishes to help make people understand and improve their game. Although, he’s self critical of himself at this juncture, stating, “Issue is confidence -- as I know my stuff but it’s about conveying it correctly and being able to convince the audience that it is from a place of understanding and true love for the game. It’s not as simple as an ex-pro player now analyst, it’s a quieter coach doing it. I also believe that there is not enough analyst work at events that comes from people who have competed within the DPC circuit. So I feel it’s a healthy addition to start incorporating people that have this experience like Kyle & Synderen into analyst work more.” It was only apt to ask of him to share his thoughts on the resurgence of online leagues during the Covid-19 pandemic. He’s quick to add, “The formation of online leagues has been the best case scenario and has allowed for viewers / players / broadcast to be able to have their needed access to the game. It’s a strong showing of what the next DPC season would look like! Exciting!” Speaking of road less traveled, Robson goes down the memory lane reminiscing about Chaos just prior to TI9 qualifiers. He says, "Before we qualified for TI9, the lads and I went Kayaking up a river in Warsaw where we started at the bottom with 4 Kayaks. Milan and j4 gave up and parked the Kayak on a random beach and headed home in a taxi with their life jackets still on." He further adds, "Khezu, Misery and Pandeago gave up as well and only Matumbaman and myself ended up completing the course." The biggest lessons Robson learned from that experience is that Matumbaman is pretty darn good at Kayaking and to always double-check how long the course is so that one doesn’t try and Kayak through a rainy and cold Polish river for 15km. The path less traveled is often used more as a metaphor, but Robson and his team utilized both sides of the coin. "But we then did go on to qualify for TI, so this was great team building"

---

If you enjoyed this interview and would like you keep tabs on other features, follow the author on Twitter at @Karyb4u. In the meantime, you can visit our Dota 2 hub for more content. Featured image credits: ESL Image credits: Chaos EC