This week I had the privilege to speak with Liam "Mangachu" Campbell and discuss his history in gaming, his background in Team Fortress 2, and what he think is on the horizon for Overwatch with the proposed changes on the Player Test Realm (PTR).

Afternoon Mangachu, how are you doing today? Hopefully Michigan is treating you well?

Michigan is treating me great so far, I love being here with my teammates and playing with them side by side.

Let's start from the beginning, talk to me about what games you grew up with? Any games in particular poke out in your memory that influenced you?

I started playing World of Warcraft in late 2006 or around the time Burning Crusade came out. Played that for a few years and my parents ended up finding this random trailer for Team Fortress 2. Our initial plan was to play it as family every week, but we only ended up doing that once. I stuck with it and it became my main competitive game up until around 2015. Then I pretty much quit the game and started to play Super Smash Brothers Melee and Project M for a good chunk of time.

As many players in Overwatch tend to do, you also come from a background in Team Fortress 2, could go talk about your history with the game? Any favorite memories from the TF2 days?

A good majority of the time that I played TF2, I was slept on in my opinion. Not a lot of people had a very good opinion on me and my ability to play TF2, but with my last season I ended up placing top 3 in NA, which is a pretty good note to end on. My favourite experience was probably any of the LANs I've been to, meeting people was an awesome experience.

As a follower of Super Smash Bros. Melee myself, I do see you tweeting about it when there is a major tournament being streamed. Could you talk a little bit about that? Maybe a favorite player who want to give a shoutout?

I'm a big fan of Smash Brothers, I play both Melee and Project M all the time — Project M being a mod of the Wii's version, Brawl — to play more like Melee. But most of the time I love watching Melee. Both games were pretty much my downtime from TF2 to Overwatch, and I ended up being the main streamer for Project M in southern Ontario. My favourite Melee players would probably be Swedish Delight (sponsorship bias, but I loved watching him play at Smash ‘n Splash 2 and CEO Dreamland), n0ne, and Mang0. For Project M it would probably be Switch, Thunderz, and n0ne again.

Staying on that same topic, I’m fairly ignorant on this topic and thought you would be able to talk more about this than I. Comparatively, in TF2, has there been anyone that has stood out more in Overwatch than back in their Team Fortress 2 career?

There are two different game modes in TF2, Highlander and 6v6. So there are players like my teammate j3sus and Kresnik,  who is currently on Selfless Gaming, who played Higherland, but in all honesty I have no idea how good they were at the game mode, so I can't compare. But one player who stands out to me is Spirit who was on Rise Nation. He has really good mechanics and has probably improved the most coming from TF2 to Overwatch.

We can look on the surface level of both games and see some comparisons, but overall, do you think the Team Fortress 2 pro-players that did make the transition over to Overwatch have done well overall? Could you go more in-depth as to why do you think that is? Do the mechanics of TF2 carry over that heavily, or is there something else that played a role?

In all honesty, TF2 is a completely different game from Overwatch. The only things that are similar are the objectives, some mechanics and the ability to change heroes. The only things that could really carry over from TF2 are your communication skills and your ability to aim. The region that has probably stood out the largest in terms of TF2 players carrying over is Europe. A very large percent of the people that play from that region are TF2 players and I'm happy to see them being so successful. NA and Korea have a lot of tf2 players as well, but European tf2 players stand out to me.

Speaking of mechanics, your Pharah is out of this world. I did have the chance to talk to you in my last article about some of the people who influenced your style of play. Could you go a bit more indepth into who left a lasting impact on you as a player? I know Talespin was someone who you respected, anyone else that you care to mention?

In the closed beta a large portion of my inspiration comes from Talespin. His overall Pharah play was by far the best in the game and it was an amazing experience to play against whenever I could. But since he left EnVyUs I haven't really had the chance to learn much from him and I've started to notice other Pharah players who have shown me so many things since then. One of them is ID_ from Team Liquid, his Pharah is probably the most annoying to play against solely because of his movement, I can never consistently 1v1 him.

The other Pharah who stands out the most to be is Surefour from Cloud 9. He is probably the best Pharah in the game and he has the privilege to play with Adam, who is probably the best mercy in the game. I got to play against these two in closed beta but they never really played Pharah/Mercy. Then after they went to Korea for APEX they came back with both the best Pharah and Mercy in the game. They work so well together and it's a great learning experience to play against both of them.

On more of a personal topic, when you broke out the Hanzo during the Rivalcade Overwatch Rumble, was this a sign of things to come? With his recent changes, do you think he can see some serious playtime or is this more of a map dependant pick?

I think he'll see more play than he had before at the very least, but not too much considering how much he sucks against dive. He is a very good character though, Scatter Shot is broken and being able to shoot the moment you leave a wall climb has created some really stupid sightlines, so you can expect more of him in the future.

Try and put yourself in a spectator's shoes for this next question. For all the rising talent in North America that may be partaking in the Overwatch Contenders tournament, who might you point to as someone that people could look to that could influence their play? Anyone that comes off the top of your head that is really informative or has a creative outlook on something?

A good team to watch just to learn the basics of Overwatch would probably be Seagull’s team, Kelvin and the Chipmunks. They are pretty much the only team that streamed every point of view so you can get a good feel of everything going on.

Speaking of Contenders, we’re starting to see a ton of free agents banding together and making some interesting roster for Season 0 of Overwatch Contenders. Is there anyone you’ve got your eye on in particular that could possibly shake up the environment?

Not really honestly, this game requires you to have a lot of synergy and if people are just forming teams now, it's going to be rough going into qualifiers and expecting to make it into groups.

I’d love to get your take on the recent Immortals announcement of the signing of South Korean natives, Kariv and Fate from Might AOD. Overall, do you think that teams this early on should be importing players? We’ve seen great success from EFFECT for Envyus. Xepher and Kaiser seemed to be doing well in Cloud 9. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not very surprised about the Immortals roster changes, they were in a rough patch considering they had difficulties running Pharah and Mercy/dive in general. EFFECT is insane on Tracer and with Tracer being the most broken hero in the game I'm not surprised he's successful. With C9, I have some experience with Xepher and Kaiser and they are going to be amazing once they get gelled in with the others.

Time to get the nitty-gritty. We’ve all seen the PTR and the most recent patch changes. I’ll start from the top. With the lifesteal change to Reaper, does this make him as scary as people seem to say or are we all overreacting?

It just makes him survive more, can't be too surprised that people overreact to balance changes without actually playing it. With the little experience I have on the PTR it's not too good, but I wouldn't be surprised if he sees more play than he has before.

Same goes for Roadhog. Harblue does not seem to thrilled about the new changes to Roadhog. He seems like a very polarizing character for the community as it is, and Blizzard can’t seem to find the right spot for him just yet. What is your take on Roadhog and his proposed changes? If you we’re given the chance, what might you change about him?

Harbleus playstyle is completely killed by the balance changes. Harb is very dependent on making flanks and going for alternate angles compared to the rest of the team. The new Roadhog has to play with other people and play around combo game, but overall the changes are pretty bad. Roadhog was in a pretty good spot in terms of counterplay so, I wouldn't change anything personally.

With World Cup approaching quickly, talk to me about the Committee. How does it feel to be chosen to represent your region in the 2017 World Cup? Anything you care to share about the team and some of the applicants for the team?

I am very excited to be apart of the committee and to work with Poke and Huk, I can't really talk about the roster yet but we should have an announcement soon regarding the roster.

Before we end, I wanted to ask another question about the World Cup. Out of all of the top regions, who do you think has the best shot at dealing with Korea? We know that Misfits could make a good run for Sweden, same goes for France and Rogue, but what are your thoughts?

Rogue (France), Misfits (Sweden), Team USA, and ourselves (Team Canada) have a good chance at taking them down.

And to end, I wanted to end with a recurring question. Why Overwatch? What about it captivates your attention? What keeps you, Liam "Mangachu" Campbell, coming back to Overwatch?

I learn something every time I play overwatch with my team; every time I play the game it's a learning experience. It’s also nice to know that I play a game that has an amazing development team that works with the competitive community to make the game better.

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.

Images courtesy of Renegades and Rivalcade.

Please show Mangachu some love, you can follow him here @Mangachu_.Thanks to Mangachu’s representatives at the Agency for Professional Esports for the interview. You can follow them here @proesportsagent.