This week, I am join by the lovely Mike “Midnight” Ryan, Flex Tank/DPS player for Rise Nation. How are we doing today Mr. Ryan?

I'm doing great how about you?

Fantastic! Wishing for better weather but I'll take what I can get! Let's start from the beginning, where did you find your esports start? I know you have a background in Firefall and Tribes: Ascend, did those games play a large part in getting you started?

I think that they sparked (or re-kindled) an interest in the shooter genre. My first "taste" of e-sports was actually in a game called Global Agenda, also made by Hi-Rez Studios, who later created Tribes Ascend. Global Agenda wasn't exactly a competitive game, but there was a fan-made statistics website akin to MasterOverwatch or Overbuff which gave players ranks based on their matchmade games. I was able to get top ranks for the Recon class, kind of like Widowmaker. That was the first time I felt "good" at a video game compared to the rest of the community. I think the feeling that I got from seeing my name at the top of a leaderboard consisting of thousands and thousands of people really pushed me to be the best I could be in every other game. Since Global Agenda, esports has blown up. If a game is considered an esport, chances are I have played it at some point.

Within some of the games that you played more of, did you find that you gravitated towards the same role ? Obviously there was no Zarya or D.va that you can compare to a game like League of Legends or Dota or even Counter Strike: Global Offensive, but were there certain aspects of those games that you could compare or contrast to Overwatch that played a role in you finding some success?

Overwatch is sort of unique compared to all the other games, mostly due to hero swapping. In League of Legends for example, I played every role at some point. I eventually hit my stride playing support of all things. I attribute my success on support to my deep understanding of all the other roles. And I feel similarly about most of the other games. So to answer the question, I guess I always tend to gravitate towards more supportive roles rather than carry roles. The reason why I say Overwatch is unique is that I actually have the ability to flex to the other roles mid-game if I want to. One minute I'm supporting my team on Zarya, the next I'm DPSing as Tracer or Soldier.

Staying with that same train of thought, would you rather have more heroes added to the Overwatch roster or more dynamic and interesting maps to play on?

Hmm... that's actually a really tough question. I think I would honestly rather have more unique, but more importantly, balanced maps in the game. On a lot of maps right now there are points where it just feels helpless. An example is defending Numbani Second Point. If you don't get to hold right outside the Attacker's spawn door, the Attackers can just run to the high ground for free or run all the way behind you for free. It feels pretty awful having to give up an entire third of the map as a Defender. I would like to see those issues be reworked or fixed in some capacity on new maps.

Game likes StarCraft: Brood War and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive were balanced around the maps rather than just buffing/nerfing specific units or aspects in-game. Do you think that Blizzard could do the same for Overwatch if the map pool was more dynamic? Could we see more unique and interesting hero diversity if they did so?

I think it is possible but still very difficult. I think we will never reach a point where heroes don't need to constantly be buffed/nerfed every patch, but with that said I think fixing the current maps can play a large role in creating more interesting gameplay and hero diversity. Going back to my previous example on Numbani, Let's say I am playing Zarya first point. Zarya is decent first point, but Zarya's worst counter is high ground, and since the second point is all about high ground, D.va is probably a better pick. This might seem good for hero diversity, but the impact on ult economy alone can cause the defending team to lose an already difficult to defend point. The issue is that the high ground is then removed on third point, once again making Zarya the better pick. Most of the time it isn't worth giving up the Ult charge on second point if you will just be swapping back to the same hero on third point, so I end up on Zarya for the entire game.

After doing a bit of digging, I see that you’re not too overly fond of Payload and some of the other staple gametypes Overwatch has to offer. If you could add one specific new gametype, what would you add? I’ve heard CTF tossed around a lot, does TDM have a place in Overwatch? Perhaps something akin to Oddball from Halo?

I don't think there are many other modes that make sense in Overwatch, at least modes that I have played and have experience with. The main issue with payload is that it boils down to throwing bodies at a point to stall for as much time as possible. Obviously there is a lot more to it then that, but there are times where it seems all strategy breaks down and the game becomes "Run at the point with as many bodies as possible to stall for time", but that is a defining feature of the mode. In a perfect world, I would love to play the Jetball mode from Firefall (or technically, Bombing Run from Unreal Tournament) again. It was basically a ball in the middle of the map with a hoop at either end. You can pass the ball or just throw it away from enemies. The goal is to either throw the ball through the hoop for a low amount of points, or run the ball through the hoop while carrying it for higher points.

You mention “throwing bodies at the point/payload” and my eyes immediately glazed over and I had terrifying memories of the triple-tank meta. Now that we’ve had the new Lucio for a while, what are your overall thoughts on Overwatch’s favorite DJ? Is the tank meta right around the corner? Perhaps it is already here? What is your general thoughts on “Newcio”?

I never thought the Lucio changes would bring back a tank meta. I suppose a tank deathball comp is more viable now than it was before, but I still think Lucio enables a triple dps dive comp, not only with his auras, but he can also be considered an additional diver himself now. I like that playing Lucio is a lot more involved now; I actually feel impactful when I am playing him. I think most of the changes are a step in the right direction.

Now, I want to talk about your team, Rise Nation. I find it really interesting when team’s talk almost in the third person about their skills and how they as a team approach certain situation’s differently than others. Is there something that sticks out to you that Rise Nation does differently than any other team? What in your eyes is Rise Nation’s “claim to fame”?

I think our communication is very unique compared to what I have seen from other teams, without going into too much detail it feels like each person on our team is dedicated to communicating certain information, rather than all 6 of us shouting the same and/or different random things. Obviously this can also be our downfall, as if one person isn't conveying the information, the entire system sort of breaks down.

Do you personally follow any other esports? I know Rise Nation is quite popular in the Call of Duty sphere and you all just added Marn to the Street Fighter 5 roster. Do you follow your Rise Nation comrades at all?

Absolutely, I have been following the COD team since we got picked up, and have been watching Marn as well. Other than that I have always tried to keep up with the bigger e-sports like Counter Strike and League of Legends.

Bishop, the newly appointed head coach for Cloud 9, talked about “team color” or the team’s style a lot in his episode of Oversight. If you had to pick a team color for Rise Nation, what would it be and why?

Ironically enough, our team color would have to be Red. Anyone can see that our results have been far from consistent. It feels like when we are hot, we are absolutely on fire, but when we aren't we just always end up losing eventually. As for our style, I don't think we really have one currently. We are able to play most if not all of the "Standard" comps decently well, but don't really have one that I would say sticks out from the crowd.

In an interview with Sideshow over at over.gg [1], your teammate, Desro, talks about how during the online qualifiers for the MSI MGA tournament you guys ran Zenyatta and did really well. Do you all as a team still try your own counters to the metagame?

I think we have certainly tried, just still haven't found what works yet. Things like Zenyatta used to catch people off guard, but people are pretty smart now. It is hard to catch teams off guard with any subtle changes, it mostly takes extremely weird strategies to catch people off guard. Things like 4 dps etc.

Are you still actively looking for a way to play your own game?

I suppose we still try different things from time to time, but for the short-term I think we pretty much have our strategy down.

Something I find incredibly interesting in western esports, is the idea of Korea and how dominant they can be, historically speaking (i.e look at League of Legends or StarCraft). Now, I’m not trying to fish for anything thing juicy or “buzz worthy” but what are your general thoughts on the Korean Overwatch scene?

I was wondering when this question would come up. I think I share a somewhat similar viewpoint to other Western Pros, although, I will rephrase. I definitely think Korea as a region is stronger than the West, I will admit that outright. But, to say that they are dominant when we have had I think 2 International LANs outside of Apex seems a little ridiculous to me. As I have said, I don’t think the Koreans are overrated, they are definitely really good. I think the issue is that NA is underrated.

You look at a team like Selfless, for example; obviously they have earned a reputation recently, but I think they have been one of the best teams in North America for a long time, probably since before Apex Season 2 started. Had they been invited and continued their improvement while in Korea, I think they would have done very well. I feel that the top Western teams like Rogue and Selfless are just as good if not better than the top Korean teams. The difference is that the rest of the Korean teams are incredibly close to each other in terms of skill. A team like Meta Athena or Kongdoo Panthera could probably easily beat Lunatic-Hai despite LH being the best team in Korea. I think there are pretty defined tiers in the West, with Rogue / Selfless being at the top currently.

You must be psychic, because this leads exactly into my next question! Now that the groups for APEX Season 3 have been announced, what are your thoughts on Team EnvyUs and Rogue, as they head on over to Korea? Do you think they can they make it out of their respected groups?

I guess I will start off with the easier one in EnvyUs. I don’t think anyone could ever count EnvyUs out of any tournament. They have shown that they can perform at the highest level and I believe they can return to dominant form this season. Obviously their toughest opponent will be Meta Athena. I have no experience playing against them but it seems like they are the kind of team who will never be predictable. This makes them dangerous when they will have weeks to prepare for their opponents. Even if Meta Athena comes out on top, I still think EnvyUs will make it out of groups if they play their best. Now the hard part, Rogue. I was actually thinking about this the other day but this will be a very interesting season of Apex. Previously, it always seemed like the start of Apex coincided with a new patch and new meta. The result is that the meta develops in Korea while the Western teams are there, so the Western teams just adopt the Korean meta. If you look at recent matches from Apex and compare them to top Western Matches occurring at the same time, you can see there are huge differences in the meta. This group will be very interesting because we may finally see a clash of the two metas. Rogue has a very clearly defined style of play and I don’t think it is a style that has been seen in Korea. It's hard to tell who their toughest opponent will be since Kongdoo Panthera has made roster changes, but I don’t think anyone in this group can be counted out. This is definitely the group of death this season.

To end, I wanted to hear some of your thoughts on the recent findings with the r/Overwatch subreddit and the lack of entry level Overwatch esports content. If you had to sell Overwatch Esports to someone who’s never heard or seen it before, how would you do it, or more simply put, why do you love Overwatch as an esport?

I think the coolest thing about Overwatch is the diversity. We have MOBA players, playing with Hearthstone players, playing against Quake legends, playing with CS stars. The result is that every single player, in every game, at any point, can make an absolutely game-changing play. Not only the player diversity, but every fight in Overwatch seems to play out differently for the most part. I think if the general population had a deeper understanding of how the game functions at the highest level, Overwatch would have an even bigger following.  

To cap off a fantastic interview, we over at Esports Heaven finish with the ever-famous lightning round.

Favorite flavor of G-FUEL?

Blue Ice

Favorite song ATM?

Love will Tear us Apart by Joy Division

Can you give a nickname to everyone on the team?

Phaz - Meme Machine Spirit - Pro Genji Locke - Literally Zenyatta Desro - Captain xRetzi - God

Favorite food?

Pizza

Favorite Pizza topping?

Buffalo Chicken

Favorite thing to do after a long day of scrims?

Sleep!

Big shoutout to Midnight for the amazing interview, you can follow him over on Twitter: @RiseMidnight_  and over at twitch.tv/IVIidnight !

Interview written and conducted by: @Volamel

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment, Rise Nation, MLG and Midnight’s Twitter!

[1] MLG Vegas Desro over.gg interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a87P7aLq3c