In any great work of art, the most thankless jobs are the ones that work behind the scenes. The puppeteers directing from afar operating without ill intent. On the contrary, they work with the mindset of exponential growth. Their voices stifled under the applause of their work.

The director, the choreographer and the composer.

In esports, we applaud the players and hoist them on our shoulders singing their heroic ballads until sunrise breaks. While the players leave for the stage to execute on their practice, they leave a number of faceless people sitting behind the curtain, helpless, almost like parents watching their children drive off on their first full day of school. They are faceless in the way that they are viewed as expendable and easily replaced, but in reality, they are of the utmost importance.

The coach, the analyst, the manager.

Today, we preen back the curtain and add faces to the faceless few who support the players from behind the scenes. Today, we explore the duality of one of the leading Overwatch Contenders team, the British Hurricane, and their support staff. This commentary is brought to you by team manager Ysabel “Noukky” Muller and head coach Nicholas “Shifty” Travis. They are two incredibly different people, but they share one thing in common: a drive and a near compulsion to facilitate germination and eventual growth for their team.

“I started as a flex player in the early GosuGamer Weeklies,” Coach Shifty led the discussion and explained where his Overwatch esports story started, “and quickly realized how much of a potential issue that six players with six different ideas on what went wrong could be. It was really holding back some potentially great teams. Most people didn’t want the responsibility of that voice of leadership while others resented one player having more authority over decisions. I wanted to be that unbiased voice to both help point the team in the proper direction for improvement as well as mediate the many issues that every team goes through at one point or another.” It is incredibly respectable to not only be able to take that step back from direct competition and find a more suitable role working with the players, rather than beside them. He continued adding more context to his genesis into Overwatch esports.

“I began coaching a small Benelux team called Arcadios,” Shifty said. “We placed very respectfully in several tournaments, only really losing to the current juggernaut teams. A month afterward, one of those juggernauts, Creation eSports, was looking for a coach and tried me out. My first VOD breakdown was a match they had against Rogue, and I spent a ton of time going over and writing down a synopsis for every player in every single engagement.” Let that marinate in your mind’s eye for a moment. Ever single engagement. The energy and drive of a former player could only pull off something of that magnitude. Shifty continued his tale. “They were impressed, and in our next two tournaments we placed 2nd in the Amazon Gaming Series to Misfits, and then we won the Acer Pro Challenge LAN against Rogue. We were number one in the world rankings at the time and impressed Team Dignitas enough to pick us up.”

British Hurricanes’ team manager Noukky followed up with her response, “I started out in Overwatch in beta wave two and I was competing semi-professionally in Heroes of the Storm at that time. But I fell in love with Overwatch so much, that I wanted to be a part of the competitive scene from day one. For the next year, I tried to make it as a support player, maining Mercy and later Lucio. It was around this time that I started as a shot-caller on North American Servers. I played in the in the amateur scene for a while, but, like everyone else, I had the dream to become a player for a big team and playing under an organization.” Both subjects were formerly players and managers to take the same step back, away from the competition. Their fires still roared with the same intensity, but instead of acting like a pilot flame they now operated similarly to a wildfire, accelerating growth and new life. So much so, that Noukky veered off the same path that Shifty took and found another avenue of success.

“I set out to find a sponsor to help me finance a tournament,” she spoke proud and starred eyed. “This became the Strivewire Monthly Brawl. I had some prior experience running charity Hearthstone tournaments and speedrun marathons in the German Twitch community, so it was easy for me to handle them almost alone. This gave her the opportunity to operate in a field that many people strayed away from, which diversified her enough to gain recognition along with her exceptional skill. “After meeting two Blizzard employees while working at TakeOver 2 I came into closer contact with them and got the chance to work at Contenders Season 0 and the Overwatch World Cup. I am really happy and thankful for all the support I got from the competitive community as a whole and without the players and people I’ve met so far, I couldn't live my dream of working in esports right now!”

With both stories recorded and added to the Rolodex of time, Shifty chimed in to better contextualize the birth of team. “I was helping out several teams [at the time] including Vivi’s Adventure, many of whom are now on Angry Titans. Another one of their members was Henzu, and he asked me to help build a team with Kragie and Noukky. At the time, there weren’t a lot of established teams in Europe anymore, and there were a ton of top quality free agents that the Overwatch League missed out on. So, we had a very extensive six-week trial process to get the best team possible not only of individual talent but team chemistry.” Six weeks to form a team— and they’ve built a Contenders team that could be in the discussion for a Western team with established synergy that could do well in Season 2 of the Overwatch League.

Shifty spoke, satisfied with their progress, “As the team came together, we were performing very well in practice against the top teams in Europe and even the Philadelphia Fusion who were still in Europe at the time during the Overwatch League Preseason.” You read that correctly. The British Hurricane were taking games off of an Overwatch League team. Now obviously there is a lot of context missing, but nonetheless, this is incredibly promising when you look through the eyes of a head coach assembling their team. “That’s when we were in talks with organizations about potentially picking the team up; however, they were scared away once they learned about the Overwatch League clause that allows the best Contenders players to be poached during signing periods for less than they would invest in the team,” Shifty explained. “However, we lucked out that Cloud9 was looking for a European Academy team and we were able to secure being signed as we entered the PIT tournament under the name of ‘Those Guys’. We steamrolled through PIT without losing a single match, and later were officially announced as the British Hurricane already with a tournament win under our belt.” With more context added to their past as individuals and as a team, Noukky, Shifty, and the British Hurricane now face their biggest challenge yet: the constant battle to best themselves.

Overwatch is no stranger to inter-team turmoil. With dramatic stories surfacing around multiple Overwatch League franchises, the topic of how to handle extensive stressors while maintaining a healthy work environment arrived, rearing its worrisome head. Gifting us a glance behind the curtain, Noukky spoke candidly about the Hurricanes. “Handling stressful situations is not always easy in a team with such strong personalities. The most important thing for us to do is help the guys understand each other and lead conversations. Of course, everyone in the team has mutual respect for each other but communication, as in most teams, can be a bit bumpy sometimes.” Her honesty was heartwarming, to say the least. It felt as if the future of Overwatch esports was in good hands. Not only was Overwatch Contenders fostering a clear path to becoming a professional player, but it helped allow managers and coaches vital experience working within a team. A majority of anecdotes around any form of performance-based career is that your mentality is incredibly important and that your own worst enemy, more often than not, tends to be yourself. She continued and explained her role in facilitating a healthy shadowboxing environment.

“Outside our normal roles within the team and organization, we try to support each other if someone needs help or an opinion on something,” Noukky described. “ In the team environment and during practice, we play off each other really nicely, which creates an interesting dynamic.” Having an open floor plan for discussion no matter what the topic is not only intelligent, but it allows for players to escape their own headspace, if only for a short while.

She elaborated on the duality of both her and Shifty’s roles within the team, “I am definitely the more harsh person when it comes to working ethic in practice. I will often point out if I feel people are slacking off in certain aspects, either to Shifty personally or to the team. But even though I am a bit harder on them, they know they can always rely on me to get them what they need. Shifty is a bit more laid back and analytical, you could call it ‘good cop vs bad cop’ dynamic. He always keeps his cool and tries to lead by example, explaining stressful situations to the players and offering or working on solutions, which makes him a great coach.” It was clear that they made a great duo. The respect between the two was paramount.

“Every team is going to have their ups and down and stress is a natural part of both a competitive environment and life in general,” Shifty added. “For the most part, all the players realize this; however, I am there to make sure that they have a rock to rely on. I try to identify when a player might be losing focus or confidence, then dig and find out what the cause is so that we can work on a solution together.” Both staff members understood the importance of keeping a healthy environment for their team to succeed and grow.

Shifty continued to expand on his role as head coach, “Besides helping manage the team’s environment, I also handle compositions, strategies, feedback, preparing for enemy strategies, and help iron out any mistakes we might have. If we perform well or poorly, I communicate what we could do better or how we can more constantly replicate that success. I lead VOD reviews over our practice and over other regions.” Not only did he help to facilitate discussion, Shifty also wore the mantle of expert and teacher, gifting his students the experience and opportunity to learn alongside him.

But what in his eyes was the perfect student? Was it the perennial optimist or the skilled tradesmen?

“You need both.” After a brief pause, Shifty put his thoughts into words. “A high level of talent and skill is necessary to be able to be successful at Overwatch at a professional level. However, you also need a positive mindset to be able to keep your success and bounce back from the inevitable pitfalls. You’re not going to win every game, and things aren’t always going to go your way. A positive mindset is critical for these times and a negative one can dump you and the rest of your team into a downward spiral. Whatever mindset you have is infectious. The right one leads to team chemistry and harmony and the wrong one leads to discoherence, distractions, cliques, and misplaced blame.”

Noukky chimed in to give her take on the question. “It's really hard to say, especially because ‘positive mindset’ is such a wide term. There are many character traits that can play off each other in a team really well. It's a mix of skill, mechanics, work ethic and attitude—not only towards the game, but especially towards yourself. If you have the wrong work ethic and attitude, the biggest talent doesn't help you with anything. Be the best player you can, not only in terms of self-improvement and reflection, but try to be what your team needs, don't only look at what they want from you, but also what you can offer to them!” She ended with a bright smile and funnily enough echoed a similar sentiment to what the late John F. Kennedy famously said in his inaugural address in the early 60’s; “... ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

That same search to become a part of something greater than yourself leads many people into action. That action could be different for a myriad of different people and for different reasons. For some, it has led them to the Overwatch League and for others, it’s helped them transition into successful careers as desk analysts and casters. As we touched on the Overwatch League itself, insights into their minds began to pour out about the level of the support staff in the Overwatch League.

Noukky began to vocalize her stream of consciousness, “I think, especially at the start of the league, many teams underestimated the workload on the staff and we’re pretty understaffed. Having a coach and a manager for up to twelve players with two matches a week can be really challenging. So far it looks like everyone is slowly adapting to a multi-coach system. It's very important for the players to have people to talk to, vent and get advice from. This can not be done by a two or three man team in combination with the preparation for every match. Having a coaching staff that splits work will give each player individually more support, not only mechanically, but also personally and mentally, so that they can work more closely with the players. Also it’s great if you have support staff that trusts each other and has each other’s back against that amount of players.” She then gave an example of how the Philadelphia Fusion had, in her eyes, set the pace for excellence in support staff structure. With the Fusion’s addition of a chef and other small additions to the staff, it removes extra stressors from, not only the team but the staff itself.

“It’s incredibly difficult to judge the support staff from the outside looking in,” coach Shifty began to give his take. “You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, what outside influences are at work, what’s currently being worked on, and how much control each staff has. Usually, the best judge is an aggregate opinion from the players themselves, the stability of the team, and the results of decisions they make and are in charge of. That said, it seems that several teams do not have enough support staff to really handle everything that they should efficiently.” While he strayed away from giving direct examples both Noukky and Shifty agreed - bigger is better. But when faced with a serious question they both elaborated on the fragility of being a staff member in a large organization. The question: during a consistent streak of underperformances, for a lengthy amount of time, should the coach be held solely responsible?

As head coach, I first asked for Shifty thoughts as they were constructed and he did not disappoint.

“My first thought is that it’s an overly simplified and often erroneous statement,” he sighed. “There are so many factors going on with a team that affects a team’s performance, the coach is just one of them. The statement reminds me of how coaches are often used as scapegoats for underperforming teams in other sports. Now don’t get me wrong, the coach can definitely be the reason why a team is underperforming, but you need to know what they’re actually in control of, what decisions they made, and why they made them before you can tell whether they’re the problem or not. How often are coaches given a lot of credit and praise for when teams do well? Not nearly as much as they should. However, they’re usually the first to be blamed if things go poorly.” Next, the same question was posed to Noukky.

“Personally I think blame cannot be pinned down to one person,” she explained. “It's a way more complex question than just a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ For example, if a player is very stubborn in his ways, is this an overall attitude problem of that specific player or can you also say it’s a coaching problem, because the coach should work on this players attitude? If a player isn't open to it, how much longer are you trying to work with him? What's your personal boundary you want to set to get him replaced, how do you weigh his mechanical skill in comparison to this? Coaches have very tough decisions to make.” She then reiterated on a point she made earlier, touching on the fact that teams are very large and a majority of the Overwatch League, specifically, has not nearly the amount of support staff needed to harbor a healthy work situation and maintain authority over the team. Noukky continued, “Ultimately, it’s a two-way street—of course, you can say it’s on the coach to not replace him, set him ultimatums, work with him more intensely. But we should not blindly assume coaches are always the ones that should go on the chopping block. Some do, others don't.”

As members of the support staff for a quite sizeable organization, with the British Hurricane and Cloud9, they both obviously would continue to play an important role in talent acquisition.Coming from a managerial perspective, what would Noukky be specifically looking for when approaching a new player for a possible trial?

“For me, personally, it's a combination of attitude towards improvement and overall communication,” Noukky described. Once again, the themes of positivity and the willingness to adopt a team mentality surfaced. It felt like eating home cooking after being away for years. Both the coach and the manager were not only on the same page, but they actively worked towards becoming the best team they possibly could.

She continued, “Team synergy is what keeps you going and helps you improve. It doesn’t do you good if you are the best Genji in the world if no one can work with you—no one can just win a game solo. One of the most important things for me, as we built ‘Those Guys’—now British Hurricane—was that everyone meshes well with each other and trusts their teammates. Being able to have discussions and being on the same page while setups and fights happen is something that takes a long time to teach [moreso] than plain strategies and mechanics. If I look at talent, one of the good signs for me is someone that is not hopping around in different teams all the time. I am looking for people that dedicate their time to improve with a team and reach a certain goal instead of just aiming for the highest team they can get or leaving after losing once in a tournament.” A smile began to crack through the serious tone of her speech. “Those people are hard workers and don't give up easily!”

Coach Shifty adjusted in his seat, sharing a smile with his partner as he tackled the question. “So many things I can list here!” he laughed. “First of all, I feel ladder rating is an incredibly overrated metric, as there are too many factors not in control over the individual player, there are too many ways to cheese the system and ranked Overwatch is an entirely different game than tournaments. Practice experience is a must so that they know how to play the game on a team properly. Communication is also very critical for all roles, but especially roles like main tank. Hero pool and adaptability is something that must be paid attention to. So many great players who [specifically focus on]one hero fall into obscurity once the metagames change, and you need someone that can adapt with the metas. A high level of mechanical skill is obviously important and really helps players increase their options on hero pools.” Shifty echoed the point made by Noukky and briefly touched on having a positive mental attitude and emotional resilience. “You don’t want players who get scared about facing a team or player that could be better than them. You want players who look forward to challenging the best so that they can become the best themselves. These are just a tip of the iceberg on things I look for.”

As members of one of the top Overwatch Contenders teams and as former players in their own regards coach Shifty and Noukky have felt first hand what it is like to be a professional player. It was their duties to guide them and lead them on the path to becoming a professional Overwatch player. One of the potholes in that road, for many professional players, has been overexposure to the game, resulting in burnout. As respected leaders in the team, what was their plan to combat this for their own team?

Coach Shifty nodded, “This can be a big problem and should not be underestimated.” The structuredness of his thoughts left the taste of someone who came from business—and not in a bad way. On the contrary, everything was laid out, almost like he was reading directly from a pamphlet on creating a strong team dynamic.

“First of all, you need to have a very good and open communication with your players so that you can detect possible burnout before it starts. Burnout can sneak up on you, and if you wait for it to become a problem before you take steps to deal with it, it can affect things for a very long time. Second, we try to make sure to have breaks between each and every practice session. These are super important as performance and focus can deteriorate greatly if you push yourself too hard for too long. Third, we try to take at least one off day per week during tournaments and give the team a well deserved longer break after tournaments. Lastly, if any member isn’t feeling well, we try to make sure not to push them and make substitutions as needed.” His plan was clear and defined; could you ask more from a coach? And from the repetition of themes throughout the interview, it felt as if that plan was definitely being activated and adopted by the team overall. It was not surprising that the British Hurricane took the first seed in their group.

Noukky echoed that same sentiment, “Burnout is a really big issue for players and staff alike. We are trying to give our players the offtime they need and don't try to push them. Listening to player feedback is very important to me when I schedule practice and off days. They know when they need time off and I shouldn't dictate that too harshly. We are making sure that the guys are happy with their practice time and that we can make it as effective as we can.” It was clear that the British Hurricane were in capable hands. They, as a team, took careful consideration to how each player was feeling mentally. She described that after each long practice session they give the players plenty of time to breathe, relax, grab a bite to eat, before jumping straight into reviewing the film. “I would rather spend four hours of effective practice than trying to push for six to seven-hour days and everyone fatigues within a few weeks,” she explained. “If you want to work more, you should have a good balance between theoretical work and practice.”

Noukky also took some time to better explain their staff dynamic and how they played off one another. “Also trying to share tasks among the staff during practice is important.” It wasn’t only the players that suffered from burnout, the staff was susceptible as well. “If I have meetings or have to talk to people on the side, I always can ask Shifty to jump in to record or work the spreadsheet for me. We try to bounce off each other with ideas for effective training or support each other when it gets a bit rough. Having a good environment for players and staff alike is the base of a good team, no one likes a stressed coach or manager. We try to lead by a good example and just let the guys play.” To take care of everything they possibly could, was the modus operandi. This was the goal that was reverberated as she described the team’s loosely planned off days where they would spend time playing games with one another, thus furthering their bonds. “We sit in regularly and play other games together with several members of the team and just wind down together after scrims. Ultimately, you—either as a player or a staff member—influence the environment you have in the team. Try to make it the best it possibly can be, not only for yourself but for everyone!”

When you tend to a garden, you do everything in your power to make sure your plants can thrive. It could mean regularly aerating the soil, providing ample sunlight, using good fertilizer, knowing when, where, and how much water to use. Noukky and Shifty were the master gardeners of the British Hurricane—and their seeds were beginning to blossom. The British Hurricane took a convincing win before being signed to Cloud9’s Overwatch academy team during the Overwatch PIT Championship as team ‘Those Guys’. They looked to continue that regional dominance at the Overwatch Contenders finals, hosted in Nieporaz, Poland at the Alvernia Planet media venue. After reading such thoughtful and insightful responses, how could you not cheer for such a strong and well-managed team?

From the top down, from the staff to the players, the British Hurricane was going to do whatever it took to reach their dreams of playing on the Overwatch League stage.