This week, Esports Heaven had the chance to speak with Kalle “Zave” Nilsson of the Swedish educational project team -- Team Valfard. We talk about his involvement in the new project Team Valfard and why he hates jump pads.

Afternoon, Zave! How is this fine Thursday treating you? Any plans for today?

Hey! It's all fine thank you, getting ready to stream later so feeling all good!

Awesome! I wanted to start on a light hearted note. Could you go more in depth on why the mascot for Team Valfard is a duck? Who made the executive decision that the team mascot was going to be a poorly (no pun intended) drawn duck?

Haha! This all goes back to the first team that we created back in beta phase one where we created the original "Team Välfärd". I don't know about why Mendo decided to draw a duck but that's what we rocked with in the end.

Like you said, you and Mendo both were on the original Team Valfard that was signed by SK Gaming back early in 2016. Was reuniting something you and Mendo wanted to for a long time and never found yourselves in the circumstances to do so or was this more of a spur of the moment kind of idea?

Basically how just this team started was that I saw Mendo wearing the Duck shirt on the old Take.Tv LAN photo on Twitter and I jokingly said "Team Valfard?" Mendo then came up with this whole idea that we are seeing now. So, mad props goes to him!

You all seem quite passionate about Overwatch with everyone coming from their own respective background and history within other teams, but why did you guys take the educational route?

I have always wanted to help our more people that want to be involved in the scene or just are curious on how it all looks when you have progaming as a job. We all love this game so much, so we want to share that with as many people as possible and this is a really good way to do so.

Is this something you think more teams should be doing? Do you think that “lifting the veil” on some of the thought process of a professional player is something that is craved by the community?

It's a really risky thing to do as a team; this is mainly a project to see if it actually works. We set ourself at a big disadvantage when we show our strats and our calls as everything is open. We mainly want to see how far this take us and at the same time help out as many people as possible.

Within this project team, you guys have tackled putting out some educational content for the community at large. “There is no better way to learn than to teach.” was a quote by Benjamin Whitecote that a teacher once said to me and really resonated with me when trying to formulate thoughts and opinions. Now that you hold the metaphoric mantle of “Overwatch teacher”, have some of your thoughts or ideas changed on the game and how it should be played?

Well the beauty about this game is that it always changes and you have to keep up with the meta. I personally have thought recently that Tracer is too strong. She needs a nerf mostly on the ult charge that builds up way too quickly right now. If you have a good Tracer that can constantly hit shots and can stick the [Pulse] Bomb, you will have a massive advantage in fights.

With Tracer being so strong and Reinhardt’s ultimate being suspect to change, Do you think we may see a metagame where Reinhardt is completely absent from? To a lesser degree, is this also why we don’t see much Roadhog play?

I think it's too soon to say right now, Reinhardt will never be completely absent as his shield is way to important in some points. But, lately with dive being so strong, teams can get around not playing him and have a Winston and D.va instead. Roadhog still gets played, but it's a risky play in my book. You need to have someone that consistently hits hooks for him to be viable.

Doubling back to the educational standpoint, what is something that you find that most people still struggle with grasping or what is one big tip that you could give an aspiring competitive Overwatch player?

To me one of the things I always focus my play around is having good positions in maps. This comes with different classes, but if you are always in a right spot at the right time, you will have it much easier.

Speaking of positioning on maps, Blizzard announced that they are working on 3 new maps. What are your general thoughts on this? Is there something you think that could be interesting? Is there something you would rather not see again?

Remove the jump pad... remove it and lock it away somewhere! No need to make it more complex with tools like that! Keep it simple so players can show their skill and not rely on things like the elevator on Hollywood being down or up to get to the high ground. More skill and less random objects on the map!

Wow, that is a fairly straightforward answer! Now contrary to the elevator and jump pad, what is something that you appreciate about Blizzard’s map design process? In your eyes, what's your favorite map in the current map pool?

I actually have not seen much about the new maps so can't tell you much there. I have always loved King's Row a lot! It's like the "de_dust2" of Overwatch! Also, [I tend to] change my mind a lot depending what meta we are in, but will always have a special feeling towards Kings Row.

I like to break up the boring and fluffy questions with some entertaining questions. If you had to give everyone on Team Valfard a nickname, what would they be?

Oh god, this is hard:

KANGA: Memelord

Overpowered: OP

Vonethil: Luciomain

Mendo: Dab

Ryb: Torbjörn

On a more topical note, let’s talk about the World Cup. Now I don’t mean to stir the pot at all, but when it comes to the World Cup, who do you think, personally, Sweden should send? Who is your Swedish National team?

It's a very sensitive topic, indeed. If we want to have the best possible way of winning the cup then there is no question that all Misfits should be going, if you ask me. Just because you send 6 insane players doesn't mean that they work [well] as a team. So sending Misfits would be the best way, same for France with Rogue

From watching some of Team Valfard VODs and scrims the team atmosphere for the team is incredibly high. Could you see yourself playing with these five other guys in the future, perhaps?

Right now I am just happy to be back scrimming because that's what I love to do. I know most of them from before and I think they all are good players, so yeah, we will see in the future what will happen! Right now I focus on my support play and how to be a better player all in all.

Last but not least, I wanted to get your thoughts on Overwatch’s general scope. For you in particular, why do you consistently play Overwatch day in and day out? What keeps you coming back?

For me it's being able to compete and play vs. the best players in the world. This is true for all games I play but even since the Beta I knew that you can do so much with this game and the skill cap is very high. You have to be good at many things to “make it”. That's what keeps me going.

Interview conducted and written by: @Volamel

Images courtesy of Team Valfard on Twitter: @TeamValfard