Hey guys! We're back with another installment of meet the CEVO vanilla team! This time we have Vhalin from Area 51. Make sure to read it all by hitting "read more."
Could you please introduce yourself and your team (Names, Positions, Roles,etc.)?
Hey, my name is Matt Bearslayer, otherwise known as "vhalin" and I'm playing scout for Area 51 next season in the CEVO vanilla tourney in addition to ESEA. Scouting with me will be none other than the infamous ruwin. We will be supported by soup, his ridiculously large sticky clip size and his cheats on demoman. Our soldiers will be Harbleu on roam, and wonderwall on pocket. Spear heading the team on the heal beams will be none other than pyyyour making his second return to invite since the days of the complexity era of dominance.
How did your team come together? Who has known each other longest?
From my perspective the team came together like this:
Pyyyour: What are your plans next season and which one (and only one) player do you want to play with?
I think beyond that though Pyyyour and ruwin have known each other the longest and they had already planned to make a return to invite together before I ever got into the equation. At the same time this was going on me and soup had been bromancing since 2010, and we were lovers at first sight, or first steam add? We were originally going to play on Hood Rats together but I took the opportunity to play for Check Six that season, and unfortunately the following two seasons didn't work out for us either. The obvious answer to pyyyour's question was soup. Conveniently, the other two people that have known each other the longest were me and harbleu, and it just so happened harbleu was already in the equation before me and soup ever got on board, and as most of the community already knows, me and harbleu have been buds for the longest time. The final piece of the puzzle was our pocket soldier, and pyyyour looked into his magic crystal ball and saw our favorite Indian, wonderwall. This was a great choice since wonderwall and pyyyour have also known each other for a long time and had played with eachother on season 9's experiment.
What about the CEVO Vanilla Challenge drew your team in?
A good opportunity for off season practice, a prize pot and good competition.
How much do you think that being Vanilla will change up your strategies and play style?
Not a whole lot, harbleu and wonderwall aren't one trick pony roam soldiers who rely on gunboats. Pyyyour doesn't use the overdose or crossbow or anything weird like that and most of the scout unlocks suck anyways so there's no reason to use them. I think the CEVO vanilla tourney will make everyone hate viaduct since gunboats are out, roaming will be near impossible and heavies will be so much more prominent.
What are you future plans as a team?
Well, pyyyour is great with a skillet so hopefully another 40lbs and I can reach my next invite championship, Soup also seems to do better in TF2 as the amount of DUIs he gets goes up so I will keep sending liquor up his way since shipping from California to Washington isn't so bad. Ruwin will use his girl voice to bait harbleu into spending less time with Marisa and more time with us, Soup will keep adding guns to his guns collection (even though he has like 5 guns and get 30fps in TF2) so eventually he will be able to fully arm wonder-walls army of 7-11 terrorists so we can take ALL the trophies for hostage at ESEA Lan. It's really all wonderfull how we playoff each other's strengths and weaknesses.
What do you love best about competitive Team Fortress 2? What would you like to see improved?
In my opinion the best thing about competitive Team Fortress is the perfect blend of teamwork, communication, aim and movement. The only thing I would like to see improved about competitive TF2 is more and better 5cp maps. Imagine if in competitive counter-strike they would randomly play hostage rescue maps like cs_militia or cs_italy and then randomly some assassination on as_oilrig. It doesn't make a lot of sense if we're trying to make TF2 into a mainstream competitive game if we randomly have koth_viaduct, cp_gravelpit or cp_standin in the rotation, that would be like CTF Quake teams randomly had to play TDM or Clan Arena, or in competitive Starcraft you had to randomly play a custom game type. I think cp_gravelpit is fine for now in being in the rotation since there is currently a lack of good competitive 5cp maps. To improve competitive Team Fortress 2 I'd like to take a page out of Europe's book and have viaduct and standin become phased out of North American TF2.
What do you guys do when you are away from Team Fortress 2?
Pyyyour is usually out with his yacht club making rounds to the Bahamas and when hes not enjoying the weather in Florida he is in his loft appartment in Manhattan partaking in fine Cuban cigars and aged scotch with New York's Most Eligible Bachelors Club. Harbleu watches anime and gets his jollies off on hentai if he's not playing some other game like Tribes or Battlefield. Ruwin keeps his waifu happy and does the dishes when he's not LAN dodging or making the next Mona Lisa to be featured in his avatar. Soup is your typical redneck so he enjoys everything from offroading in his truck to unloading a magazine through his AR-15. Wonderwall's answer just a month ago would have been to go to work, but since then he spends his time jogging or improving his life in another way, if you know anyone hiring in the Harrisburg area, spam him with steam friends requests. When I'm not playing TF2 and the 49ers aren't in season and I'm not spending time with my family you might catch me out for a spirited drive in my evo in the nearest mountain road.
What do you think about the way that competitive Team Fortress 2 is heading?
I think overall it's good, I would like to see people getting along better. Just because some alt says cranberry beats his wife, than ndy or bullet are huge faggots, or that Mustardoverlord can't play without heals it doesn't mean you shouldn't contact them if your team needs a demoman. The same goes with people talking shit in lobbies or pugs, just because they spammed binds at you two months ago it doesn't mean they could never be part of your dream team that conquers your division. The other thing that I don't particularly like is the abundance of circle jerks that exist today, compared to several seasons ago. I would like us all become one circle jerk, under god, with liberty and hats for all.
Who is the funniest member of the team? Who is the serious member of the team? Who is the most likely to be gone on a Saturday night date?
I can tell you right now that harbleu is the least likely to be gone on a Saturday night. Ruwin might get some points in that section since he has a wife and is one half of a newly wed couple madly in love. I wouldn't lie if I said pyyyour wasn't one handsome fellow, and that wonder wall wasn't Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome. I think soup needs to give up his gun obsession before any girl wouldn't raise the red flag within 10 minutes of a blind date. Unfortunately I don't think my chances of having a date are going to go up at all approaching another season of invite. The funniest member on the team is probably soup, and if you catch ruwin in the right mood/setting he will give us one of his many different voice-impressions. I don't think there is any one really all that serious, we all take the game serious on different levels. Ruwin is serious in his dedication/commitment to getting better, Harbleu is also very serious during idle mumble talks or scrims, but is balanced out by being the most easy going guy I've ever played with. He's the guy who can be losing 0-4 and then miss four easy rockets on a med thats AFK and then laugh about it after wards. Pyyyours mindset is serious but the way he commands the team doesnt bring forth seriousness but instead encourages relaxed calm play where people play with their heads in the right place. I have the most serious mindset out of game, in that I will go to bed thinking about TF2 (lol, nerd) and come up with some new way to play off my roam soldier, a way to take second on gullywash, or how to kill b4nny at mid.
What advice can you give for other players and clans looking to enter competitive sixes play?
The biggest step in entering sixes is finding a team, and finding a team without any prior experiences is like looking for a job fresh out of college without any experience... do the same thing you would do in that situation. Make some connections and contacts. You have a friends list for a reason, add as many competitive players as you can to your friends list. You'll never know which invite player it could be that you end up sending a request to that you end up playing with in a couple seasons.
What do you enjoy best about CEVO? What would you change?
I like that it is getting more community driven. I'm not sure exactly what I would change but probably keep it as is, as it serves as a great F2P league for newer players to get started until they decide to enter a pay to play league.
Thank you for your time Vhalin, and keep checking Community Fortress for all your CEVO and Team Fortress 2 needs!
