Friend: “Oh man guys, I actually have butterflies in my stomach.”
Me: “AHH ME TO.” XD
“Welcome back to competitive play fellas!”
Hey Animated World!
Yes, Season 4 is here and we’re back to competitive Overwatch! Unfortunately Season 4 for me got off to a bit of a rocky start last night. We were suppose to have a 5-man stack last night only for one of our buddies to fall asleep and another who had some work issues (which I completely understand and know that work always comes first.) So it left us with my buddy who was S3 Mid-Masters ranked, another buddy was S3 High-Platinum, and yours truly ending S3 with Low-Diamond. Now we knew fully well going into this, these placements were going to be hard. With having our buddy in Masters doing placements with us, we knew we were going to be up some serious competition. It was made fully aware right off the bat in the first few minutes of our first placement match.
So we actually ended up winning pretty convincingly our first match. I know right, didn’t think that’s where this was going! It was against a pretty well coordinated team, but in my opinion we made better use of our ULTs. So going into our second match we’re feeling pretty good about the night. Honestly, our second game we just got outplayed. I have nothing wrong losing a game that simply the other team played better. We put up a nice fight, but the lack of communication showed in that game. Our third game, however, was just miserable. We got plowed. That’s when it was time to call it a night. I was going to write this post right after this game. I’m so glad I didn’t! I was in a rotten mood last night. I’m also very happy we only played three games. I learned two key lessons during these first three games.
-Playing against better players makes you better:
So people who play Overwatch are probably wondering why am I doing placements with somebody who is masters if I am low-diamond. Well one is easy, he’s my buddy. I don’t care if he’s top 500, we want to play together because we’re friends. I understand that comes with harder competition. Some people would say why go through that in placements and risk being placed low.
Well let’s remember, placements is where you start not where you finish. I know I’m going to have to improve my game to meet my goals for this season. So why delay learning from better players. If my friend places in Masters again after placements, even if I’m low Diamond, the match maker won’t let us play together. (SR has to be within 500 for Master Players.) This is the perfect time to take advantage of an opportunity to play with people I know are better than me and learn from them. Sure it took me till this morning to realize this, but hey, better late than never! XD
-Pressure:
Something I hadn’t felt in a while since becoming Diamond. Those three matches we played, I felt more pressure on myself than I did the entire matches I was Diamond. Once again, that stigma of placements. Having to prove yourself worthy of a rank makes you put unnecessary pressure on yourself. Once again, I’m happy we only played three games. Going into my next seven placements, I’m going to make it a point not to put pressure on these games. The reality is, I’ll probably be placed somewhere Mid-Platinum. For some reason I always place low, which is fine. Like I said in Season 3 when I dropped to 2000SR. “It makes for a better story at the end of the Season to see how much you improved.”
I’m really happy I caught these two lessons very early in the Season. They made me readjust my goals a bit for Season 4. Here are my goals for Season 4:
Rank Goal:
So Season 3 my goal was to stay in Platinum. I got placed in gold, worked my way back into Platinum and stayed there for the rest of the Season. Till I hit my reach goal of hitting Diamond. For Season 4 it is the same goals, just new ranks. Like I said, I’ll probably be placed somewhere in Platinum. My goal is to work my way back to Diamond and stay there. My reach goal would then be become Masters Ranked, but that’s very very far. Hey, anything can happen right?
Season Goal:
My Season 4 goal originally was to prove to myself I was Diamond player. However, thinking back on it, I didn’t like that goal at all. I felt like I was seeking validation. So I changed, my goal right after last night’s placements to become a better player. If I focused on improving my play, rank will come and validation won’t be needed. It is the reason why I made a smurf account to practice heroes I wanted to improve at.
I feel like right now I can play D.Va at a Diamond Level, Mercy/Lucio at a low-Diamond level, and Zenyatta/Sombra at a high Platinum level. Really though I stick to D.Va, Mercy, and Lucio. We only have one really good Reinhardt on our team and he gets tired of playing Reinhardt (I don’t blame him.) I’ve always wanted to become a better Mei player. Also our usual buddies are the only ones who play DPS. Well I made an account to practice all these things. Practice Rein, improve at Mei/Sombra, and trying to pick up different DPS heroes.
Blog Goal:
Just a small goal here, I do want to broadcast a lot more of our competitive play. It’ll also make it a bit easier for me on the mic because I’ll have friends talking. I’ll probably try out broadcasting one of my placements (a few if it goes well in terms of connection speed and all that). I’d also like to write more OverThink posts this season! It’s fun to look back at games we’ve played and also very useful.
I’ll admit, last night I was not a happy camper. It was just an overall rough day that Overwatch just added onto. I’m really happy though I’ve shaken all that off today. I’m once again excited like a kid on Christmas for Season 4. I think those three games were very important, because my reaction to them would set the tone for this Season. My reaction last night would have been bad, but now I feel confident that I learned a lot.
Here we go all!! XD
That’s all for this sketch! Oh ywait..
CHEERS, LOVE!
ok I’m good.. 🙂
-Animated
animated 