eSports
WHAT IT TAKES TO COMPETE
By Lauren Ashly Piersol
T
he lead up to the SMITE
200k Launch Tournament
saw the coming and
going of many teams in both the
European and North American
series. What once was Cognitive
EU became Team Solo Mid.
Reason Gaming broke apart;
some went to Snipe, and others
formed ClashnSmash. Exertus
became Cognitive Gaming NA.
What leads to the creation
and destruction of a team?
With the new season of SMITE
beginning soon, creating a stable
competitive team must begin
now.
Job “CaptOates” Hilbers has
been playing SMITE since early
beta and has been in and out of
the competitive SMITE EU scene
over the course of 2013. One of
the notable differences between
Issue 1 • May 2014
NA and EU, he says, is how stable
the North American team players
are. “When you look at rosters,
the team name might change,
but the core of the players in
North America have stayed
together. So teams like Dignitas
have been playing together for
a year or more.” That stability
led to North American teams
doing better overall at the 200k
tournament; however, Team
Solo Mid, an EU team, still took
first place. TSM is one of the few
teams to enjoy a stable roster.
TrixTank and Qvofred are real
life best friends, and along with
Gamehunter, have been playing
SMITE together on teams for a
year. Lawbster and Youngbae
have also been playing together
as long, and so time together
as a team really was a deciding
factor.
What keeps new teams, in
general, from sticking with
competing? “New teams end up
against the first or second seeded
team early in the brackets. It’s
not fun and is very disheartening
to get trounced so quickly. So
even solid mid tier teams fall
apart quickly under that type
of pressure,” CaptOates relates
from his own experiences
competing. “To really see SMITE
grow competitively, there needs
to be a two tiered system with
cash prizes in both. So a league
just for newer teams to compete
in, and then a top prize pool
bracket for the experienced
teams.” CaptOats’s isn’t alone
in his opinion. Snipe’s Shing,
who has been competing in NA
since the beginning of organized
competition, said much the
same. “Until the cash prizes
44 • GameOn Smite Community Magazine