Header Art By Major Sniper
Editor’s Note: This Interview was conducted two weeks ago, before the first match of the group stage, and was delayed due to technical issues here at INN. ONLY | NEED | TWO | COMPS has since exited the tournament after a fantastic showing, same as Arrival, coming second in its group and placing joint third in the redemption bracket. You can watch back its matches on the CCP tournament stream and the Anger Games stream (vs. Center for Advanced Surrendering, vs. Bright Side of Death, vs. 7 Guys 1 Sheet, vs. Odin’s Call)
Who are you?
I’m Phlandhebyt Denthomku, co-captain for ONLY | NEED | TWO | COMPS. We are EUTZ and mostly French. Our team was first created for the AT XVIII under the name Big Yikes, following the departure of the French-speaking members from Damassys Kadesh’s team at the time. They were the most skilled of us and created a team with about two-thirds French speakers, and one-third American players that they knew at the time. The team was sort of an aggregation (some people from Big Yikes, some people from Stain, some people from Snuff, etc.)
A “real” alliance was used for A TXIX – Till Doomsday – for which we submitted the logo still used to this day. For this tournament, only a few pilots were part of the alliance, and the others joined for the tournament (as I did myself) or were used as mercs. In Anger Games, of course, no alliances are involved and the roster doesn’t have many constraints, so we can openly tell that we’re a bunch of dudes who have flown with each other on other occasions and are aiming to do their twice-yearly fun run tourney.
How do you coordinate this with people from all over the place?
Speaking French helps in most situations, but coordinating scrims is mostly based on individual piloting and communication. Most of our pilots have some basic knowledge of English for the most common information, and most of our American members have a base knowledge of French curse words, for the most uncommon ones. Other than that, like most teams, we usually tell people what to do beforehand, they apply it and then we scold them or insult them in Polish if they do it wrong
What have some of your past results looked like?
Our best result was last year during the ATXIX. We placed in the top 16 after unfortunately losing against Templis CALSF. We aim at improving our team more than our results, as communication and theory might not be the qualities best translated into the ranking.
What do you enjoy about participating in Tournaments and what is your goal for Anger Games 6?
We don’t have specific goals in this Anger Games, just have a chill tournament and maybe try and fight Arrival or ON3C (which means finishing top 1 of our group to fight the top 1 of theirs.)
How do you approach this tournament and the fact that it allows scripted EWAR from a theory-crafting point of view?
This tourney has had a different take on EWAR, allowing scripts on them, making the 7-player format a challenge to play out without banning all of the EWAR. Traditionally EWAR comps require a far higher skill cap to be efficient, giving an exaggerated lead to top-tier teams in a tournament. From our theory-crafting point of view – without revealing too much, we respected that – and tried to focus on strategies countering EWAR as much as we could.
What do you think will be amazing in this event meta?
Thinking about teams like Arrival, I’d love to see how rushes/HAM rushes will play out.
What do you think the ‘Ship of the Event’ is likely to be?
Keres or Khizriel to me. The single EWAR Chad vs the 1head rusher, who will hold the other one in respect?
How do you do scrim planning and track what works and what doesn’t for ship comps?
There are several alternatives such as PyEveLiveDPS to do so, but each team has individual ways of doing so, more or less efficiently.
Is there anything you think that people who might want to give tourneys like the Anger Games a shot should know or would help them to get into it?
The individual skill isn’t what matters most. Team skills are. Communication, leadership, theory-crafting… To achieve this, learn from others, watch past tournaments, and see what worked, and what didn’t. Don’t strictly stick to the comps you see on screen, and try to think how that top-tier team played that comp to win.
Do stats and record your scrims, watch them afterward, analyze them, see how much damage was dealt, how much was repped, how much was tanked, etc. but do not hesitate to dive as deep as possible, there is no such thing as too much understanding in EvE.
