TSM talks future of competitive after Apex Legends Invitational win

Team SoloMid was the winner of the 80-team Apex Legends Preseason Invitational, taking home over $100,000 for their victory at Apex Legend’s first big esports touranment. 

With Season 3 just around the corner, Jordan “Reps” Wolfe, Phillip “ImperialHal” Dosen, and Mac “Albralelie” Kenzie Beckwith are already looking forward to the new competitive season. The dominant Apex Legends squad spoke with WIN.gg about what could help the Apex Legends competitive scene moving forward and the sad fate of casual players who accidentally join their scrims. 

How has it been here in Poland? How was your first day of matches?

Reps: So far, the venue has been amazing. It’s super professional and it looks beautiful here. It’s so fun to play here, too. Yesterday’s games we played probably the best we’ve had in a while. We had almost double the second-place team’s points.

ImperialHal: We were really tired at the time, and I believe that when we’re tired we play better. You’re more restrictive. you’re scared to do risky plays. Sometimes when we do bad, it’s because we do risky plays that gets one of us killed. When we’re tired, we play together as a team more, which is why we played so well yesterday.

Reps, you main Wattson. ImperialHal, Wraith. And Albralelie, you’re on Pathfinder. Why is that the current meta? 

Reps: The meta changed when they added Wattson. That’s because she can put up fences, locking down any building you’re in. She also has an ultimate that regenerates shields, eating grenades thrown into that area. You can’t get pushed out of buildings very easily. When she was added, everybody swapped to Watson.

Do you have any thoughts on Crypto? 

Albralelie: I feel he’ll be a hard counter to Watson. He has an EMP, sort of like Sombra [from Overwatch].

Reps: It will be intersting to see what they do with the new character, for sure. 

What do you think of the tournament today? This is the first official EA event for Apex. Do you like the setup and the way the matches have played?

Reps: I don’t think there are too many games, but there are too many teams. It’s way too long of an event. Yesterday, we got up at 4 AM and didn’t get home until 1 AM. We got at this venue at 10 AM and we’re here for over 12 hours. 

Albralelie: There should only be like 40 to 60 teams. 80 is way too many. 

Reps: 40 would be good because a batle royale has a lot of RNG involved. Every team would prefer to play more games, to show that consistency is what should be rewarded. If you’re consistently doing really well, you should be the team that’s on top. 

Albralelie: If there’s only two groups of 20, everyone can play at the same time. What we have now is 40 teams just sitting there, not playing. 

How did you get into Apex Legends originally?

Reps: I fell in love with it right away. I loved the mechanics, like the shooting and movement. I was playing it every day. I was hoping it would go professional. I’d do snipe scrims. I played for five months, basically making no money. But it looks like it’s taking off now. 

ImperialHal: I was playing Fortnite, but I was looking to replace it with something different. I didn’t like [Fortnite] at all. When Apex came out, I instantly switched over to it. I loved the game just like Reps does. And now we’re here. 

Albralelie: I came from Blackout, and it died pretty quickly. Apex feels like it took everything I loved from Blackout but improved upon it. Movement was better. Gunplay was better. I like the legends system. It’s just an overall better game. 

Reps: I also played a lot of Overwatch before Apex, so it felt similar regarding legends and their different abilities. 

Solos were implemented as an experiment. What did you think about that mode? 

Reps: At first, I honestly wasn’t excited for solos. I feel the game is built around teamwork. Every legend is supposed to work together. They have team-based skills, like Lifeline. Her passive is a shield when you’re resurecting someone. That doesn’t work in Solo.

But it was honestly a lot of fun, because you can just drop in and play. You don’t have to worry about getting a random teammate. 

Did it feel more like a training ground, working on your shooting skills? 

Reps: I felt it was insanely easy. 

ImperialHal: It’s something they needed to add for the casual players. Us pro players, we prefer to be a team. Solos are more for the casual player who doesn’t usually play with other people.

Even though it doesn’t really fit the game, it allows people who don’t have teammates to still enjoy the game. 

Reps: I’d love to see a duo mode as well. 

How does it feel to play against other pros in this competitive setting, rather than slaughtering casual players you run into online? 

Reps: We do play against other pro teams every day. We do scrims every day, using a bot that tells us when to queue up. We do practice against pros every day, but this is an event where we can show all that practice, and show what we got. 

ImperialHal: It’s the most fun for pro players to play against other pro players. It’s the best practice. You get to actually learn a lot and get better at the game. 

What happens when casual players accidentally get into scrims with the pros?

ImperialHal: They will probably die first. 

Reps: They do die first. They almost always die first. Usually there’s one or two random teams in there, and they almost always die first. 

It seems sad for those casual players, right?

Reps: We don’t have custom games, so that’s what we have to do. 

ImperialHal: We don’t have private lobbies, so we’re forced to do that. We have no choice. 

Do you think the game is going to implement private lobbies soon? 

ImperialHal: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. 

Reps: Soon we should be getting private lobbies, so we don’t have to ruin people’s casual experience. 

Are there any other teams to watch out for right now in the Apex Legends pro scene? 

Reps: I’m really not worried about any specific team. I’m just focused on us playing the best that we can.