Q: Hello Entsorger! As usual, let's start with personal questions. Who are you and what do you do when you are not playing Rivals? What other games do you spend your time on?
Entsorger: Sup chat! My name is Carsten, I’m 34 and originally from the USA. After living all over the place I settled in Germany where I have now lived for almost two decades. I’ve worked with computers doing web development for a while and then did a career 180 and became a pyrotechnician! Now as I am still waiting for the industry to recover I stream, pretty much full time together with my very loud and deaf cat, Augustine.
In today’s Interview we chat about old
tournaments and the Rivals competitive scene with long time community
organizer, audiophile and expert caster Jeffrey!
Q: Hi Jeff! Most people probably know
you, since you’ve been involved in Rivals since prehistoric times, but
introduce yourself a bit for some newer players!
Hey Kenny! Thanks so much for the
interview.
I’m known around the community as Jeffrey
(my real name) or also by ‘Jeffcats’, a nickname you gave me 😉 I started playing Rivals
back when the beta became available for Canadians, which was about a month
before official release. It was the first mobile game that I became hooked on
and took me by great surprise.
However, I would say that more than playing
the game, I enjoy supporting it. The community is an incredible place, filled
with the most amazing skilled folks from tons of different backgrounds. More
than anything, I’ve wanted to support that community and make sure it stays
together because it is one of a kind.
To make that happen, I did things like run
tournaments, I’m also a play-by-play caster, and ultimately tried to realize
the vision that the developers of the game had for the game from the start,
which was to be an e-sports franchise. I always felt it was such a shame that
this amazing game never turned out to be what we all thought it could be, so I try
in whatever way I can to make that happen. Especially for the community because
the community is what has kept this game going.
Jeffrey's
Casting headquarters
Q: Can you talk a little bit about the
man behind the microphone? What do you do when you are not commentating?
I am big into audio and music. I have a
studio at home that doubles as both my shoutcasting station and my space to
listen to music. I really enjoy listening to music and since sound is
scientific, I enjoy exploring ways to make music sound even better and more immersive,
so it’s one of my hobbies. Part of that involves finding older stereo equipment
that I’ve learned how to repair and restore over the years, and I’ve even made
a little bit of money doing it! It’s a fun hobby.
Besides that, I do a lot of camping every
year. My wife and I love the outdoors and here in Canada there are a lot of
nature to explore, especially where we live, so it’s something we do every
year. We have a dream that when we have finished paying off our house, we are
going to live out of our RV most of the year and travel. We love road trips and
travelling so for us it’ll be the perfect way to do that.
Workwise, I work for an appeal board where
I support my local community, and I am also studying for a Business
Administration degree.
Casting
companion, Luna
Q: How did you find C&C Rivals? Were
you a big RTS fan before playing it?
Rivals is the best mobile game I have ever
played, hands down. The graphics, the coding, the team behind it, the community...
it is all incredible. It’s rare that you see such a culmination of all these
things come into one place, and Rivals is it. Personally, I don’t play the game
anymore because I find it to be a difficult, stressful game, but I enjoyed my
time playing it thoroughly. In fact, had I stuck with it and finally reached a
level 15 collection, I imagine I would have kept playing.
Before Rivals, I played the Command &
Conquer series (I LOVE Red Alert), Starcraft, Age of Empires, Dune, and some
other old RTS games. Rivals to me was an exercise in nostalgia. I remember
seeing it pop up in the app store one day and thought, no way, C&C on
mobile!? I must try that! So, I would say that I’m a fan of the RTS series for
sure, but Rivals was the only RTS that I tried to become great at.
Q: How did you find casting? Was it
something that always interested you?
Casting was something I never thought about
doing until Rivals. In fact, the Rivals community “discovered” me and pushed me
to become a caster. It was early 2019 when I began streaming the game on Twitch,
and at the time I was doing it directly from my phone, so no camera and only my
mic. On top of that, the in-game audio was recorded through the external
microphone, so it sounded bad. But people heard my voice and commented how much
they enjoyed listening to me. This took me by surprise because I had never even
thought my voice sounded good.
A little later, I was asked to be the third
caster for the Flamer Festival tournament, the second community tournament in
the game’s history. This was with FourCourtJester and Poochies. Really, I was
the third wheel in this scenario, so I didn’t get to do any real casting but
rather, commentary between games. But, from there I built a relationship with
FourCourtJester and he was a huge reason that I even became a caster to begin
with. I owe a lot of what I know to him.
It wasn’t until I joined the RIFLE
organization that I really started to cast regularly. Up until then I had been
dabbling in casting here and there, doing some custom games on YouTube and the
like. But when I joined RIFLE, I knew this was my opportunity to put Rivals
into the e-sports light that I always thought it deserved, and I began to take
it a lot more seriously.
Q: The Rivals Iron Fist League (RIFLE)
was an important milestone in the game’s life. What was that experience like?
Wow! I’m flattered you think that. 😊
RIFLE started out as a small group that
wanted to put on high quality, high production tournaments for the community. I
wasn’t involved at this point, rather it was between about 5 or 6 other people
from one of the alliances within the game. Eventually, they held their first
tournament which was a 32-person single elimination format. A lot of people
gave them critical feedback, and I could tell that there was a lot of room for
improvement, especially with casting. Seeing all the complaints, I decided this
could be an opportunity to do something, and so I approached the organizers and
said if you would like some support, I would be happy to be a part of it and do
casting for them. They gave me an interview where I provided some examples of
my casting, and they brought me on board.
From there, things really took off. Once I
was on the team, I was able to provide input and feedback and ultimately, it
gave me a platform for my casting. I became the main host and caster for them.
My first real event with them was RIFLE 2. RIFLE 2 was a lot of fun to do, even
though there were some stressful moments! Right before RIFLE 2 started, I lost
all the assets for the stream due to an issue with the way Streamlabs handles
its accounts. I had to rebuild the entire thing from scratch literally 10
minutes before it started. But we got it done, because we had a competent team
with committed people helping us out and had a great tournament. This set the
stage for us as a group and demonstrated what we were capable of.
And then there was our ultimate event –
RIFLE 3. I’ll never forget it because this is when we were able to acquire
in-game prizing support directly from the Rivals team. I don’t know how it
happened, but CommanderGoat worked his magic and was able to secure it for us. What
some may not know is CommanderGoat was a major reason why RIFLE was successful,
so he deserves a lot of credit for his efforts. When he secured the
sponsorship, this gave us HUGE motivation and so, with that, we were able to
create one of the largest tournaments that Rivals had ever seen. We really went
all out! We even developed a trailer for the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQxjnEPykgo
I consider that to be our crowning achievement as an organization and,
ultimately, our goal was to put Rivals on the esports platform it deserved from
the start, and also, to try and breathe some life into the game. You see,
during that time, that is when the original Redwood team dissolved, and a new
EA team came on board. We could see that it was up to the community to make the
game worthwhile for people to stick around, and that was a huge reason we did
what we did.
RIFLE
3, the very fist tournament series sponsored by EA, with some familiar faces
playing.
Q: RIFLE ended quite abruptly, shortly
after announcing a collaboration with another e-sports organization. What
happened behind the scenes?
You’re right, it did end abruptly.
Basically, we tried to expand further beyond what we were capable of, and it
ended up taking apart the entire organization. I’ll explain.
During my time in Armajet, I made
connections with another tournament organization, The Forge League (TFL). They
were impressed with my casting and brought me on board to cast their major
tournament for the game. It went well, and I gained a lot of valuable
experience about how to use Streamlabs to make better tournaments.
After that tournament, they approached me
and asked if we wanted to work together (TFL and RIFLE). We would bring Rivals
content to add to their catalogue of games, and they would provide their
experience and skills to bolster our own tournaments, all the while we would be
working together on other projects they had going. Basically, it was the best
thing to happen to RIFLE because what we were lacking, they could provide
(things like AAA quality production and a much better system for running the
tournament stream).
Unfortunately, it turned out that my
partner at RIFLE (The Real Kratos) couldn’t keep up with their needs. At this
point we were doing things well beyond our imaginations, it was truly an
amazing opportunity for us. Our goal with RIFLE was to give Rivals an e-sports
platform it deserved, because of how EA advertised the game (saying it would
stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their biggest e-sports platform, FIFA), and how
the game was designed. We all felt Rivals deserved better and thought this
would be the way to keep the game alive. And now, this was our opportunity to
fully realize that dream. But it was too much, Kratos was involved in other
matters and didn’t have the time to commit to make it possible. I tried but
couldn’t do everything myself because I was already busy with other matters in
my own life, and so the execs at TFL made the decision to cut ties with us
seeing that it wasn’t going to work out.
Once that happened, it became difficult to
continue with RIFLE as is because it truly was heart-breaking, and I felt I had
already done a lot up to that point. It’s a shame, really, because let me tell
you – some of the graphics we had in the works for the TFL-RIFLE series were
going to be incredible! However, having said all that, I am elated that Legion
has come together because the level of talent is, in my opinion, as good as
what TFL-RIFLE would have produced.
Q: After RIFLE you got involved with
another mobile game, Armajet. How did your experience from Rivals help you in
building the Armajet community, how do the two competitive scenes compare?
It’s quite an interesting contrast. Armajet
is a smaller, more tight knit community. Armajet has been around since about
2016, and there are quite a few “OG” players that have been a part of the
community since they began playing. Because of the love for the game, they were
running tournaments for a long time. In fact, they even had some very
high-quality tournament organizations get involved (such as Hammers, Tribe, 4
Elements) and produce tournaments that could be put alongside the likes of some
of the higher ticket tournaments I’ve seen in major titles.
Overall, I would say that there is more
competitive history with Armajet, and as a result, it was easier to depend on
the players because they had more familiarity with being a part of events.
As for my time with Rivals, it helped me
with putting together tournaments. For example, I learned a great deal about
different formats and how they play out thanks to RIFLE, Blade’s weekly
customs, RTL, and other groups. I was able to introduce some different ideas to
the Armajet community thanks to that.
The
flamer festival at the end of 2018, where Jeffrey first tried out his casting
prowess
Q: Nowadays you are back to casting the
Legion’s Arena tournaments in Rivals. Was it easy coming back?
It was and it wasn’t. It was easy in the
sense of people wanted to hear my casting again and get my voice on Rivals game-play. After all, my love for the game and the big reason I cast is because
of the community. Without them, I never would have discovered this talent of
mine. It’s a talent that has cascaded to other parts of my life, even in my
working career. And most of all, it gave me a sense of purpose within the
community. So, in that sense, it was very easy for me to come back.
Additionally, you must love what Legion is
doing. This group is full of some of the most talented community members. I’m
humbled to be casting with Legion again because they are helping realize the
dream that I’ve had for this game from the start.
The part that makes it hard is since I
haven’t focused on Rivals at all for the past several months, I’ve forgotten so
much! Things like deck compositions and the way games play out. Certainly, I
remember a lot, but my goodness I felt the rust on that first event. 😊 But I know that with
casting, it’s not so much what you know, but how you say it and the energy you
bring. That I can always provide!
Jeffrey
casting Legion’s Arena May last year.
Q: Is there any specific game that you
remember was your favorite to cast, or maybe a favourite player to watch?
Yes, there is one that stands out in my
mind. It was a game between StrikerVX and Agent Shadow, at the time when Agent
Shadow was still cutting his teeth and was considered the new “Striker”. Some
may not remember StrikerVX but he really was a sensational player, who quickly
climbed the ranks and was on the path to becoming one of the best in the game.
Out of anyone, he was touted as being the person who could take down Alicia
Destiny. He was that good!
During one of my streams, both were there
and offered to do a game on Open Water with me casting. It was an intense game
where they played the same deck (might have been one unit different), and for
me was one of the most enjoyable games to cast. It was full of back-and-forth
action with some of the best micro in the game.
As for players, I would say Mav, Snipes,
13lade, and Alarak are/were my favorite players to watch. OK that’s not one.
but all of them come up with unique styles of play and cool micro tricks that
you didn’t really see from anyone else. To me that makes for exciting games to
watch.
Q: What do you hope to see in the Rivals
tournament scene in the future?
I’ve always wanted to see more unique and
interesting formats. The game is going to be the way it is, likely forever. So,
in order to keep the game interesting, new and fun formats need to be developed
to change the way the game plays out. And thankfully, that is happening. Legion
is an amazing group with very creative ideas, with some of the best community
members in the game. I’m happy to see the new tournament ideas come out, such
as the No Scout Unit and Sudden Death format. It’s clear this is what the game
needs.
Basically, keep doing what you’re doing. 😊
Q: No harv MG seems to be a trend on
ladder recently, how happy does that make you?
Hahaha well, I would have to say the deck
is a toxic style of play. It’s very binary, either you win hard, or you lose
hard. Sometimes there are close games but not often. So, in terms of the game
health, not so much, but I am happy to see that the idea I came up with for
that deck is still around! Goes to show that it is still somewhat of a viable
way to play the game. And I guess for me, I like to see variety in the game, so
hearing it is still around makes me a bit happy. 😊
That said, I am currently ducking under my
desk avoiding all the tomatoes being thrown my way because I know how much
people hate to play against it!
Jeffrey
playing no harv MG shortly after the unit’s release, casted by FourCourtJester!
Q: If you could change one thing about
Rivals, what would it be?
A tech unit rework. I’d like to see some of
those units in the tech lab fit into other roles, like making Zone Troopers a
Tier 2 missile trooper. The game is lacking in certain unit roles and the tech
units, if properly adjusted, would fit some of those roles well. Most people
despise tech units and I think this would be a great way to make them healthier
while simultaneously introducing new unit roles into the game, which is how you
can increase deck diversity and game-play variety.
Q: Any last words?
Thank you for this interview Kenny. I hope
the readers enjoy it!
Most of all, I want to say THANK YOU to the
Rivals community. The impact you’ve had in my life is profound; not only has
Rivals been a huge part of my life, but the experiences I’ve had and skills
I’ve gained are all thanks to you pushing me and encouraging me to do what I
do. I cannot tell you how many wonderful comments I received for my
shoutcasting – and not just kind words, but genuine sentiments. This set me on
a path in my life that has given me a greater sense of purpose not just within
the Rivals community, or any online gaming community, but also my future career.
On top of that, it helped me overcome a lot of my mental health struggles and
gave me confidence that I have never had before. Without your love and support,
I would never have reached this point in my life and for that, I am eternally
grateful.
