The Anchor
Tyler “Hurriwind” Whitney on His Return to the SPL, Role-Swapping to Support, and the New Era for the Solar Scarabs
Tyler “Hurriwind” Whitney with Dignitas at the Season 6 SMITE World Championships. Image courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
He is too humble to admit it, but the arrival of Tyler “Hurriwind” Whitney to the Solar Scarabs has perhaps saved their season from the brink. The new Bugs’ support has provided a much-needed pillar of stability in a season full of unprecedented roster turmoil. Whitney, a veteran who has played in the SMITE Pro League since its inception, slotted in seamlessly and helped lead the Scarabs to their only two wins of the phase (as well as their closest defeats, such as a 2-1 loss to the Warriors in week seven). In the crunch time of the late season, the experience of having played on big stages—and in hard games—is invaluable, especially to a team in need of a veteran presence who can maintain team morale even through the midst of a final phase where wins are few and far between.
His impact was immediate. In his first appearance, just days after the announcement and with hardly any time to practice, Whitney’s Scarabs found their first win of the phase. After yet more roster changes, Whitney’s connection with Snoopy led to the acquisition of another veteran presence, a move that was criticized by fans but proved immediately effective. The Scarabs won again over the Valkyries in week seven and came just inches away from upsetting the Warriors, losing a close game one and ultimately dropping the set in three games.
The Scarabs roster has become a mix of veterans who have had their share of success elsewhere and now have stumbled into each other. To use a tired Christmas metaphor, the Solar Scarabs are the island of misfit toys. Every player on their roster was kicked or replaced by their previous SPL team. ScaryD won Worlds twice with the Pittsburgh Knights, but an ill-considered role swap found him out of the league in season eight. Sam4Soccer2 was a back-to-back Worlds finalist. He was replaced after a slow start to phase two. Netrioid, who has been on top teams since he joined the SPL, was swapped for former teammate Jarcorrr. Snoopy last played in the SPL in season seven, and last played mid-lane all the way back in season six. That leaves Whitney, a mid-laner-turned-support who failed to qualify for the SPL, then later the SCC (though he would get picked up on an SCC team eventually). They all landed on the Scarabs because they were the only team hiring. Nobody wanted them.
The opportunity arose for Whitney to make his return to SMITE’s premier competitive division, and he took it. Somehow, Whitney and the Scarabs found ways to show up and play—and play, even with the odds stacked against them, like they had a chance to win. It takes a special kind of competitor to believe when all of the reason in the world suggests doubt. Whitney has emerged as the anchor to calm the chaos and keep this team steady. Now, nearly everyone has counted the Scarabs out already, but they don’t care. They will show up to play—and play to win.
I sat down with Whitney to talk about his return to the SPL, his decision to role-swap, and this captivating new era of Solar Scarabs SMITE.
[The following interview has been edited for clarity.]
The Long Lane: You were able to beat the Valkyries and improbably finish in seventh place. With everything going against you, how did you show up to that set ready to win?
Hurriwind: That’s a good question. With roster changes, there is always a lot happening in the background with trying to sort the new team, so the answer is always going to be a bit generic. Especially when the sets don’t technically matter for us, we’re trying to work on being the best team for when sets do matter in January. We wanted to see if we could beat the better teams. You mentioned the Valks as the team that we beat, and that is obviously a positive for us. It feels good in the moment, and we have a lot of positives to take away from that set, but we have higher expectations than just beating the Valkyries.
TLL: You came close, as well, to beating the Warriors, which would have been an impressive win. There was a lot of noise about picking up Snoopy, and how you should have picked up a fresher talent from the SCC. Do you feel vindicated after the way he and the team performed in week seven?
H: I do feel vindicated. We were able to have a good weekend. For us, even if we didn’t [have a good weekend], we would have to have confidence in that decision either way. In kind of a selfish way I do feel vindicated because there was a lot of noise like you mentioned—jokes about the ‘friends league’ or that we should have picked up an SCC mid. To give some insight into that, the mid-laner for the Eldritch Hounds, the top SCC team, would not be interested in joining our team. He is happy where he’s at, and they’re a pretty strong team too. They could compete with SPL teams on the right day. Moswal was an option, but god pool is an issue for him. He almost exclusively plays mages, but Snoopy is a little bit more versatile. I also know how he plays. I think that is reflected in how we performed in such a short amount of time.
TLL: What do you think it is about mages that they have fallen out of favor? A lot of Set, a lot of hunters are being played in mid. Even Morrigan, a popular mage, has kind of an assassin presence and also turns into another god in team fights.
H: Build paths for mages haven’t been the best this year. Last year, Chronos’ pendant and soul gem were both extremely strong. The item changes haven’t favored mages. Recently book of Thoth was buffed, so that has made mages somewhat better. The biggest change is when Pegon came to play mid. He started counter-picking in mid a lot more, and that opened the door to playing assassins because a lot of mages are weak into assassins. He was one of the first mids in a very long time to actually exploit those matchups well—pressure early red buffs and find 1v1 opportunities, which is tough to do in mid. It made all of the other mid-laners more wary about what they are picking. So if you’re top picking a mage, you need to be really aware of if they’re going to pick Set or something. If you have to early pick something as a mid-laner, and ultimately three people on your team have to pick before the second ban phase, you need to be aware of those counter-picks. And a lot of mages just have too many counter-picks.
TLL: We saw mages prioritized a bit more during the aegis bug when players couldn’t buy that relic with beads. Do you think making beads and aegis exclusive would be a healthy change to implement?
H: It would be interesting. We’ve had a lot of forced changes over the years that mixed things up. I don’t want to say it would be good for the game because there are so many implications, and it is impossible to say how the meta would evolve. I think it could create a hard-to-play meta, and we saw the beginnings of that. It was fun to watch, but as a player, it doesn’t feel as good if you die before you can do anything. I wouldn’t mind them experimenting with that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it led to a toxic meta.
TLL: With playoffs coming up, what are you expecting from that tournament?
H: I expect to see everyone cement their style. I hope to see a lot of variability. If you expect your team to be doing well, you would hope that they aren’t conforming to the “meta picks” and more so sticking to their own style. For instance, if the Valkyries were in the playoffs I would expect to see BennyQ’s Ra, and Gamma’s Atlas, as an example. I hope they all have their own unique picks and play-styles. I don’t want to see the Bolts trying to be the Kings, or the Warriors trying to be the Dragons. I expect to seem teams cement their play-style for Worlds. And I expect to see a lot of Sylla. I’ll just toss that in there, but I think that pick is going to be a problem. Probably Paul is going to have one good game on it and it ends up banned for the rest of the tournament.
TLL: That would be exciting. I think gods like Scylla who can swing fights on their own make for entertaining SMITE. Who do you see qualifying for Worlds from this tournament?
H: That’s a good question. I think Dragons and Leviathans.
TLL: The Kings looked strong with Jarcorrr. Do you think that change propels them into the true contender’s tier?
H: It’s hard to say. I’m obviously a little bit biased because he left our team and we got Netrioid. And I genuinely think Netrioid is the better ADC player. I think Jarcorr is a really amazing mechanical player, but he has some bad tendencies in ADC. I’m probably the only one to say that, and I’m biased. I have nothing against the guy, I still think he’s an amazing player. In a tournament setting, the Kings haven’t looked as strong as the Leviathans and the Dragons. Maybe Jarc will change that, but I do think some of those bad tendencies might come out.
TLL: I want to talk about the Dragons. Obviously, you joined a team in season eight with championship expectations. Was there a lot of pressure on you that season?
Whitney with the Jade Dragons at the season 8 SWC. Image courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
H: Yes. In a lot of ways, it was a Hail Mary. I knew if I didn’t win on the Dragons, that would cement in people’s minds that I was not a top mid. I saw it as an opportunity that I was willing to take. I had stints where I was near the top of the tier list or was close to winning tournaments. Then last year we won the first tournament, so I felt I had proved that [I could win]. After that, it was a slow decline into a poor Worlds finish as well as a poor personal performance. There was a lot of expectation, and ultimately not meeting that expectation was kind of career-ending. If I couldn’t win with that team—and it’s not quite this simple—but if I couldn’t win with that team, I don’t know what other team I could have joined and won with, playing that role.
TLL: You mentioned at the start of that season that you felt like it was your first real shot at winning Worlds. What was the team attitude going into Worlds that year?
H: We had seen a lot of ups and downs that maybe weren’t shown to the public, such as issues with Sam’s god pool and our team identity as a whole. From my perspective, we were a very fast-paced team. But we were going through an identity crisis, which is not a good time for that. You really want to have your identity cemented and know what you’re trying to do come Worlds time. We were not really sure what we wanted to do. In my opinion, there was a big lack of confidence in the team hidden under the seams, especially in Sam and me. They wanted faster-paced players, like what they have with Screammmmm and Pegon. They weren’t going to force us to play differently, but there was a lack of confidence. Ultimately, I think we could have pulled something out, but I don’t think we were the players that the Dragons really wanted or needed to succeed in the capacity that they expected.
TLL: Thinking of this Dragons team, PandaCat hinted that this could be his last season, and people have speculated that others could follow him, like PolarBearMike. If a large number of pro players retired following this season, do you think the SPL could have a talent problem in season 10?
H: It’s really easy to look at it that way because it is hard to know what the talent pool looks like beneath the SPL. The SCC exists, but a lot of people see it as a retirement home for the pros, with only a handful of good up-and-coming players. I see it as an opportunity to see what people can do. I worry people will see it from a doomer perspective, and like the next step of dissolving the SPL, rather than the new age of the SPL. I like to see it as a new age. I think the competition is as hard as it has ever been, and the players beneath the pro league are as good as they’ve ever been. If there has ever been a time to introduce new players, now is that time. Who knows what we will get? The ADC that replaces PandaCat certainly won’t be anywhere near his level at the start, and people shouldn’t expect that. People complain about stale matchups, so this would be a good opportunity to change that.
TLL: Then this season, you role swapped to support. Can you walk me through that decision?
H: I had five or six teammates over my career tell me that genuinely thought I would make a good support. Not that I was a bad mid—of course, they all made sure to say that. Just that my skillet probably makes more sense in the support role, that being I’m very communicative, I have a lot of opinions about the game, I wanted to be involved in everything, and I am also an aggressive, opportunity-seeking player. I think that is reflected in my god pool and what I succeeded on when I played that role. I was not good at the Paul play-style of hiding and being a hard-to-find backliner, and ultimately I think that is what you should be as a mid. I was an opportunity-seeker, which had its benefits. Ultimately, support seemed like a good way to reinvigorate myself after a poor Worlds performance on my signature role. It has taken a long time though. A lot longer than I expected it would take to catch on. There are a lot of game-play things that you have to get used to playing support that I thought I would learn faster. I am a lot happier playing the role. I feel like I have fun, so that is the main thing for me.
TLL: Your signature pick used to be Janus. People even said you were the best Janus in the world. Is there some sadness that you don’t get to play the god anymore?
H: There is a little bit, but I also think back to Yammyn, and his legacy continued after he stopped. I don’t mean to compare myself to Yammyn, I just use him as an example to show that you can succeed for a finite amount of time, then move on and keep your legacy. That’s what I would hope for that. It’s up to the people and what they believe, but I feel like I had a good run on that character, and I am happy to leave it there.
TLL: Will we maybe see a Janus support?
H: [Laughs]. You and everyone else wants to know. I did try it when Ronngyu was playing it earlier. It was fine. I won scrims on it in SCC. Maybe if they buff the utility of that character a bit more.
TLL: You might as well just play Horus, though.
H: Yeah, true.
TLL: You put together a play-in team with Snoopy, Lukonium, Duck3y, and Moswal. How did that team come together?
H: It was taking the best pieces we had available. It is a very chaotic time at the beginning of the year. There were a lot of roster changes that could happen in the SPL, but most of them didn’t. That team was not how it was envisioned even a week prior to its formation. The hardest choice was the jungler. Lukonium seemed to be the best personality fit. He is a really great guy. Ultimately, he was a bit of a bust come tournament time. I feel guilty. We were very supportive of him even after he had some tough games, but he was really in his head. And that’s just the risk you take when you play with new players. That is why it is funny everyone wanted us to get a new player. I literally took a risk on a new player at the beginning of the year, and I was happy to do so. But sometimes people just crumble under pressure. Maybe in the next tournament he would be better, but you never really know. And that is why it is nice to pick up someone you know is comfortable.
TLL: Then when you lost in the play-in, were you concerned that your time in the SPL had concluded?
H: Wow. That’s a heavy question. Yes. Of course. That’s a good question I think a lot of people would be afraid to ask. Obviously, I am still here. But, definitely. I spent the next few months job hunting. I got offered a job I ultimately didn’t want to take, in the engineering field, which is what my degree is for. In the meantime, I had to stream and do other things to get by. And yeah, I was worried about that, especially since the SCC qualifiers were not long after, which is another supplementary form of income. We had a week with that team too, [laughs] and we lost that as well. So at that point, I thought, ‘probably.’ And that’s fine because everyone’s time comes to an end. I carried on and worked on myself and did other things. But that is a tough reality to face. I decided the day that we lost that I was not going to look at it in a negative light.
TLL: Now you have another shot with the Scarabs. I won’t ask you to speculate about plans for season 10, but do you think you have played well enough to earn a look for season 10 as an SPL support?
H: I do. I think I have performed well enough. I don’t think I have performed to my expectations. I have had some bad games and sets that I am not particularly proud of—sets where I feel I have learned lessons. And I can see that, but that’s not what everyone else sees when you have a bad set. I think I have earned an opportunity. It hasn’t been as convincing as I would like.
TLL: You spent a couple of weeks casting. How did that opportunity arise?
H: Hinduman contacted me and told me they were understaffed and needed someone in the area to fill in as an analyst. For me, I was playing SCC at the time, but they let me do this at the same time. It was another way to make opportunities. It was something new, and I hadn’t done something new in a long time. It was a way to generate an actual skill-set, too, so I was happy to do it and expand my horizons. If things didn’t work out [in the SPL], I would be happy to go back and do it again.
TLL: Was that time you spent casting valuable for you in the SPL at all? Maybe expand your analytical skills a bit?
H: I wouldn’t say it expanded my analytical skills in that way, but it expanded my understanding of how things work outside of the booth and the production side of things. I gained life perspective about these people around me that I see all the time. Less a game-play advantage, but more so a broadening of my horizons and getting to meet people. I have to shout out—and there are a lot of amazing people working for production at Hi-Rez—but Mike, he works the cameras and has a dream to work in Hollywood, and it is really cool to meet people who work in these expert fields who are walking around me that I never got the chance to talk to or meet. It was really cool to meet those people and feel out their ambitions, and see the talent at Hi-Rez.
TLL: How did you get into smite?
H: That is a question I have not been asked for a really long time. I used to watch YouTubers back in high school and college. And I always liked mythology—I know that is a cliche answer. But I gave it a try and I ended up really liking the genre. I was terrible [at first], but I watched Lassiz who was a big player back in the day. I got against him one game, and I was 1-8 and I killed him one time and thought ‘wow, I’m good.’ I made masters in ranked randomly, and then Aror found me and we made a team. That was my course.
TLL: I want to talk about that season one team shortly, but first, were there any other games that you played before SMITE?
H: I played Call of Duty and Halo when I was younger, and I played [World of Warcraft] on a crappy laptop in high school as well. I never took any games seriously. Maybe I would play pick-up games. There was this game called Monday Night Combat that I played on XBOX, which is such a niche game no one is going to know.
TLL: What was your race and class in WoW when you played?
H: I always changed every expansion. But when I first started I had a night elf priest and a night elf mage. I guess I liked night elves.
TLL: You were a relative unknown when you qualified for the SPL in season one. What was that journey like, first breaking into the league?
H: If you weren’t one of the top teams pre-season one, no one really knew you. There were only open tournaments before then, and if you weren’t one of the teams that won those a lot then your team was probably changing a lot. One of the other unknown teams back then was Critasaurus who people might know because they won some stuff back then. But Aror had people he was friends with, like Samshrew who was 13 at the time, and Cyclonespin. He needed a mid laner, and I played gods that needed set-up, which he thought fit well with how he wanted to play. I was kind of the Pegon back then. [Laughs]. I was the top-ranked mid.
TLL: Did you ever think, back then, that you, Cyclone, and Aror would become fan-favorite players in the league?
H: Definitely not. At that time, there was no way to have that scope for ten years into the future. I thought it was something I did while I was in school. Would I have guessed it could happen? Yes. But it was hard for me to see myself as anything other than the underdog new guy. I didn’t think I would be on the same level as Lassiz, or Shing. It just wasn’t in the wheelhouse I suppose.
TLL: And now it’s like ‘Lassiz who?’
H: [Laughs]. Yeah, exactly. I have to explain who that guy is.
TLL: What would you say has been most integral for your success?
H: That is a good question. It changes. Probably my father. When I first started playing SMITE, I didn’t tell him I was doing it, because I knew he wasn’t going to understand it. I was a straight-A student most of my life, but I had a really bad semester where I failed two classes out of the blue, and he paid attention to my grades.
TLL: I should clarify for anyone reading this that, in STEM fields, sometimes that happens where you will randomly fail a class. Some of those classes are impossible.
H: The average in some of those classes was like a low C or a high D. And they’re all smart people. So if you line up your schedule the wrong way—that is basically what happened to me. I was in a stressful time in my SMITE career as well, plus I was going through a stint where I was depressed and overwhelmed, and I skipped some classes for a couple of weeks. From his point of view, he found out I was playing this game competitively and it was taking a lot of my time. He also found out I traveled to Sweden and I didn’t tell him. Which is terrible of me. We had a heart-to-heart. He was paying for my school. I told him I would take over paying for my school on my own. We came to terms, and he’s been incredibly supportive of me ever since. He’s been a huge supporter of mine. Sometimes I forget that he watches, and then he will say ‘congrats’ or ‘tough loss’ and it makes me smile because I know he doesn’t really get it, but he’s just supportive of me and I could never be more appreciative of that.
TLL: You’ve spent most of your career bouncing around middle teams, but then you found yourself on a Dignitas team in season 6 that was one of the first multi-region teams, and clearly a top team throughout that season. And then you lost to RivaL. Do you feel like that season maybe got away from you? Like you could have gone all the way?
Whitney with Dignitas, season 6 SWC. Image courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
H: We beat the Pittsburgh Knights team with Rowe subbing. I can’t remember who for. I should know. [Laughs]. All I remember is Persephone was new, and they let me play it in both of the games we won, which is crazy because that god was beyond good at the time.
TLL: Do you miss the old Persephone?
H: Yeah, I do. I’m biased because I got to play it originally. But I do think she was a well-rounded character. She had a lot of cool mechanics. The revive mechanic was probably something that could have gone on its own.
TLL: I think we are really fortunate that we never saw a set that was outright decided by Persephone’s revive mechanic because I think that would have felt really cheap.
H: Yeah, I think that would have caused controversy. And she was bugged on release. Her flowers used to do full damage while she was dead, so she could one-shot people. I definitely think that mechanic had the potential to be problematic in the competitive scene.
TLL: Do you think you and that Dignitas team could have won that year?
H: I think if we beat RivaL, we would have won. We matched up better into that SK team. That was when the invade speed meta was happening, and Mike was just the best at that. It wasn’t really TrixTank’s forte, so Mike had his team ahead of us before anyone was through the laning phase. And that’s not to blame Trix because we all made mistakes. But I do think we could have won, or at least if the invade meta was less prevalent, we could have done a lot better.
TLL: What made you interested in engineering?
H: I didn’t know what to major in. Some of my friends from high school were majoring in engineering, so I went that route. I had the classic thing where I thought I was smart in high school, but I got to college and everyone is smart. I decided to stick it out, but it was never something I particularly wanted. I’m glad I did. I’m proud of it. But don’t do what I did. Go a more general route, or don’t go to college, and go to an associate’s school, because what I did was not worth the mental stress.
TLL: If you could go back, what would you study?
H: I would probably work in sales. Because I would get to travel and meet a lot of people. I am of the firm opinion that every job is a job. Some people who work hard enough or are talented enough can find work they are truly passionate about. And I wish everyone could find that, that would be amazing. I think a lot of people don’t get that, and I don’t have a passion in something enough to beat out someone else. So I would pick something that I could tolerate that had perks and incentives that were rewarding to me.
TLL: The SMITE eSports wiki says you like meatballs more than ravioli. Is that accurate?
H: I still don’t know where that came from. I think whoever was working on the wiki wanted to fill out my page because I was a newer player. So they may have asked me that in a twitch chat.
TLL: This happened with Barra too.
H: [Laughs] It’s just some filler. I have no passion for that question at all. As far as I’m concerned someone could have just made that up.
TLL: Well we have to set the record straight. Meatballs or ravioli?
H: I’ll say ravioli now. I think I’ve changed.
TLL: There you have it. Personal growth. We’ll have to update the wiki.
Good luck with the rest of the season. I am rooting for you and the Scarabs, especially with everything that has happened. Is there anything you want to shout out at the end?
H: Shout-outs are always tricky. I always feel like I miss someone. But I want to shout out my family and my lovely partner Madison. She has been nothing but supportive of me throughout my career and the worse of my SMITE years turmoil and sustainability-wise. And shout-out to my teammates. This iteration of this Scarabs team, no matter how well we do, has been the most enjoyable to me. Everyone wants to be there and is super supportive. Also, I am appreciative of the fans. There’s a lot of negativity, and I’m not the best and handling it. I’ll be the first to admit that. But outside of a few bad eggs, I have had the most support ever this year. It has been an incredible amount of support, and I’ve met a lot of incredible people. I can’t name them all, because it’s too many. And also thank you for putting together this interview platform. I’m sure you’ve gotten love from a lot of other people, but it’s very professionally done, the questions are amazing, it’s very easy to read, and it’s something that has been lacking in the SPL. It’s also a really great outlet to give more insight into ourselves from a non-selfish point of view. So thank you for having me on.
Hurriwind will return in January when the Scarabs will play through the SMITE World Championship placements for a spot on the main stage in Arlington.
