The Calm
Nathan “Haddix” Ulrey on Season 9 Meta Shifts, Joining the Leviathans, and His Lack of Nerves Heading Into the SMITE World Championship
Nathan “Haddix” Ulrey with Sanguine at the Season 6 SMITE World Championship. Courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios
On two separate occasions in the following interview, Nathan “Haddix” Ulrey described himself as hollow. Those who follow Ulrey’s stream or perhaps catch him in post-game interviews may be tempted to pull out a thesaurus to describe his demeanor—aloof, reserved, standoffish, detached. Even when he expresses his frustrations, there is a subdued quality to his voice and his attitude. While some may find his detachment off-putting, it may be his greatest asset as a competitive player. The way Ulrey describes his lack of nerves heading into the biggest tournament of his young career sounds less like posturing or grandstanding and more like the manifestation of his unrivaled killer instinct: his ability to face the highest stakes imaginable, and, as he tells it, feel nothing.
When it came time to title this piece, I kept returning to Ulrey’s self-described hollowness. He is so pointedly unfazed that he can feel his own unfazed-ness. His lack of worry and anxiety is so striking that even he knows those feelings ought to be there. But Ulrey approaches SMITE with laser precision. The circumstances of his playing don’t matter to him, and it is almost as if they don’t even register. Whether he is home at the team house, playing in studio, or on a stage in front of thousands of fans, Ulrey only ever sees what is in front of him—the five other players that he has to beat at all costs.
It makes sense, given Ulrey’s history. Most of the players in the SMITE Pro League get to play lower-stakes games and tournaments before their first taste of the SWC, or at the very least get to play with their team for weeks leading up to a major tournament. Ulrey’s first tournament came at the season six SWC placements as a substitute with Sanguine, the team that would later become the Atlantis Leviathans. Jarcorrr, then Solo laner for Sanguine, had visa issues and was unable to attend the placements, so Ulrey filled in. At placements, while literally wearing a jersey with Jarcorrr’s name on it and playing for a team with which he had never played official matches, Ulrey and Sanguine eliminated two SPL teams on their way to qualifying for the main event.
It is hard to imagine many players succeeding in those circumstances. Playing as a substitute on an underdog team, with the name of the player who was supposed to be there written across his back, Ulrey faced the highest stakes and came out a winner, earning Sanguine the last remaining place in season six’s SMITE World Championship. So for all of the words that describe Ulrey, calm is as apt as any. Now reunited with his Sanguine teammates for their Championship defense, Ulrey’s calm presence made an immediate impact as the Leviathans improved from a bottom finish to first place in phase 3. And while even Ulrey himself seems somewhat baffled by his own lack of nerves heading into the SWC, one thing is abundantly clear—Ulrey has ice in his veins.
I sat down with Ulrey to discuss meta shifts, his move to the Atlantis Leviathans, and his total lack of nerves heading into the biggest tournament of the year.
[The following interview has been edited for clarity.]
The Long Lane: You moved to a new team in the middle of the season. What has that change been like for you?
Haddix: I think moving places can really refresh your mental. You can kind of get trapped in one environment. You have that same mood there. So for me, it wasn't really to do with the Bolts per se, but my mental was kind of degrading at a certain point. So moving from that team it was great because I was kind of burnt out mentally and coming to a new house with a new team, a new environment, it remotivated me and refreshed my mental and that was a great thing. Other than that, with the team dynamic, I'd say things were definitely easier in certain ways. I'm not here to blast the Bolts or anything like that, but on that team, I felt like I had to do more than I should have. Not even just in game. I kind of had to bear more weight than I feel like I should. So coming to Leviathans things are much simpler. There are not as many things that I have to bear here and you have Steven that can really control a lot of things and it's just an easier environment.
TLL: Did you feel like there was a certain amount of risk? I know that the Bolts had struggled in tournaments and that was a big factor, but the Leviathans had looked very disappointing through the first two phases. So were you worried that you were perhaps jumping to a team that would struggle more than the Bolts?
H: I was definitely not worried at all. Knowing the boys on the team, I've always been friends with them. I know how they were looking at those first two splits, especially when you have Zapman on your team, so while they were going through a rough period and they weren't having like the best season ever, I knew what their potential was. And I knew what they were going to do if they were putting in their absolute best effort. I remember people were thinking that it was weird for me to jump from the second seed at the time to the Leviathans, but I had absolute faith and I knew that they were going to be a great team.
TLL: Obviously something went right because you broke the record for consecutive set wins. Was that just the other guys turning it on in the final phase, or was it largely due to you coming over?
H: As I said before, moving into a new environment, for me personally, really refreshed my mental and remotivated me. It's the same thing for them. When you get a new player joining your team, it can help them turn it on, you know what I mean? It remotivates you when you get a new player in the environment. So, yeah, they did start turning it on, as in putting in more effort when it's time to really turn on the jets at the end of the season and Worlds time, but at the same time, getting a new player can really revitalize people's passion and their motivation for the team. So it's a combination of both.
TLL: Going into this phase three tournament, I think it's fair to say the Leviathans were the favorites. Given the phase that you had, was it disappointing that you all didn't secure that first seed?
H: I think each player on the team probably has their own opinion on it. Me personally, I felt like we were putting in more effort in the Titans set than the Kings set. I was hard grinding before this playoffs and I was excited. This is time to finally prove that I can win a playoffs, right? And then I found out that there's no money, there was no tournament prizing whatsoever. It was just a seeding tournament. The only thing on the line was a hoodie. If we win we get a hoodie. It didn't feel like a real playoff. Just hearing that there's no prizing really killed my vibe. Basically, that was pretty f---ing lame. So, I feel like we put in more effort in the Titans set because it was like a set to prove we're not going to get first rounded. And then we get to finals and the Kings were a good team, don't get me wrong. And we played poorly, myself included. We just played pretty dumb on some things that we normally would never do. But I think having nothing on the line really killed my vibe.
TLL: Is that something you'd want to see Hi-Rez address with the prizing? To make every tournament have higher stakes, even if they had to slightly diminish the Worlds prize pool to do that?
Ulrey with the Bolts, Season 9 regular season. Courtesy of Hi-Rez studios.
H: I think it would have made a lot more sense if it was just simply a Worlds seeding tournament. If they said that this isn't a playoffs, there's a Worlds seeding tournament, then that would have made more sense. And then you know when you play for seeding, don't get me wrong, it's a good benefit to be able to choose one of the bottom teams to play against. It's not amazing, but it's something. But I feel like it just should have been not labeled a playoffs because it's not a playoffs. It was a double elimination playing for seeding, and there's no money on the line. That is completely the opposite of what all other playoffs were. It's typically $8K per player, around there, and that makes it very important. You want to win $8K. It just made no sense that this is the playoffs, but then it turns out it's actually just a Worlds seeding tournament with playoffs as a name for some reason. So I don't think there has to be prizing, but the name indicates that there's going to be prizing. I got baited, you know what I mean?
TLL: Do you think with Jarcorrr and the Kings that maybe they were feeling like they really needed to prove themselves at this tournament, maybe a little more so than the Leviathans, since they won worlds last year?
H: Oh, yeah, absolutely. When you first get a player on your team, you want to prove that this has been the right choice. You want to prove that you didn't make the wrong choice. And everyone, like I said before, with me joining the Leviathans, it revitalizes the team, and you're ready to f---ing get it. You're ready to go in and you're ready to give everything you have to winning. Compared [to when you play together] longer, that motivation will eventually slow down. So, yeah, absolutely. When they first get Jarcorrr towards the playoffs, they want to prove that they can win a tournament and that the change to Jarcorrr was good. So absolutely they wanted it more.
TLL: We've just seen SCC championships to decide who will play in the group stage. Are there any SCC teams, for your money, that you think could actually threaten these bottom or mid-tier SPL teams?
H: Yeah, obviously if you look at, say, Hex Mambo and Eldritch Hounds as well. The Hounds are like 15-0 or something in their phase. Definitely the top SCC teams can absolutely threaten bottom SPL teams, even top seeded teams. Just with the upsets, you're going against the lower seeded team, you think you should absolutely stomp them, and then sometimes you go in there not respecting them enough and you end up losing. So they're always going to be a threat and you just have to respect them and treat them like a threat.
TLL: Is there a team for your money that maybe disappointed at playoffs, but you shouldn't take them lightly or the fans should expect them to turn it on?
TLL: I think Scarabs have actually gotten a lot better. They've kind of like found their identity recently. And Valks have faded off a bit. But Valks and Scarabs are definitely still a threat. The Bolts have gotten much better now, and I think Oni and Titans are the only ones that have had rough patches lately, but they always have the ability to turn it on and be a threat. The thing is, everyone is always a threat, no matter what. It's just who shows up that day, who has the right mentality going into it. Anyone can be a threat. It's just up to that. And because of that, you don't really know which one is going to be the biggest threat until you start playing.
TLL: The very first set of phase three, right before you started your win streak, it was your first set with the Leviathans. You came up with a really interesting start against the warriors. You put Zapman on Eset and on Raijin. What was the thought process there? It clearly didn't work out, but it was interesting. Why that strategy going into the phase?
H: You know, I think the Leviathans are very flexible in how we draft and how we play in different playstyles. So we're going into a phase and we're just thinking maybe Hunter mids are very good and maybe the mages can be put in duo. So we're just going in with an idea and turns out the Zaijin and Zeset are a little bit rough. Turns out those gods are not meant to be put in duo. And we learn.
TLL: Is that pointing to some of the overall issues we've seen with mages in general being weak?
H: I think mages being weak was just mainly that none of them could clear red buff. Since then, they've nerfed red and they've buffed mages, obviously, but that was the main issue before: that they just cannot clear red and they would just take so much damage doing it and they would need help on it. But now some of the top mages that can clear it quickly, they're all viable now. There's a pretty solid balance between Hunter mids being strong and there's also very strong mages. They have their tradeoffs where Hunters can get early pressure and they can shred objectives and people in front of them. But Mages can also just one shot off of any setup. You look at Ne Zha setup, anything like that, and you can secure objectives. Look at us playing Vulcan. We secured a bunch of fires with Vulcan ult that if we didn't have that Vulcan, we wouldn't have won those sets or those games. So they have their tradeoffs now, and mages are definitely a lot better now since the buffs.
TLL: Do you think that the physical-in-mid meta that we've seen so much of towards the end of this season, do you think that that has had a big impact on the kinds of gods that get picked in Solo lane, maybe pushing more towards Guardians so that you can afford these double hunter compositions?
H: Yeah, when you have to put a Hunter mid, that changes a lot of aspects. That's why we tried the Zaijin and the Zeset, because you need to make up for magical damage somewhere, unless you're just willing to risk going four physical, which is totally a viable play. But you look at Hades, right? You can go Double Hunter and then you can go Hades. Or because the other team is playing Double Hunter, you want to go Bellona and counter that backline or Xing Tian et cetera. It definitely changes Solo picks for sure.
TLL: Hades has been one of the more interesting storylines this phase for me. Of course, Bancroft's Claw, a really big deal for him. That sort of enabled the god to have a lot of health and still do a ton of damage. Has the god always been good and people are just now catching on?
H: Hades was never this good. There were phases or there was always a play for Hades. If you look at Alec or fineokay, and the past few seasons, he's always ran Hades solo probably once a season. And that's because Dragons play super heavy pressure and Hades is very heavy early pressure. He always has been because he just has the best clear early. But Hades became way better recently because he has that pressure, but now he also has Claw. Claw basically made the character how good he is now because you can just get in between everyone and you don't die. And then also the tainted build. They also have buffed Hades a lot of times. They've buffed his ult too. He gets prots, damage mitigation, and cooldown reduction. I mean, the character's ult does a lot now, so they just slowly buffed him and then he got very good items like tainted and Claw, which definitely helped him a lot.
TLL: So how did you get into playing SMITE?
H: It's crazy to think about it because I was twelve or something. I remember I would always look up to my brother and his friend group. I was like the little brother. I want to do whatever my brother and his friends are doing. I thought they were cool and he was playing SMITE with his friends. I'm like, well, if he's doing it, I want to do it too. Then I just ended up getting into Smite and playing with them, and then they eventually stopped playing and I kept playing.
TLL: Was there any one particular moment where you realized you were good enough to make SPL?
H: Yeah. At Worlds with Sanguine. Before Worlds with Sanguine, I actually didn't want to be in SPL, and I thought it was a dumb idea to try to even go for SPL, even if I thought I was good enough. I don't know what was cooking in my brain, but it's absolutely an insane idea to not want to play a video game for a living. That's a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to afford bills and make a living off of playing a video game. Once I played at Worlds with Sanguine and went through the tournament run and the World's Qualifier, that really solidified my hunger for competitive. And ever since then, I was trying to get into the SPL.
Ulrey with Sanguine during the Season 6 SWC Placements. Courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
TLL: I want to talk about that Worlds appearance with Sanguine. How did that opportunity find you?
H: In ranked, I remember I always had this joke with Sheento. Whenever he is in my game, I would say hi. I don't even know how it happened. Somehow he and I just became good friends through ranked randomly. And then Jarcorrr had visa issues, I believe. And they just offered me to go to Worlds with them and play the World's Qualifier.
TLL: What was it about that tournament that was a turning point to you? Was it just the experience, playing in front of the fans, the rush of competing?
H: I'm a very competitive person and I'm very committed to whatever I'm doing at the time. So at that point, before Sanguine, I was kind of just playing on teams of my friends to have fun. Being a kid, I didn't have to worry about any job issues or expenses. So I was just having fun. I was grinding ranked all the time and I would try to get to the top of the leaderboard, everything like that. But I didn't take it that seriously until Sanguine. And something about it, it was like, oh, I'm good, you know what I mean? Because I always believed in myself, but making the Worlds run with a good team, it's just something completely different. Just having that teamwork and that connection and that bond with your team and going through a struggle and winning, you can't really get that with anything else. And something about that was just addicting to me.
TLL: Obviously it's been a while since we've had a Worlds tournament in person, which of course means that you haven't had the opportunity to play in front of a crowd again. Are you really looking forward to that? What is that feeling like for you, finally getting to go back onto the stage in front of the fans?
H: It's exciting, but I don't know, maybe I'm hollow inside because I'm not really nervous about playing on the stage in front of people and I'm not super pumped either. It's going to be a good time, it's going to be fun, but I don't crave it as much as other people. For other people, it's very important for them to have these Worlds tournaments in person. It's almost the same thing for me when there's not anything on the line, you know what I mean? It's going to be very exciting, it's going to be fun, but it's not crazy to me. I don't know, maybe I'm just hollow inside.
TLL: So when you finally got into the league with the Bolts, you had been playing in the SCC for a while and, if memory serves, I think you made a comment that you should have been in the SPL even sooner than you were. What do you think was the reason that it took so long for you to make it to the SPL, given that you were so dominant in the SCC for quite a while?
H: There were a lot of weird things that happened. I was given offers for teams and then I was banned right when I was about to accept an offer. And then by the time I was unbanned, it was towards the end of the season, Worlds time, and I tried out for Renegades at the time. It was between me and Harry (Variety) for the spot. But it was the end of the season, so they wanted to take a veteran that was used to playing at worlds and used to playing with just the experience. Towards the end of the season, if you need to get a replacement for a player, you're almost never going to take a rookie over an experienced player because you just have a higher chance of winning with an experienced player at Worlds. So even though at the time I thought I was better than Harry, and maybe I was, maybe I wasn't, who knows? I probably wasn't. But I would do the same thing in that situation where I would take an experienced player. And then I think after that year, that's when I joined the Bolts. So then it's the start of the season, and they're looking for a Solo laner, and I mean, that whole rosterpocalypse is a YouTube video now. But at the start of the season, that's when I was able to get in. So I was basically waiting to get in for a year or two or something like that. And it's just because of Worlds time and the ban.
TLL: You were banned indefinitely. Can you walk the readers through what that means?
H: So during the time that that happened, it was basically the time where everyone was getting exposed for whatever they've said in the past, to have repercussions finally happen for them. It was like a big thing at that time. But being indefinitely banned basically just means that you're going to be banned for not a specific length of time. They're just banning you until they decide to unban you. So there's permanently banned, which means you're never coming back, and then there's indefinitely banned, which means that once they feel that you're allowed to come back, they will allow it. So I think I was banned for like, I don't know, like six months or something or more. A long time. And then I was able to get back in the league by—I don't remember what it's called—when you're basically just pleading your case that you've changed. Essentially you've just changed and you're different now and you want to prove it. So that's what I did. I waited like six months or something, and then I was able to get back into the league.
TLL: When you look back on those circumstances, how do you react to what you did, and sort of the fallout from that?
H: The biggest thing that I get flagged for is, not even the ban, people do not understand that. When I was indefinitely banned when I was in SCC, that was for a screenshot of a six year old Discord message where I said a homophobic slur, which is not the racist slur that people think that I was banned for. So the racist slur that I was banned for was, I don't know, five, six years ago. The thing is, it's difficult for me to remember these things because I've moved on in my life, you know what I mean? I've changed. I've moved on. And I'm not that person anymore. So it's honestly my biggest gripe that every single day, or at least very often in the year, I'm reminded of how I was in the past because I've already moved on and that's not who I am anymore. But that's all that people can think of. And they use it as a weapon and they haven't moved on. But I have. It's honestly my biggest gripe. But it is what it is. That's what I did in the past. And you know, when you do that, you're going to face repercussions. And, hey, I continue to face it every day, and that's just probably how it's going to be forever. That's just kind of what happens when you're in the public eye. I've said a lot of things about it in the past. I think I've publicly apologized in three different tweets. Am I going to apologize to every new person every single time that they find out what I did in the past? At a certain point, a person has to be able to move on and just be the new person that they are. I can't keep publicly apologizing every year when people realize this. Otherwise I'd be talking about it every day. I think it's almost pretty obvious that something that happened six years ago, the person is completely different now. It's as simple as, that's not who I am. I was a kid and I was f---ing stupid. And I don't want to make excuses for it, because there's no making excuses for that. But I think people need to realize that people can change and move on.
TLL: You mentioned that right before the ban, you had an offer with an SPL team. Which team was that?
H: I believe it was EUnited and they were talking about putting Harry in support and me solo, something like that. It was going to be messy. There's also a chance it wouldn't even happen in the first place, but that offer was being thrown out there.
TLL: Speaking of crazy, unusual roster decisions, you talked about that rosterpocalypse just before season eight. Y’all were going to get Zapman in the jungle and LASBRA support. Walk me through that. How did that almost come to be and then how did it fall apart?
H: I was trying to get into the SPL. So when you're trying to get into SPL, you're probably going to take anything that you can get and just try to get in the league and prove yourself. So at that time, players in the team did not want to team with Jake again because he wanted to leave, and then he decided that he wanted to come back because he didn't have that offer anymore and people were upset and did not want him back. So at that point we had to start looking for other options, which was going to be Lapport and Zungle. And I was new to the league, so I was kind of rushed with it and we talked to Steven and we were like, yeah, this is good, we're set to go. And then later that night, I'm like, wait a second, is this really the best idea, boys? And then I ended up talking to the team and I decided that it's probably better if we just tried to amend things with Jake and get Jake on the team and keep Las in the jungle, because it's better for Las not to role swap for his own career, even though I do believe him and he could have done it, it's just a very big risk that Las probably shouldn't have taken and there'd be a lot of ramp up time with the Zungle, but I definitely do regret the way I handled that. The thing is with life is that you're going to f--- up and then you're going to learn. And in that situation, I was too much of a controlling presence without knowing how to handle things, because, telling Steven that we're set and we're ready to go and we're good with this team, and then later on that night, turning around, saying, this is a bad idea. I mean, that's just, that's very immature. It was a very poor way to handle it. You live and you learn and you have to improve and now there's no chance I would ever do that.
TLL: So, looking at your tenure with the Bolts and how you all struggled with tournaments and then Zapman, and how his teams always perform well at tournaments, do you think that the Bolts could have been even better or maybe had a higher ceiling as far as tournament performance goes if you all had gone with Zapman Jungle?
H: You're asking if Steven Jungle would have been good?
TLL: Yeah, more or less, or at least good for tournamenst.
H: Who really knows? Because Steven's been playing ADC for, I don't know, ten years, something like that. You never know with a role swap. It can always be an absolute gamble. I mean, ScaryD is a pretty good example where he swapped to Jungle and it was rough. Whether it was on him or the team environment or how his team played around him, it can just be a very big risk for your career to role swap, and it's risky to be a player around it because you don't know what's going to happen. It's not like when you usually pick up a player, and you see their whole previous experience of playing their role. They've been in SPL, SCC, they've been top this, top that. You're getting a good player, but a good player can't be a good player in every role. So I don't know. Now I believe in the Zungle, honestly, just because Steven is a really good person to have on teams. He knows a lot about the game and he's very good at getting a team to be on the same page and working together. He's always just going to be very good to have in tournaments and in big games. He's a key player.
TLL: So when you joined that Bolts team, you had something called mandatory fun time. How does that Bolts team, where it definitely felt like joking around and having fun with the boys, how does that environment differ from the environment on the Leviathans team?
H: It's more or less the same. Honestly, I don't think there's that big of a difference other than player difference. People have different personalities. But at the end of the day, I'm close boys with everyone on Leviathans and I was close boys with everyone on Bolts. But yeah, the mandatory fun time, I don't know where that even came from. I don't even remember how that happened. It's kind of like a semi-troll thing, but a semi-serious thing. It's just to get the boys together and basically mold doing some troll game plan. You just pick some random stuff and you just have some fun. And just bonding with your boys can make you play better together. So there's a hint of seriousness in it while also being kind of troll. But yeah, I'm just boys with everyone on Leviathans and the same with Bolts, so it doesn't really differ too much for me.
TLL: It is a great idea. You've played enough ranked to know that the people who grind this game are generally not having a good time.
H: *Laughs*
TLL: Your stream has been doing very well and your YouTube channel as well. Is that something that just sort of happened? Is that something you prioritize?
H: The thing is, like I said earlier in the interview, when I'm focused on something, I give it like my absolute all. I'm just completely zoned in on focusing on doing that. And sometimes I just really want to grind ranked. I don't really put my stream or my YouTube first. It's kind of like a focus, but it's more so me just wanting to play Smite at the time. So if I don't really want to play Smite, then I'm not going to force myself to stream. The way how I view it is, I'm a competitive player first, then a streamer and a YouTuber. So my priority is always going to be competitive and focusing on that. And then afterwards it's streaming. And when I'm focused on competitive, I want to grind SMITE and play a lot of SMITE. And with that I'm probably going to be streaming it. So then I'm going to get a lot of stream hours and then it's just going to do well, I guess.
TLL: There was a Reddit thread on r/SMITE recently, looking for the best content creators and a lot of people answered you as their number one or even in their top three. When you hear that, what is that like for you, that people are really gravitating towards your content?
H: It's always a good feeling that you're giving people enjoyment and you're giving them entertainment. It's definitely a good feeling. But yeah, I'm just kind of a hollow guy. I don't know. I don't really feel. But it's nice and I'm glad that I can do that for people.
Ulrey with the Bolts during picks and bans, Season 8 SWC. Courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
TLL: So you mentioned late in season seven when you were sort of passed over for Variety on the Renegades and you kind of joked like you thought you were better than him when you probably weren't. But there's been a lot of talk over the years about how Solo lane is full of these big egos and these big personalities. I think it's fair to say that you definitely fit that mold of the old-school Solo laner of 'I'm better than everyone' and you sort of carry yourself that way and play that way. How important to you is that ego and that confidence towards being successful?
H: That's a really good question because a lot of people when it comes to the community, they dislike when people are confident or they have an ego. It's very polarizing when people are out there with their ego or their confidence. The thing is, if you're a competitive person or you're a competitive player, you're naturally going to have an ego because it's the same thing with anything. You need to have confidence in what you're doing to be successful at it. If I don't think I'm a top Solo laner , how will I ever be a top Solo laner? You just need to have that confidence so that you can actually do it. If you don't have that confidence, you're never going to do it. So I think having confidence or an ego is very important, but there's definitely levels where it can be dangerous to yourself, where, let's say your ego gets too large and you blind yourself from your misplays or what you're doing wrong, then that can damage you. But it's about toeing that line in between confidence and ego. But naturally any top player is going to have an ego. If, let's say, you're first seed, or you win Worlds, or you win a tournament, you're going to have an ego. You just beat everyone. You're going to think you're better than everyone else. I mean, that's just how it is. You're going to think that because you just did it. But it's just important to make sure that it doesn't harm you and that it keeps your confidence up.
TLL: Over the past two seasons, we saw a situation where the Solar Scarabs team would develop these young, successful players, and see them jump to other higher seeded teams. And in phase three, we really saw that push to the extreme. Right before the phase, at the end of phase two, they lost their best player, the Jungler who was really the engine of that team, and then they lost three players and a coach in phase three. Do you think that there needs to be some kind of change to keep rosters from constantly feeding into higher seeded teams?
H: A lot of people seem to be very upset with the fact that their favorite team is losing all their favorite players and it's going to other teams. But these people need to put themselves in the shoes of the player that is leaving. So let's say you're Jarcorrr. What if there are new rules in place that make it so that you can't leave to go to the Kings, but you don't want to be on the Scarabs? You don't want to be with this team. But now you're forced to. And if you're forced to be on a team that you don't want to be on, that's never a good situation, ever. So people that want these roster locks imposed because teams are picking up players, they're not putting themselves in the shoes of the player. Forcing someone to stay on a team that they don't want to be on should never happen. That's just how the season has gone. Probably because there wasn't a rosterpocalypse, really. Most teams decided to stay together and they wanted to try to run it back because each team had their own success throughout the year that kind of justified them staying together. And after that year, going into the second year, teams started to see their issues and that they weren't changing. So then the rosterpocalypse kind of happened during the phases rather than in between the years. And that's kind of why you're seeing all these players moving to different teams, because it was kind of due to happen. But to answer your question, I don't think there should ever be anything imposed to stop a player from leaving when they want to leave.
TLL: So going into Worlds, is there anyone who might be on your side of the bracket that maybe you are keeping an eye on, maybe a little bit worried about?
H: The thing is, certain teams can have worse matchups. So, let's say the Titans, I feel like we have a pretty good matchup into the Titans when other teams could maybe not have a good matchup into them. And maybe Valkyries could have a good matchup into us because of whatever reason, right? But the obvious contenders are Dragons and Kings, are the main, main people that you're worried about. But it just really depends on who shows up that weekend. It could be any team that could just show up and start playing a certain style or just playing very well that weekend and you never really know who's going to pop off.
TLL: If fineokay reads this, and Alec I'm sorry if you're seeing this, I know you'll protest, but the Dragons are well-known for their early game-focused style of playing pressure and getting advantages off of buff invades and things like that. Do you think that the balance changes and the meta shifts that we've seen in recent patches or even in recent years have really pushed the game towards a more late-game focus that really benefits teams like you and the Kings that have excellent team fights and great late-game shot calling?
H: I'd definitely say it's gotten less snowball-y over the years if you look at it. I mean that every season I would say has gotten a little bit less snowball-y for the most part. There's been periods where there has been more snowballing in certain situations depending on the meta is. Sometimes ADCs in Solo, that was a snowball-y meta, whichever ADC got ahead in solo. So there's definitely been periods where it's been more snowball-y than not. But the overall trend has been to make it less snowball-y every year is what it seems. Especially with the 9.5 patch. Did you ask me if the Dragons have that playstyle where they can only play the early game or something?
TLL: I suggested that they are known for that style, but I was asking if the meta shifts had kind of disadvantaged that play style.
H: The thing is, pressure will always be valuable in SMITE, no matter how much they make snowball worse. If this guy in lane against me has more pressure than me and he invades my blue buff, he is now in a winning position compared to me. And if they continue that pressure and they keep me down even though I could outscale them, if they don't allow me to scale and they play correctly, they can snowball the game with pressure. Pressure is just always valuable and they do try to decentivize it or make it weaker. But no matter what, you can't change that. I'm going to get more pressure and I'm going to get an objective or a buff camp over you and it's going to put me in a winning position. It's always going to be like that.
H: I think, honestly, no Aegis SMITE was pretty fun to watch, but at the same time I could imagine it was very frustrating for some players like Ven and Barra getting double Vulcan ulted and not having Aegis. I'm sure that was very frustrating for them. But I'm sure for BigMan, it was great landing a double Vulcan ult and actually getting value off of it and not getting just two Aegises. So it's really fun and it can be really unfun. Overall, having Aegis is probably healthier for the game because you'd have to change so many abilities. If you look at the meta during that, it was like Poseidon, Vulcan, who is a strong mage but he went up in value immensely. Susano went up in value a lot more because you can just instantly one-shot someone with your ult. It changed a lot of picks, which was probably the main reason why it was interesting. It's just like a random meta-shift out of nowhere and people were dying. So that's why it was fun to watch. But is it overall healthier for the game? Probably not. But it's definitely fun to watch and can be fun to play.
TLL: So looking at this season, there was originally not going to be an in-person Worlds and the fan base had to lobby Hi-Rez to get Worlds with fans. I think it's made people who follow the league a little bit uneasy about the future of the SPL, that that is the decision they were originally going to go with. As someone on the inside, as a player, what's your take on the health of the league this season and going forward?
H: It definitely is worrying as a viewer or a player. It's worrying for everyone involved that they were not going to do an in-person Worlds when they absolutely could have. I think it's just a very, very poor decision by them to not want to originally do it when they were able to. Sometimes companies just make some really poor decisions and thankfully with some key people like Harry, who basically leaked it on Twitter that they were not going to do it and then started the hashtag #WorldsWithFans. And then players just started basically lobbying for it to happen. And as worrying as it is that they were about to make that horrible decision, it's also nice that they were able to change it and go back on it and actually make it happen. So you can at least be thankful that they've decided to listen to the people and make it happen. Realistically, I'm not a higher up at Hi-Rez. None of the players are. So we can't really do anything about it or say anything about it. But hopefully the movement with Worlds with Fans has proven to them that there is a very strong community around the pro scene, and people want Worlds and they care about the competitive scene. And hopefully that really shows to the higher-ups that putting more resources and time into the competitive scene, like having Worlds and tournaments is important. And it's wanted because even now that they did end up doing Worlds in person, there's still a lot of people that want to go that can't go. They sold out tickets. I personally know like five or ten people that want to go, but they can't because there are no Worlds tickets to buy. So hopefully, if anything, this just shows them that they can do a Worlds next year and it can be even bigger, and it's important to have it.
TLL: When Overwatch 2 came out, you were playing a lot of that with some friends on stream. How important is it for you to find games to play other than SMITE from time to time?
H: That's a good question because a lot of people, myself included, I will have periods where I just think about SMITE, only play SMITE. Scrim, stream, think about it. It can be very bad and there's basically DR on how much SMITE you can play. Your brain can only learn so much and you can only use so much of your best every day. Sometimes I just play too much Smite and think about it too much and it can actually harm me rather than help me. The key factor is just having a healthy life. Really. Like going to the gym and enjoying myself outside of SMITE. You need to have a healthy mind to be able to work and be the best you can in SMITE, because if I'm only playing SMITE, there's a chance it might actually make me worse. It's really important to have balance, for sure.
TLL: Anything you want to shout out here at the end?
H: Nope. Just you.
Haddix will return when the Leviathans take the stage as the second seed at the SMITE World Championship in January.
