The Second Chance
The Gilded Gladiators on Their Tumultuous Rise to The SMITE Pro League
Inbowned celebrates victory after helping the Solar Scarabs to an upset over the Jade Dragons, season eight SWC. Image courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
When the play-in rosters were announced, the Gilded Gladiators were something of an afterthought among the top teams. Pundits and players alike released their predictions, which featured variations of the Wargs, Hounds, and Scorpions as the supposed qualifiers. But there were the Gladiators, a wall those teams would have to break through if they wanted to play in the SPL.
There were moments when this ranking seemed justified. After a thrown lead led to a lost set against the Hounds, the Gladiators followed that up with a game one loss to the Wardens, pushing their tournament to the brink of elimination. When they made their way to the final qualifier and found themselves down 0-2, everyone was counting them out yet again. Everyone, that is, except for themselves.
This afterthought roster is the sum of its parts. Inbowned was kicked from a skidding Scarabs team mid-way through last season. ScaryD struggled all year on that same Scarabs roster. Kyrmi had impressive showings, but faded at the end of the year as the Valkyries missed out on Worlds. Snoopy was tapped to man the vacated mid-lane for the Scarabs late in Phase 3, but has hardly been an SPL mainstay. Even their coach, Ksier, had been out of the league for a while, though he’s had impressive coaching tenures in the past. These were players fighting a narrative as much as they were fighting for a spot in the Pro League. In our interview last season, Kyrmi expressed his desire to earn another year, to not be a one-and-done player. The whole of this roster felt the same; they needed a second chance.
Minutes after their improbable ascent to the SPL, the roster was clouded in controversy when news spread about the past-and-present misconduct of dudemanbro429, then carry for the Gladiators. After Hi-Rez’s decision to suspend him, Stuart was reunited with many of his former Scarabs teammates, ready for another opportunity to make everyone sorry they ever skipped over the players on this team. The Gladiator name is fitting; from what we’ve seen, this team is scrappy and resilient. You can bloody them, but can you beat them? That remains to be seen.
I sat down with Kyrmi and Inbowned to discuss their rise back into the SPL.
[The following interview has been edited for clarity.]
The Long Lane: I want to start with the play-in tournament. A lot of players were really sleeping on you all and thought that the Hounds and the Wargs would make it. I think PolarBearMike even predicted the Scorpions. What was the attitude going in seeing that a lot of people didn't have you qualifying?
Inbowned: I'm pretty sure all of us are just supremely confident for the most part. We didn't have any worries about not making it. We knew we could play against every team, we knew we could beat every team, we knew we were, in our opinions, the best team at the tournament leading up. We had done the work, we had done the preparation, we were ready and we knew we were the best.
Kyrmi: I also want to add to that and say that for me personally, being an underdog is so nice because it takes a lot of the stress off your shoulders. So even if we are second seed, it gives us the benefit for drafting and in-game stuff for everyone except the Wargs. But the perception of being an underdog where people don't think we're going to make it actually does bring more comfort. I'm sure the Wargs had so much pressure on them. It definitely got to them.
TLL: To that end, while you were still in the winners' bracket, you had a matchup against the Hounds and you had a really strong game one. Had a lead for most of the game, but couldn't close it out on those sieges. And then we saw the power of late game Cliodhna really flex its ability to turn around a game and regrettably you ended up dropping that set. And then in the losers' bracket, you lose a similar game one to the Wardens and Aggro tweeted 'I feel like it’s nearly impossible [for the Gladiators] to get back into this tournament now.' Where were your heads at in that moment after these tough losses?
K: For the Hounds game, even after game one, people were a little tilted that we lost, but overall we were still in the game and we were confident. It just sucks that we drafted wrong. We tried to do a run back and then they obviously weren't going to fall for the same early game stuff that got us our lead against the wardens. I was a little worried after game one just because it was pretty shaky, but we knew that once we got a better draft and we played the map differently, we were just going to own them.
IB: Against the Hounds, if we play them again today, I am confident we could beat them again. We made a lot of late game mistakes that set where we disrespected either their CC, their damage, their ability to take a fight in the first game, and we usually should be able to close that game out four or five times just in that one game. And then game two we did a run back, but I think the run back fell short of what we wanted. Like our comp wasn't as good versus theirs as it was in game one. So we kind of got outdrafted a little bit in that second game. Even though we lost that one, I thought the Hounds were the only team that could beat us realistically. So even after we lost that one, it was just like, okay, we played pretty poor. That game is for the most part on us. Going into this next game or next sets, we should be just a lot more prepared because we were put on the back foot. We lost to that team. Now we have that experience of losing and there's no pressure being on winners' side anymore. We're just playing to play. And then against the ElLeon team, just a lot of early game mistakes. And then even at that, we could have easily won that game. But again, we just made a couple foolish micro plays where we just didn't relic or something.
K: Dying in mid, not respecting the kill in mid, not respecting the rotation to right, all these little things. And then it just snowballs really hard.
TLL: So a couple of things had to happen to set up that final match. And first the Wargs had to lose to the Hounds. Was that a surprise to you? Bobby's shaking his head, so.
K: I thought it was close. I thought the Wargs might have taken it. I don't know. I was so torn between the two because I have boys on both teams and I think both of those teams are really solid. But after game one, I think it was just Hounds all the way through and I think that it was going to be a big struggle for the Wargs to come back. I think a few of their players looked a little shaky, but they had really good comebacks for the mid and late game as long as they just held on. But their early games always just looked really rough.
IB: Yeah, they kind of played the same meta, but the Hounds played it better at all points. They played the early game better to get to the point where their late game was really good. Their builds were played for the late game other than Benny not going Tablet. But even then, he optimized his build because it wasn't like him relying on killing. It was just like their double Bluestone dive a lot of the time, or Duck3y Vamana just stomping. But I think the Hounds just played the meta that those two teams had better.
TLL: It's hard, outside looking in, to make a call like this, but when you look at their rosters, you can maybe see a bit of a mismatch in the coaching department. Neil, of course, a first time coach, versus ElChuckles on the other side, who's been a successful coach for a long time. For your part, you have Ksier as a coach who's been around but has been quiet for a while. How valuable has he been to your early run?
K: He's been great. I've loved Ksier. I was the one who put the Glads together, and when I was building this team, I'm like, 'who do I get for a coach?' There were almost no players that retired that might want to coach. There's a few players that we could pick up. Like there's Blast, there's another guy that somebody recommended to me whose name is escaping me. I just kept asking people, and eventually, I think it was Mineral who said, hey, what if you just got Ksier? And I was so glad when he said that. So I hit up Ksier, and he's like, 'yeah, I'd love to. I really love the chance. Here's my schedule. I hope this could still work.' Every scrim session, he's very valuable. He makes it on time, all the time. He was great at helping us with drafting at LAN, especially in that Wargs set for helping us with a reverse sweep. He's just been a wonder to have.
IB: Yeah, Ksier has just been invaluable for our drafting a lot of times. He just brings us a point of view that a lot of us don't really think of. A lot of the times where you've been thinking of our individual matchup or how our god plays against the enemy team, and he'll bring up points of drafting that are just really clever that nobody else really thinks of. And it's like a snap [decision]. Like, 'okay, that's a good idea. We should do that. Let's run that.' And then it works out, and it's like, this guy's a genius. And I played with Ksier on obey. He was our coach way back then. And even though we were pretty horrendous, I think Ksier was still a really good coach back then. So I was happy to have him back.
TLL: The other thing that had to happen to set up that final match is you had to get through the Aru Scorpions on the same day that morning. I think it ended up being easier for you than a lot of people expected. How important was that match in giving you some momentum heading into the final versus the Wargs?
K: I think coming into the final set to qualify for SPL off of a win, especially making it a short one on the same day, makes it so nice. You get into studio early, you get to actually be warmed up, you get to really wake up. And then if you have two quick wins, you have time to relax and talk about your next set and you don't have to worry about it too much and you're confident for playing so soon. Where the Wargs, they come off of a really tough loss when they're expected to win. People are harping down on them. Like, maybe they lost their chance at SPL, and then this is their first time coming into the losers' bracket, so they have to deal with that kind of worry, right? I think if this Scorpions set went three games or the games were really long, that might have been to our disadvantage, but because they were so short, I think it was really advantageous for us.
IB: Even though we jumped out to a little behind 0-2 start, I think it was still pretty helpful because for the most part, at least to me, it felt like a lot of those games were winnable against the Wargs. Even though we did lose two of them, I think we were just able to get settled into our spots. We didn't have to move or anything, we didn't have to worry about getting to the studio earlier or anything. We were just already there, already prepared, talking about picks and bans. So it's always nice coming in a little bit more warm. And like Kymi said, we're not coming off of a pretty bad loss going into losers' bracket against a team that's like the next best team.
TLL: Then obviously that set got off really on the wrong foot for you. A couple of, honestly, convincing losses. How did you stay in that set? Where was the mental heading into that game three?
K: After game two, that was the game where we were up a really good bit. We lane swap and then both my side lanes just walk up and die. They went crazy, like Aqua and Garrett (Gamma) went crazy in solo lane and then scary tower dives Stu and like trolls and then his wave is frozen, so his lane is just screwed over. I think after that, after we lost, we couldn't stop arguing for like ten minutes about why we lost and what needs to be done differently. For a few of our players that was actually quite scary because we just weren't getting back into the game and think talking about the next one. But once we won the [next] game, we knew that we were going to win the rest of the set just because we felt confident and we figured out the best way for us to draft. So we felt quite comfortable after we got the win. But before, I do think it was a little scary because there's so much on the line and it's just best of ones that set for us from there on out.
IB: After we went down two, and like Kyrmi said, we were arguing, I think it was a little worrisome because just your players aren't on the same page. It's always a worry to get to that point. But I think once we got into the draft phase, everybody was on the same page. We actually loved our game three draft and I'm pretty sure we stomped that game or we won pretty hard. And then once we won that game, we were like, 'okay, let's just do what we did this game, let's run it back.' [We tried] to understand that we were not going to be able to get the same run back we tried to do with the Hounds, even though we liked our comp. That's just never going to happen if you win a game like that, it's not going to happen. But we knew the style we wanted, we knew the type of gods we wanted, we knew what we wanted them to not have, and we leveraged picks and bands really good for game three, four, five. Ksier helped a lot with that.
TLL: Something that was really interesting is how hard you leaned on ScaryD. You were putting him on the carry picks, the Camazots, the Hades, and he really flourished and was probably the best solo laner at the event. It's a sharp contrast to what a lot of people were saying coming into this tournament. Right? How as a team did you come to that decision to say, 'okay, we're going to put ScaryD on these carries and trust that he's going to go off?'
K: I think from the beginning, obviously, a lot of us had a rough, shaky year from the previous year. I mean, we all had faith that we were good players and that we just had rough patches. I think he was very much the punching bag for the bugs and he had a lot of blame put on him, but, I mean, he just owns in scrims and he was trying really hard and it paid off because you could see on game day how much he was dragging, especially on his picks. We were confident that if he ever got on his Hades or his Camazots that we would always just win. We would just win the game. And every time he got one of those gods, we won.
IB: Even when he fell behind early, it was a guarantee we would get to that point where he was killing somebody in their back line at 30 minutes. He was going to either one shot him with Hades or pull double relic so Kyrmi could kill, or one shot him with Cama and still get out. I don't remember which game it was. I think it was against the Scorps where he got solo'd at level two and then he died at level three or level four, something like that. And then level twelve rolls around and he gets a triple kill on duo side 1v3, and then we go for a Fire Giant. He pushes right Phoenix by himself again and he gets another kill and he gets out. And he was just going off. At that point, it was just like, dude, the laning phase doesn't even matter for this guy. He'll get to a point where we're going to be in his backpack and he's going to carry us. I think dating back to last year, I think it was more of a team dilemma and I think Scary and the bugs, like that original roster, I didn't think we meshed very well. And Scary is kind of a player that, like me, he'll just go in because that's just kind of what your team needs you to do as a frontliner sometimes. And unfortunately you die a lot, you'll get a lot of deaths. You'll rack up the deaths and then it's going to become your fault. I think this year he's already proven that last year was not what he is. And I think he's probably really excited to show what he's about this year and last year is just behind him.
TLL: It's interesting you bring up this idea of that roster not meshing, and I want to touch on that a little bit later. But for now, you were dropped from the Scarabs after phase two, which amounted to about seven months out of competitive. You weren't playing in the SCC or anything during that time, right?
IB: I was off-roling in SoC.
K: [Laughs]. Oh yeah, you played solo.
IB: I was a menace.
TLL: Effectively seven months out of competitive SMITE. And then when you look at this tournament, there was a lot of praise for your play on Twitter, on Reddit, a lot of people really recognizing that you had played well. How did you stay sharp during that time so that you could come to this tournament and really show out.
IB: I changed the way I approached the game. I think I was really quick to shift blame to others in my mind. Maybe didn't say it a lot, but I would always kind of look to put blame on others when I mean, sometimes it might have been their fault, obviously, but a lot of the times I could have done something better that would have improved the fight, and then they wouldn't have been in a position to make a 50/50 call that ends up not working, or something like that. I think just being able to take that six months or seven months off, reflect, approach even ranked in a different light and just approaching SMITE as a whole in a different light and just how I am as a player, I think that helped me realize a lot of things.
Kyrmi (center) with the Valhalla Valkyries during his rookie year. Image courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
TLL: One more for you, Bobby. You've seen a couple of sides of this. You mentioned a little bit about your time with Obey, and then you had that season eight with the Scarabs where you struggled all year, but then were able to turn it around into a really nice top four finish and then come back in season nine. A really hard year, disappointing year for the Scarabs that year. How is that experience going to play into this season with the Gladiators? Because I think it's no secret everyone expects the Gladiators to struggle against some of the more tenured SPL teams. So how will those experiences factor into the way you approach this team?
IB: I think those experiences help me learn a lot about how, a lot of the time, players are pretty stuck in their ways with how they want to play. And if you become able to have multiple different ways to play the game, I think it opens up a big opportunity for your team. I think the Obey team and the Scarabs team of both years, I think were very one dimensional in how we wanted to play, and I was hard-headed in how I wanted to play, and I would do it even if it didn't match what we wanted [as a team]. And I think now I've kind of changed my past and opened up my availability to play the game differently. I don't have to run it down at wave one and 50/50 a wave to try to get pressure just to hope we win the game in 20 minutes or something like that.
K: Nothing changed.
IB: [Laughs]. Alright. I can rely on the boys to if we need to give up duo pressure or something like that, I can rely on the boys to play solo side and we can look for an advantageous fight on the duo side in like a 3v2 or something like that. It just opens up this big opportunity if I can just be able to be flexible in support and how I play.
TLL: And Kyrmi, for you, you saw a little bit of the inverse of that Scarabs year for Bobby when you were with the Valkyries. By no means were y'all a top team, but a lot of people were—
IB: [Laughs]
TLL: I'm really sorry. As I said it, I thought 'wow, I just roasted him'
K: [Laughs]. It's good, it's good. No, I mean, you're right, we did have a rough year.
TLL: But I think a lot of people, myself included, were really recognizing your growth over the course of the season and it culminated with a really impressive performance at Phase 2 playoffs with a hard fought, unfortunate loss against the Titans. When you look at that Phase 3, you had that upset victory over the Kings and all of a sudden people are talking about Valkyries for six seed, right? It was still in the cards. And then I don't think you won a set for the rest of the season after that Kings win. You talked a little bit about how being the underdog can take the pressure off. Was there a little bit of the opposite of that for the Valkyries, especially going into the SWC group stages where you were expected to win, expected to perform, and it weighed on you all? How would that experience translate to your goals with this team?
K: So I think everything started to go downhill after the playoffs and leading into Phase 3, especially leading into Scrims. I talked about this a little bit in our last interview, but in phase three we thought we were going to do really well and then we started off with a really shaky start and then that kind of mentally set us off. Scrims just felt weird for the next forever, like next few weeks everything just felt wrong and off. Going into the actual group stage tournament, though, when we were going to play the Hounds, then we were confident that we were going to beat them. And then once we lose that set, a lot of us felt very shaky. We get into studio, the entire vibe is off. Everyone's super anxious. We're really worried to play the Ravens at the time, everyone was just... I don't know. I think after losing so much and having the expectations finally on us to try and make Worlds, it really got to some people. Me especially. I had horrible anxiety in that set, and I played probably some of the worst SMITE I played in my life that set, which is why I was grateful to get another chance this year to qualify back in and prove that wasn't—
IB: You're welcome.
K: Yeah. Thanks, man. And prove that shouldn't be the end of my career.
TLL: Yeah, we had talked about that when I interviewed you during last season, about how important it was for you to earn another year in the SPL. So when this team was forming, you talked a little bit about how you did a lot of assembling for this team. What made you think that this was the roster that was going to get you that second year?
K: It may not sound as interesting, but a lot of the offseason, without going into too much detail, were different people trying to build certain variations of the current Wargs or the current Hounds, and they chose to go with the players that they did. And a lot of the Gladiators were left without a home. Right? So these were the best players left available that weren't already on a different team. But we were also confident. Once we got into scrims, we just played better than the other teams by a mile. And then we translated that on game day pretty well. But I think the Hounds translated it on game day the best. I think they found a meta that fits in the best. But I'm very happy that I ended up with this team, obviously, because we won, but I'm with a great group of guys. It's really fun to scrim. It's really fun to just talk about SMITE or hang out or go do stuff. Bobby has a wonderful dog that I am going to get to meet more and more, which is just so nice.
TLL: Was that the dog that you posted on Twitter?
K: Yeah, that's Baker. That's Bobby's dog. He came over to help me hang up the paintings in the picture. And then Baker was just—
IB: He was loving up on him.
K: Yeah, he was great.
TLL: So a little bit after, really, it was like a matter of minutes after you all won, people on Twitter started talking about your ADC, dudemanbro, and bringing up aspects of his misconduct. It's been talked about ad nauseam, so I don't think we need to get too much into it, but when that was starting out, were there internal conversations about maybe taking a response to that or how were you all feeling about that controversy at the outset?
IB: Well, at first we were just waiting for a lot of the information to come out because it wasn't like all of it just dropped all at once. It was like a piece here and then like a piece there. So for the most part, we were waiting for everything to be put in front of us, and then from there on, our decision was going to have to be made. But before a lot of that even made it to that final point, we were told that he was going to be banned for something else. So it wasn't really a decision that we ended up making, it was just he was banned for something before everything finished coming out, so we had to find an ADC after that.
K: Yeah, I think when building the team a few of us were worried. I've heard things about what he said in the past on his Xbox days. However, I assumed after many years that he would have grown and become a better person. However, I was wrong. I did not see all these screenshots and I feel bad about the situation. I think it's just a sucky situation for anyone on the team to be a part of. Because when we win and we make it back into the SPL, whether it's the first time for him or back in the SPL for somebody like Bobby or me and Snoopy and Scary. It just sucks to have that almost be taken away just because a lot of people really hate the guy. Which is very much warranted for some of the heinous things that he has said. It's just unfortunate timing. But we are very happy with Stu. He has been doing well in scrims, he has meshed well into the team. So I'm glad that Stu gets another chance and I'm glad that I get to team with Stu.
Stuart (left) with Inbowned (right). The duo lane was reunited following dudemanbro429’s suspension. Image courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
IB: It's an awkward situation to be in because for the most part the stuff that came out was from sources that we didn't really talk to. You can do your due diligence and ask around which, for the most part we did, where it was like, yeah, I mean, he used to have problems, but I don't want to talk for any of the other guys, but from my point of view, I asked around a little bit and I was trying to make sure that there was nothing else and I asked a few players and they said they had nothing. We know he had problems on Xbox, but it seemed like most of it was in the past.
K: I think from my point of view, the line of logic that I followed was that if he's been allowed to play SCC for this long and he's been allowed to compete at these tournaments and have a potential spot to qualify for Worlds, he should be fine to play. There should not be issues. But there were, and then the proper response was handled with after we qualified and I think that's just how it has to be looked at. And maybe we could have done more due diligence and checked around more or asked more, but at the end of the day, how it rolled out is how it rolled out.
TLL: You make an interesting point that letting him be a part of the SCC for over a year, and he nearly qualified for Worlds [last season]. I think that alone is reason, really, to not give you pause to pick him up before this tournament. And then for Hi-Rez to make a decision after the fact and not before, I think it's frustrating in that sense just for you guys. Because you're five people trying to get into the SPL, trying to make this your job for another year, and now you're in the SPL, but the roster has been shaken up, and it could have been an avoided situation at that point. I think a lot of people will look at Stu, who is obviously an amazing player, and make a one-to-one comparison to dudemanbro and think it's an upgrade. But I think SMITE rosters rarely work that way. We saw just how much of a difference one player could make with the Kings where we saw Jarcorrr switch out for Netrioid, and it was never a case where Jarcorrr was hard carrying every match. That's not really how it works. So with that in mind, Bobby, you mentioned a little bit about the Scarabs last year, meshing. Now this team looks an awful lot like those Scarabs. You have yourself and Stuart in the duo lane, and ScaryD in the solo lane. Then Snoopy who played with some of these folks at the end of last season. So is there a concern about this change maybe impacting how well you all fit together?
IB: I don't think so. I think a lot of our problems last year came from our 3v3. I think a lot of how I looked at the game and the others in our 3v3 looked at the game were really night and day different. And it caused a lot of problems in shot calling, problems in how we wanted to play the map, problems in how we'd want to do stuff just in general. And I think even just, what is it, a month and a half down? It seems like everything's changed a lot where we are all on the same page. We all view the game similarly or for the most part, in the same light. And how we want to play the game and how we do our drafts like that is all on the same page. So while the bones of the Scarabs roster is still there, I think getting to play with our 3v3 as is will change up a lot of what people saw last year, and I think it'll drastically improve how we want to play SMITE.
K: I also want to say that, obviously I wasn't a part of the bugs, but I think another difference would be everybody on those rosters got to play with different players. Like Snoopy got to play with Hurri instead and Netrioid or Jarcorrr for a little bit, right? They've gotten to play with different players. Stu went to go play on the Titans for a bit. Everyone's been able to get a different perspective from playing with different teammates and then come back together. Every time I've had that personally happen, all the players just elevate their play and can work more cohesively as long as there isn't actual personal issues. Those kinds of things can really bring benefits to teams. The new perspective really adds a lot, I think. And I think the issues might have been not only in gameplay, but outside of SMITE as well.
TLL: I want to pivot a little bit and talk about these changes to season ten because that's another thing that will really have an exciting impact on the league. It's a very different map, it plays a lot differently and there are a lot of different mechanics. Kyrmi we'll start with you. How have you enjoyed the changes of year ten, specifically with the jungle, the way you can pull camps, the jungle itemization, how has it all felt to you?
K: Itemization feels the same, but season ten as a whole feels very fresh, very new. Leashing camps is fun. It lets you feel more like a jungler. However, I think just with the change from season nine to season ten, the map got a lot more basic. Just because it's the start of the season, there's a lot of integral changes in terms of the core fundamentals of the game, especially with leashing. Bastions, the change to Fire Giant, the Runic Bombs, the changes to sieging I think Hi-Rez wanted to slow it down a bit on the very first big change they did, especially because they're going to do more throughout the year. So while it is a little bit more basic and you can get tired of this—I've personally gotten a little bit more tired of it quicker—it's still enjoyable. I'm very excited for 10.3, which is going to be a very large patch that's going to have a lot of exciting things in it. I think overall, this is going to be better and healthier season for SMITE than season nine.
IB: With the simplicity of the map, I think that actually benefits these newer teams. For the most part a lot of the teams like the Kings staying together. So the simplicity of the map isn't going to help them too much. It's going to be the teams that have only one thing to focus on, two things to focus on. Which is, I mean, early game, the shield camp really is one of the few things, and bastions. It's a lot more limited. No scepter. I think that benefits the newer teams. Less things to focus on means only one thing going through your mind. It makes it so you can work on how you play those fights that you know are going to be happening around objectives. I think it's really cool for us because we are so new that we can just kind of learn SMITE at its core as a team.
TLL: They've also made this change where the Pro League will be separated into divisions where you'll only play one half of the league once, the other half twice. How do you think that change will impact the way teams such as yourself approach improving, which really comes from a lot of repetition against these stronger teams.
K: A lot of it will just become who you scrim more, which will probably be the other half of the SPL. So I think this first tournament is actually pretty important for setting up how your scrims are going to go and how often you scrim teams. Obviously I think you'd still scrim teams inside your own division, but I do think that the practice is just going to be more favored to the people you're playing less. It'll be interesting to see how that shakes out and how either teams will refuse to scrim certain teams or whoever wins the tournament, who they pick to go inside their bracket, whether they want the easiest teams or they want the more challenging teams for scrims, stuff like that. I think that will make it interesting to see.
IB: Yeah, I think the deciding of the teams is going to be the peak of it. The problem with having two divisions all in one region, you're still going to be able to scrim any team you want when it gets to tournament time. You're eventually going to have to scrim every team and who you're going to be scrimming is going to be inter-tangling with the other teams. So it's not going to be multiple different metas. It'll be, for the most part, one meta, maybe two metas where a couple of teams maybe just didn't scrim. So realistically, I don't think it changes too much. I think it's a cool idea, but I think it's just still limited by the one region. Teams can still scrim whoever they want.
TLL: And Bobby, with Neil moving over to coaching, are you worried at all that maybe you don't have anymore competition for most deaths in the league?
K: [Laughs hysterically].
IB: That's f—ed up. Surely Quig can compete with me, right?
TLL: True.
K: No way, man. No way.
IB: I am the undisputed goat.
K: Yeah. Top of the line. You get in there for us, and I appreciate it.
IB: I got booted seven months, and I was still number three. Like, that's crazy, isn't it?
K: Listen, if you aren't number one, Garrett (Gamma) will be. So you better keep those numbers up, right?
IB: Okay, yes sir, yes sir. Keep running it.
TLL: Obviously the goal is to win Worlds, and it's hard to predict where teams will be in the fall when things are reaching their conclusion. But for this first phase, what are your predictions for this team? How far do you think you can go in this Phase 1?
IB: Well, I'm a confident person.
K: Yeah.
IB: If you don't think you can be number one, then there's just no reason to play. I think we have a chance of being number one team in the first phase. I think scrims have been fantastic. I think we learn so much every single day, and all of us are really absorbing as much information as we can. So, yeah, number one.
TLL: I love it. I absolutely love the confidence. Kyrmi?
K: I mean, Bobby has the confidence to carry even my answer. You know what I mean?
IB: Got to have some swagger.
K: Yeah. Number one is big. Number one immediately is going to be a little tough in my mind, but it's definitely possible.
IB: Number four.
K: You know what? Yeah. Let me roll a dice one to six, and I'll see where we land. I do think that we can totally be number one. I do think it'll be challenging. I do think we are a top four team. I know we looked shaky in the bracket, but with so much on the line, arguably the second most important tournament of the year and just how mentally draining that can be, just playing so much SMITE back to back and then having to play from the reverse sweep, I think the nerves got to people and I think when we're playing calm and cool, we will just start owning in the SPL.
The Gilded Gladiators will make their Pro League debut against the Camelot Kings, Friday March 31st on Twitch.tv/smitegame.
