Overt might only be playing in OCN by pure chance, but you don’t make it to playoffs off of that. After securing their spot in the Stage 3 finals, Trent “Twent” Rowe is here to prove Overt deserves to belong in the top-flight.
Overt were the definition of a team who everyone had no expectations of. Well, there were some expectations: They couldn’t be as bad as Stage 2 Rhythm, right?
Those predictions weren’t just met, they were smashed. Within a week of arriving on the scene, Overt had pushed Knights to the edge, and then they started taking maps off Rhythm and ORDER.
Not only had they proven they were worthy of being in OCN, they were shooting for the stars — even if they kept a conservative facade publicly.
“I think Soya was maybe a little bit too humble in his interview and deep down we had high expectations for ourselves,” Twent told Snowball.
“We expected Top 6, but getting fourth was really amazing for us.”
The jump to OCN from OCL is always going to be a big one. Overt might have been scrimming the top-tier ANZ teams, but it’s different from practicing against them to playing against them on stage with all the marbles up for grabs.
Those scrim performances in the lead-up to their breakout Stage 3 performances definitely instilled confidence, but nothing beat them racking up points week-in, week-out.
“Even in OCL we had scrims against these exact teams and we had great results. It’s obviously just scrims, but we knew that we had the potential once we made OCN to contend with these teams.”
“The comp experience is the [best] thing. Even if we were in OCL we’d be scrimming the same kinds of teams. When we come into Relegations, we’ll be prepped for the game day mentality.”
Overt made it work off the two-pronged strategy of Kyro and EdPan. The two worked together marvelously to find ways to entry onto site on attack, and Kyro also mastered a huge flank presence with a threatening Nokk to say the least.
Their defense might have struggled in comparison, but with time in the top-flight those strategies will come.
Regardless of their finish in the regular season, they’re hesitant to say they come into playoffs as any form of favorites. In fact, Twent and Overt have embraced the underdog title.
“When we come into a game with the expectation to win, we actually perform worse. We try and go in knowing we can win but not expecting that,” he explained.
“That Wildcard game for example, we knew we could win but didn’t expect to and we smashed them 7-2. Then the next day playing against ROFLCOPTER we were too confident and didn’t play well. It’s all about giving our opponents the respect they deserve.
There’s some concerns around Overt — they are too inexperienced, they don’t have the map pool (they only played three maps in Stage 3, with the majority of their games on Oregon). However, they’re still confident in backing themselves in a best-of-three scenario.
“I won’t say too much, but we have quite a few more maps that we haven’t shown yet. We haven’t had the chance to pull them out yet, but when we do it might get a bit spicy,” he said.
“The fact that Chiefs and Wildcard took us to Oregon did that gave us a chance to hide our other maps heading into playoffs. We’ve only shown three so far, so we have another four we can show as playoffs progresses.”
Overt still have one path to avoid Relegations: Win the entire stage. It’s a tall order for the new kids on the block, but they’re just going to take it one series at a time and soak up as much experience as possible to ensure they confirm their spot for 2022 in any way possible.
“I think we can beat Rhythm. I don’t expect us to do it but I know we can. Once we get to the Chiefs game, it depends on how they’re playing. If they put in all their effort I think they’ll win but if they play like how they did in our regular season game, we’ll win,” he said.
“With Bliss and Knights, I don’t know: It could happen, but I don’t know.
“Our dream as a team was always to make OCN and we didn’t really count this stage as making OCN because we didn’t play for the spot, we got promoted by chance.
“If we somehow won this stage, or make it through Relegations, it’ll feel like we’ve earned our spot ourselves, and that’ll be the best feeling.”
Overt takes on Rhythm in the first game of the Oceanic Nationals Stage 3 playoffs today, Saturday October 9 at 4pm AEDT. You can catch the action live on the Rainbow Six Bravo Twitch channel.
