I got a chance to talk with Maeve, head coach for FLUFFY AIMERS’ Overwatch team, Fluffy Dreamland, for the first weekend of the Overwatch Champions Series (OWCS) North America Stage 4 Group Stage. Maeve "Maeve" Lewis has been coaching the core of Chime, Astronexz, and Grapes since Stage 1 when they were known as Dreamland. “Astro and Chime have played together forever,” she said, “and Grapes has been with us since OWCS Stage 1.” But no roster can be preserved in amber forever. For Stage 4, FLUFFY have brought on new players in multiple roles. On flex support, the team adds Renko, who previously played for the team in FACEIT League Season 1. The team did not re-trial Renko after he was released by TSM, but Maeve says the decision was not clear-cut. “Renko is great, but don't sleep on Prota. We had to decide if Prota had surpassed Renko yet. And I think they have different skillsets, so it was kind of comparing apples to oranges.” Ultimately, Prota was cut and Renko was brought on. “We really like and respect Prota, but the team ultimately felt more confident with Renko,” said Maeve. FLUFFY also retains Divinity, their backup flex support from Stage 3. Of Divinity’s role on the team, Maeve said “I believe we needed him as a sub for a match or two, Grapes was out of town. So, we decided to lean into double Flex Support for that period of time. We decided to lean away from Kiriko, [Divinity’s signature hero], so that's another factor that added up to them getting less playtime.”
Meanwhile, at DPS, Maeve brought in Wsps from Avidity and Ryan from Shikigami. Wsps was initially announced as part of the Avidity roster the day before the Swiss stage, but defected to FLUFFY AIMERS overnight. Maeve said that her new DPS, a hard hitscan specialist who recently won Calling All Heroes Minor 2, is a “really nice guy that we want to teach through experience.” That said, Wsps fans shouldn’t hold their breath. “Don't expect any playtime at the moment,” she said. “He is just a sub, but we think Wsps is a really solid player. He keeps the environment light and friendly.”
As revealed in our previous interview with Avidity coach Raelyni, Wsps was likely not going to see much playtime there either as their coaching staff preferred Wub as the starting hitscan. We reached out to Wsps to ask why he would switch from one bench to another, to which he replied, “ultimately, I just felt it was an environment where I would be able to learn more and improve from the position, more so than on Avidity. FLUFFY’s environment has a lot more experience than Avidity and the players have competed a lot longer which was something I valued.” The relative inexperience of Avidity’s roster is also something that Raelyni discussed when reflecting on her team’s Stage 3 performance.
Meanwhile, Maeve expects to utilize Ryan more often: “Ryan comes in on double flex DPS maps or maps where all subpoints are Tracer dominated. He also plays Venture for us. Chime is more of an all-rounder, so he gets 70% of the playtime.” Ryan played for Dreamland in Stage 1, so Maeve is already familiar with him.
With this bolstered lineup, Maeve was confident that FLUFFY AIMERS could qualify for the Main Event from Group C. Before the Group Stage began she said, “NRG is going to be a challenge of course, but this meta is so unlike anything else, so upsets are bound to happen.”
Upsets did, in fact, happen.
FLUFFY AIMERS shocked the world with a 3-1 victory over Stage 3 runners-up NRG Shock. How did they do it? “By being better 💪,” Maeve said. “In all seriousness: vods, passion, and a decent meta for us. This meta is really macro-heavy so it fits our team well because we are a very brainy team.” Maeve emphasized the way that Juno has disrupted existing paradigms in support play. “Juno doesn't fit cleanly into a traditional playstyle. Her support pairings are also really varied. Teams play Brigitte, Ana, Kiriko.” Juno’s presence has shaken up the roles traditionally expected of flex support and main support players. “People are still getting used to Speed Ring, and since a lot of flex supports are playing the Juno in Juno-Brig, they have to think about an entirely new mechanic. Juno has everything, so knowing what to do and what your niche is can be hard. Nothing is super clear right now. Also, the supports in this meta are a lot less duel-ey than say a Kiri-Lúcio, so it’s harder to just mechanics gap someone.” This played to FLUFFY’s advantage, with Renko piloting the Juno to much success against NRG. On Runasapi, he charged Juno’s ultimate, the healing and damage-boosting Orbital Ray, in one minute and twelve seconds. UltraViolet, playing Juno for NRG, was only at 49% ultimate charge. “Ult cycling is super important right now,” Maeve told us after the match. “Because it’s so different from past metas, we can get ahead by learning the more advanced strategies first, while other teams don't have as much transferable knowledge from other comps.” Ryan also showed why he was added to this roster, stepping up on Tracer for crucial team fights that led to wins on New Junk City and Watchpoint: Gibraltar.
Furthermore, Maeve described the new game mode, Clash, as a wild card that “really makes things interesting.” Teams are still workshopping strategies and experimenting with team compositions for the new maps, Hanaoka and Throne of Anubis. Since Clash and Flashpoint share a slot for map selection in Stage 4, teams are required to scrim it.“Nobody LIKES clash (that I know of), but some teams are definitely prepping it so that they can throw a little skill check in a series,” Maeve said. She also claims newer and less experienced teams are more likely to pick a Clash map over a Flashpoint map since teams have been practicing and mastering Flashpoint for over a year. This has borne true in the Group Stage so far: Clash has only been played twice in North America, compared to eight maps of Flashpoint. Amusingly, Citrus Nation were involved in both rounds of Clash. (By comparison, Clash has been picked four times in EMEA.) FLUFFY AIMERS analyst Kjersti plays a key role in these map selection mind games. Maeve described her analyst’s scrutiny as “team map stats witchcraft.” Kjersti developed a bot that allows her to scrape data directly to the FACEIT API. Teams are finding different ways to adapt to Stage 4’s unpredictability.
By the imperfect metric of Twitter followers, FLUFFY AIMERS is the fourth-largest esports organization competing in North American Overwatch. (If we’re going by financial metrics, NTMR likely surpasses them.) FLUFFY AIMERS competes in several games, including Rainbow Six Siege, VALORANT, Pokémon Unite, and Splatoon 3, but their flagship game is Counter-Strike.
Of the organization, Maeve said “they reached out to us because they want to cast a wide net and gain more notability as a broader org. They don't take any prize cuts so for us it was a no-brainer, and I think what they get from us is about what they expected: some screen time on stream and publicity. The owner is super friendly too, shoutout to him [FishTheHusky].” The FLUFFY AIMERS branding is one that, according to Maeve, really resonates with viewers. However, while the team is compensated, they are not under contract. “They like to start off uncontracted and contract the teams that stay together for a while as I understand it. So, we may be due since it has been a few months.” As far as Maeve is aware, FLUFFY’s Counter-Strike team is under contract, so the Overwatch squad may not be stuck in limbo forever. Despite this inherent precariousness, Maeve is not worried. “We are always in discussion with them, so our status has potential to change… the players here are tight-knit and don't really have other places to go, so being locked down is not a concern.”
Despite the lack of contracts, FLUFFY AIMERS has shown an admirable commitment to Overwatch esports, including signing a roster for Calling All Heroes Minor 2. Hopefully, they will continue to be a strong part of the North American scene.