We’ve all seen the meme. A stunning, modern, presumably very expensive Bugatti sits in the exposed car garage of a ramshackle mobile home park. This meme gets thrown around in sports and esports circles, usually to describe exceptionally talented players who are “stuck” on subpar teams.
That has been Senna for a while.
She’s regarded by fans and analysts as not just one of the top hitscan players in the Calling All Heroes circuit, but one of the better gunslingers in the EMEA region. Despite this, Senna Tittel has consistently found herself on underperforming rosters. In the 2023-2024 Calling All Heroes Championship, she played on WISP Embers, who were completely and utterly flattened by Timeless Ethereal in both of their bracket matchups. Completely outclassed.
Meanwhile, in this year’s Calling All Heroes Major 1, Senna was benched for Par on YFP Pixies. She explained that “Aramori basically owned the team due to YFP giving it to her” and that since “the core started with Aramori, Eskay, [and] Par,” they made most of the roster decisions. According to Senna, Aramori “didn’t know who to play on DPS cuz she didn’t know who would be better.” Instead, Aramori “gave the power to [the other DPS] which ended up maybe being the wrong decision.” This surprised not just most viewers, but also Senna’s friends. They were “flabbergasted on how I wasn’t playing,” she said. Meanwhile, Senna was “lowkey hate-watching,” still pissed off from being benched and saying to her friends “if either YFP or Timeless had me they would’ve won.” Senna described “a slight altercation between me and Par where we had an argument after the tourney was done about me asking if I will play next tourney or not.” After the argument, she was removed from the server.
"If either YFP or Timeless had me they would’ve won lowkey."
What happened next? Senna said, “At this point, I already decided I didn’t want to stay, although Aramori wanted to try me again. While all this happened I got DMed by Timeless people and asked me for a trial which I chose to do over going back to YFP.” She added, “For the record me and Par did make up again but I have decided to not play with YFP.”
Timeless Ethereal are hungry for revenge. Calling All Heroes Major 1 was their first CAH tournament loss in over a year. Their chances are looking good. In the last FACEIT We Are So Back Cup, team Green Fortnite (the name Ethereal’s roster competed under in FACEIT League Master Division) beat Valentine in the finals, 3-0. In the current meta, individual hitscan v hitscan matchups are extremely important for swinging fights in a team’s favor. In Map 2 of the WASB Cup finals, Midtown, Senna notched a kill-death ratio of 20. Valentine’s hitscan had 0.75. Granted, Valentine was playing with JUTSU, their FACEIT League DPS, and not wsps, their CAH hitscan. Still, it’s a promising sign for Calling All Heroes Minor 1 Operated by ESPORTSU. Senna is confident in facing off against the top hitscans in CAH. “My Cassidy is quite good,” she said, “though definitely not as good as my Ashe, Soj and Widow.” She continued, “no matter what hero, [the] only person I’m afraid of is Shima (xten), she currently isn’t playing.” To describe her and xten’s duels in Calling All Heroes, Senna used this clip.
Senna’s first scrims with Ethereal were rough. “Our team is really bad at Mauga,” she said. However, the team has found their groove on Sigma compositions after the new patch. With Sniper on Sigma and Zss on Baptiste, it’s a playstyle that suits the team well. She loves playing with Bun as her DPS partner, describing her as really easy to play with. Along with a few CAH scrims, Timeless Ethereal has mostly been scrimming FACEIT League Master teams. Green Fortnite finished 10th in FACEIT League Season 1, and they’ve been scrimming teams who also finished around that middle-of-the-pack area, like Fluffy Aimers, Pirates in Pyjamas, and Shikigami. This scrim regimen is serving the team well, as Timeless Ethereal did not drop a single map during the Swiss stage for Calling All Heroes Minor 1.
While Green Fortnite were slugging it out in North America, Senna played in Europe for Meavedron, a small Polish organization known for competing in Ultraliga 2, the second-division Polish regional League of Legends circuit. Meavedron struggled in FACEIT League, only winning one match against fellow bottom-feeder TheToughShells. (The standings say they won two matches, but one of those was a forfeit win against AWW YEAH.) Senna says there were issues behind the scenes that affected the team’s performance.
Tank Alex2704, once a champion of European Contenders, came out of retirement, but struggled to adapt to Overwatch 2. Senna described him as “lost... at times.” Meanwhile, Team Canada alumnus Noxious “disappear[ed] midway through,” forcing the team to pick up Kilaa, who, while talented in his own right, is a hitscan player just like Senna. On top of that, support players GaaRa and Scpy were also playing in Saudi eLeague, which limited their availability. Senna liked playing with Saudi Arabian main support GaaRa, who recently joined ROC Esports. She describes him as a good player who sometimes does a bit too much trolling in the server. She also shared a fascinating tidbit about her teammate. “I think GaaRa definitely can make it far knowing he would’ve been on Saudi Arabia’s Overwatch World Cup team if it wasn’t for his job. They had Nutella (Haku) for Mercy cuz YZNSA, then GaaRa for Lúcio maps. Nutella practiced Lúcio a ton cuz GaaRa couldn’t come.”
Despite the poor result on paper, Senna is proud of her performance. “We tried our best and took maps/made it close to top teams but we never closed it out.” On the one hand, Senna wishes her team did better, saying “in my own head I was like ‘first notable tourney and I get 15th.’” On the other hand, she acknowledges how well she played individually and that, given the team’s issues, “we didn’t do half bad.” Moving forward, she is going to look for an EU team for FACEIT League Season 2. The European server environment is more hostile to women and non-binary players, Senna says. While she isn’t sure exactly why, she says she has “had a lot of hostile people against [her].” When I asked Senna what she wanted other EU players to know, she said “I’m better than the opinions about me.”
"I realized how well I played individually, and with our issues as a team, we didn't do half bad."
Senna is one of many players who try so hard, putting blood, sweat, and tears into a game, only to feel stuck. Of playing Overwatch 2, Senna says “it’s my dream job.” However, life gets in the way. “Recently with the fact I have a lot of medical stuff and also want to do a real job if I don’t get anything like ‘insane’ I’ll probably be retired after this year and only play CAH if it’s still up." Despite that, Senna knows herself too well to think she’ll give up so quickly. "Knowing me this might still just be a lie.” She feels like Timeless could be her forever home, and she’s savoring every moment. Every Overwatch player yearns for their forever home, a team where they fit, a core they can stick with that will motivate them to continue. “I think I fit in perfectly,” she said of Timeless Ethereal. "Seeing myself do well on Timeless makes me realize I'm worth more than I rate myself at times."
Senna is good, damn good, and 2024 has been a great year for damn good up-and-coming hitscan players getting their flowers (e.g., xzodyal and Proud). It is simply a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up to what Calling All Heroes fans have known for a while. Only time will tell if Timeless Ethereal is the team where Senna can truly dominate like we all know she’s capable of doing. But, in the meantime, she’s happy.
Calling All Heroes Minor 1 Operated by ESPORTSU playoffs begin Saturday, July 6 at 2:00 PM EDT/10:00 PM CEST.
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