Image via Heroic
Heroic was dealt an unenviable hand before they stepped foot in Charlotte.
Poor experiences with an airline left them stranded in New Jersey, awake for over 30 hours, and frustrated. Ubisoft and FACEIT stepped in to help, and got them in the last motel with room for them. That wasn’t the end of their troubles, however – their luggage didn’t make it to Charlotte with them.
It’s normal to feel frustrated when travel doesn’t go as planned, much less travel for a Major. Murat “MrOfficer” Motevalli says their practice was completely shot, and there were mentality issues up until yesterday, the day before the tournament. “It just kept going, snowballing into a shitshow,” MrOfficer said of the travel issues. “...not going to lie, that definitely ruined a bit of our mental, also our practice and whatnot, we had to cancel all of that, but a little reset, a little talk with the boys and whatnot, eventually we turned it around.”
International travel has been a pain point this Major cycle, to say the least. Due to an inability to secure visas, w7m, Team oNe, and FURIA are playing the Major online, from Mexico. Elevate didn’t get US visas either, and without a visa for Mexico, cannot play entirely. Heroic’s struggles are a part of a larger narrative, one that they’re thankful they escaped the worst of. “You can either cry about it, or you can cope with it,” he said.
However, mentality struggles can completely upend teams. MrOfficer functions as the dad of the team – he says that it can be difficult getting everyone to open up about their frustrations or feelings due to some cultural expectations of masculinity.
Even after Heroic got everything sorted, they were still “pissed” about the ordeal. The normal 10-15 minute resets weren’t enough – so last night, they had a sit-down to clear the air that MrOfficer said lasted hours. “Everyone was gathered around, and we went really harsh against each other. At this point, with how we had been performing in practice and whatnot, we were not happy. We had to take the risk of ‘okay, we need to be as blatant honest as possible with each other’, and try to build from there.”
MrOfficer continued, saying he believes that the difference between the teams at the Major is those that make excuses and those that don’t. He also feels that yesterday’s meeting was a true breakthrough for the team, and that they’re back to good mental fortitude. “It’s time to step up and do the job,” he said.
Heroic are the number one seed out of Europe. They were head and shoulders above the rest of the field in terms of regional competition. They were the first team to qualify for the event.
If Heroic have got their mental game sorted – they’re going to be a terror to teams in the server. The course of the Major might have changed in one hours-long meeting, held the very day before the Major began.