They played their first set of pro scrims last night and showed some very positive signs.
It looks like Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff and Ali “SypherPK” Hassan have finally found the right team for competitive Fortnite. After struggling in Trios last season and eventually dropping Jimmy “HighDistortion” Moreno for having a bad attitude they have been searching for the right fit. Nate “NateHill” Hill joined them for the last weekend of the Fortnite Champion Series event and they had their best performance yet. Unfortunately for them he will be reuniting with his old duo Trevor “Funk” Siegler for Chapter 2 and joining forces with record breaking partners Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Malachi “Reverse2k” Greiner.
On multiple occasions, the pair have spoken about their problems finding people to play with. As two of the biggest name content creators in the game, they have never been able to commit to competitive in the same way that most professional players do. This means that the very top tier pros don’t look at them as serious candidates to team with, but at the same time they want to place well and form a squad that has real potential.
Well, now they seem to have found the missing pieces in their Fortnite Chapter 2 puzzle. Last night they streamed pro scrims with Tyler “Tyler15” Crews and “Kodi”. Luminosity pro Tyler15 is a World Cup qualifier and has been competing at the top level for a long time. Kodi doesn’t have quite as much prize money under his belt, but is a talented player and a strong in game leader (IGL). He actually teamed with world champion Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf in a tournament back in November, 2018.
Early on in the session the new squad struggled to find much success. Nickmercs first suffered an audio issue and then later on didn’t load into a match due to an error, leaving his three teammates to play it out a man down. The new recruits seemed quiet, Nick and Sypher have mentioned in the past the importance of good vibes in the team, after all they are streaming to thousands of people and want to have fun.
However, further into the evening, things started to progress. Landing at Weeping Woods, the squad soon begun to learn the best routes for rotation and where they could get loot and materials. Once they made it to late game, this is where Tyler15 and Kodi came into their own. Nick and Sypher often struggle to make the right decisions in a hectic endgame, and having the other guys to coach them through it made a real difference. By the end of the night they had some solid top 5 placements and plenty of eliminations, showing some very promising signs.
As the performance improved, so did the energy amongst the team. The new guys started to feel more comfortable and joke around. Nick was visibly happy with this, watching him it was clear to see that he thought they had found the right people. Kodi and Sypher have actually known each other for around five years, and Kodi credits Sypher for inspiring him to start streaming. They are scheduled to practice again today, it will be interesting to see how they progress throughout the week.
The Fortnite Champion Series is set to kick off on November 1st. This means that players have just over a week to assemble their squad and hit Champion rank in Arena. There is no news from Epic yet as to if we can also expect regular Cash Cups like we had last season, but it is likely they will return.