When You’re A Bad Team Mom
There’s a time in every parent’s life where they have to sit down and face an uncomfortable truth: sometimes they’re just a really shitty parent.
Maybe they forgot a birthday. Or said something insensitive.
Or maybe they spent the Christmas money on Bitcoin, figuring the payoff would more than offset the cost of purchasing every graphics card in the state.
Guys, sometimes parents just fuck up.
And this time, I fucked up.
I missed most of Week 2’s matches tied up in personal business that left me drained, emotionally compromised, and deeply looking forward to returning to the normalcy of screaming into the void about the Best Worst team in the Overwatch League.
But then, when checking out the week’s matches, I find this bullshit,
Marring any enjoyment I might glean from watching my best worst team. I know it doesn’t matter if we play Seoul, London, or Florida. We’ve lost our coach. We lost Diya (hope all is well and he returns soon). And we’re still just…losing. Doesn’t matter who we play, we’re…losing.
But that shouldn’t matter, especially if you claim to love your team. Doesn’t matter how awful they are, good fans still show up. Good fans still support them.
I’ve lived in Cleveland the last 10 years (which, in retrospect explains a lot about my team of choice) I know exactly what that means.
So I showed up.
I watched the first 2 maps of the Seoul/Shanghai match. When the Dragons were down 0–2, I mercy killed the stream and switched to something more palatable and less heartbreaking.
Reader
They say those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I didn’t learn from my history y’all. The last time these two teams met, Shanghai took a map of the Seoul we all thought Seoul was: the undisputed gods of Overwatch. They took a map of Seoul before we learned that the gods could bleed. They did that, and I…forgot about it, and consigned this rematch to dust too soon.
I’ll never forgive myself for missing this. Yes…they still lost, it’s friggin Seoul, I don’t care how far the mighty have fallen, there’s no way Shanghai was going to win (a mother believes in her children but a mother is also fucking pragmatic so don’t @ me.) But I can’t imagine the kind of hype I’d have felt if I was able to catch this live. Even watching after the fact, knowing what was going to happen, I felt the smile creeping on my face and the energy coursing through me compelling me to stand up and shout for my team. Through hubris and faithlessness I missed out.
But I didn’t only just abandon my Dragons. My sin is compounded because I missed this match too
The Gladiators!! beat London??? Like…how?
(We know how: Fissure, Asher, Hydration, Shaz, teamwork, communication, Fissure.)
But still, the Stage 1 champs lost to a team that is so perfectly middle of the road as to be unremarkable.
But the pain train doesn’t stop there y’all! I also missed this match.
I had even prayed, prayed to Uncle Jeff to make it so and he answered and I missed it because… I assumed.
And that’s what really got me into trouble this week, cementing myself into bad mom territory. I assumed there would be no way. I assumed that these teams perform to (mostly) immutable truths.
London always wins.
Florida always looses.
Shanghai always looses badly.
But this week taught me and should also teach you to never. sleep. on. these. teams. Remember the Creed:
That’s what’s so exciting about watching the League. Theses aren’t storied franchises with years’ worth of history behind them to lend context. I know the Browns are going to lose, I’ve got the last 6 seasons of depression to pull from.
But these teams are still new, still growing, working out the kinks, seeing what works and what doesn’t, trying new configurations with new teammates and sometimes, holy shit, it works. That’s how you end up with the Gladiators 4–0ing the Valiant, or the Dallas Fuel losing to a team that we should but for some reason don’t talk about with the same pitiable derision as we do my Dragons.
I was a bad mom this week in Overwatch. I lost my faith, and paid for it, and learned a valuable lesson in the process. I won’t do it again. This shit is too spicy to miss.
Especially now that it’s Stage Finals season.
