One of the players in an amateur team in Overwatch had to drop out just before a match. The aspiring professionals had to quickly substitute him with the only available replacement: the coach. He turned out to be surprisingly strong.
What exactly happened? Square One and Triumph are teams in the Overwatch Contenders, the amateur league of the Overwatch League. Just before the match against Team Triumph, one of the players from Square One dropped out, the support player Exorath.
In a Tweet , he writes that there was a storm at his location and according to one of the commentators, a tree had fallen on a power line. As a result, Exorath had no power and could not play.
In an emergency, Square One had to find a substitute and decided to call on Sebastian “Tokki” Hutchinson. Both teams agreed to this. He took on the role of support and played Brigitte.
Who is the coach? Tokki acts as Player Development Coach for Team Square One (formerly Path to Poverty). He plays at Platinum elo in the Overwatch ranking, which is rather at a mid-level and significantly below the performance that professionals usually display.
When a coach had to step in during another shooter, the professional team there lost and the opponents even felt that the victory “didn’t feel right”. Tokki, however, performed much better.
“Couldn’t have said there was a substitute playing”
How did he play? In the match itself, no one could probably have said that Tokki was a Platinum player. Square One employed the well-known Dive meta from the early Overwatch days. This builds on high mobility and aggressive playstyle.
Together with his team, Tokki managed to win the first map Oasis with a strong 2:0. On the next map Volskaya Industries, Square One also won, this time with a score of 3:2, securing the victory in the match. Commentator Rosemary “Nekkra” Kelley says about his playstyle:
“Tokki is such a seamless integration into the team that Square One didn’t show any signs of a substitute. […] I couldn’t have said there was a substitute playing for Square One.”
You can find the entire match here in the embedded YouTube video, starting at minute 54:10:
What the community says: Many fans of Overwatch eSports are surprised by the result and by the fact that such talent is hiding behind a Platinum player.
- HeroDGamez on reddit writes: “He may not be bringing the mechanical prowess of a Contenders player, but he definitely has the smarts.”
- EctoScreen on Twitter states: “Hmm, looks like the rank doesn’t show the skill and someone can play great, regardless of their rank.”
However, there are also some discussions about whether it was actually Tokki’s skill that helped Square One to victory or simply the hero. The heroine is currently considered too strong, and there has been a real hatred for Brigitte since 2019.
Tokki himself states that his Platinum rank does not reflect his actual skill (via Dexerto). The account is only there to watch and analyze and is not actively played. Nevertheless, he has never reached the Grandmaster rank and thus still plays below many of the league’s professionals.
However, these professionals are currently moving away from Overwatch more and more. Recently, the superstar of one of the Overwatch League teams switched to Valorant. He says he could earn more money there, even if the salary itself is lower.
