masq: "You talk more about your emotions on a female team"
We spoke to Brianna "masq" Becker, formerly of the female Team X, at DreamHack Austin about multiple topics including her previous team as well as how local LANs can benefit the whole North American scene.
I wanted to start the interview with your old team Team X. What happened in the end there, why did you guys break up?
When we had first got it together it was spontaneous. At the time, harvey and klaudia had left CLG and they still wanted to play so they wanted to see who they could get to form this team. That's what we did, and we were kind of expecting a sponsor along the way, all of us were. Towards the end, because it kept dragging on and we were so close to nailing a couple different sponsors, but it just never fell through. Some of the girls felt like it was dragging on and what happened was they ended up getting offers to other teams. Instead of trying to find another 4th/5th we just decided to disband.
You obviously played with missharvey on the team. I wanted to ask about her as a player, because she's back on CLG etc.
On our team she was the in-game leader and she AWPed also primarily. She was really, really dedicated and she put in a lot of time to the game. She understood the game and she was a really good in-game leader and I respect her for that.
I believe you briefly played with Katie, a young up and comer. She was playing highly in Rank G, does she have potential to later on be a good player?
She definitely has a lot of potential. I think right now she's on an Advanced team, so she's working her way up there, definitely a really good pugger. She's also starting to get situated in a team environment because she doesn't have much experience on actual teams, so once she gets that experience I see her having a lot of potential.
I'm sure you've been asked this a lot, but what are the differences between playing in mixed teams and female only teams?
It's funny because I find that you talk more about your emotions and your relationships with your teammates on a female team. Then a male team, I felt like it was usually - like with a mix-team, you come on - you're buddies, friends - and then you just get down to business and play. Whereas I felt that there was a lot of emotions involved on a female team but at the same time, at least on this team, when emotions did get high we were still able to communicate and talk through, so we had our own little miniature therapy sessions.
That's at least what I experienced on Team X, when there was disagreements we all sat down with each other and talked it out and made sure everyone was always on good terms and always okay. There is a lot of that emotional micromanaging whereas that didn't happen to much [on male teams]. Aside from that, gameplay-wise, not too different. That was the team I spent the longest time on, I played with them for a year, I hadn't played on any team for longer than that.
I felt that we really meshed well together. Gameplay-wise everybody was dedicated, everybody understood the game. Skill-wise there was really no difference, I felt like on at least this team in particular we had a lot more chemistry and teamplay, whereas on other teams I had played on prior to that we were a little more puggy and did whatever.
How do you think the local LAN scene is going in North America?
I think it's slowly starting to gain some traction, but not too much. At least with Texas there isn't really any regular LANs. I wanted SANLAN to be something regular in San Antonio - and it is so far. I guess the only LAN that you can really rely on happening every year is Fragadelphia, and then aside from that I don't really know who else. It's something to be desired - it could be improved a lot, but it's slowly getting there.
I'm starting to see better players and better teams come to some of the local LANs because at the first SANLAN I went to, there was maybe a few Main players and that was it. In the next SANLAN you saw more Main players, a couple MDL players and an ex-professional player. So slowly you're starting to see more people come out that have played at a higher caliber, but isn't consistent at least in Texas. Then over at Fragadelphia you still get your teams. I don't know too much about the Canadian scene, but they seem pretty consistent. There's a lot to be desired from the local LAN scene, it's still not there yet.
In general it's been growing slowly, do you think in the future it will be a big help for the region?
Yeah I think so. At least I know as someone trying to climb up the ranks, when you try to play with your team you right now have online. You only have to worry about the season so team's die really fast, people swap players, and you don't really have anything to stick around for if all you have is the ESEA season, and so you just hop from team to team. With LANs, I think that would help bring a lot of stability to teams and would give them a lot of experience playing in what most professionals play in which is a LAN environment. So that would definitely help the scene out a lot if it was much bigger.
You can catch former Team X player Stephanie "missharvey" Harvey playing on CLG Red, while the other players seem to be teamless. Fragadelphia 12 is also set to take place later this year in August.
