Interview with Misfits Black Player Katie "Kxtieoh" Beene

Yoann: Hello everyone! Today I’m with Katie from Misfits Black!

Kxtieoh: Hello! I’m kxtieoh, I’m 17, and I compete in Game Changers for Misfits. My team placed top 3 in the Series III of GC and have continued placing in other events. 

Yoann: When and how did you get into esports? 

Kxtieoh: I’ve always played video games growing up, especially with family. Eventually I gained in interest in owning a computer which led to downloading Valorant. Since playing the game I always doubted my skill and never had a reason to believe I was any different or special compared to the average player. This doubt brought a lot of insecurity out when I started competing. I competed regardless because I had a passion for the competitive environment and was obsessed with getting better. After competing for a while I knew I was in too deep to just quit so I stuck to my passion to try and make it professional.

Yoann: Thats great! Did anything change for you as a player since you've joined Misfits Black in June?

Kxtieoh: Everything changed after joining Misfits. I am definitely looked at differently now in a more respected way. However, I am more getting at the change in resources after joining. I have so many more resources when it comes to improvement. Coaching, great support staff, more practice, and overall I have also changed a lot because of this. I have a much bigger bond with my teammates due to the ability of boot camps and LANs that I would never be able to experience otherwise. 

Yoann: What role are you playing in the team? 

Kxtieoh: I’m currently playing smokes and initiator for Misfits. 

Yoann: What do you do to keep a great team environment inside and outside Valorant?

Kxtieoh: Having a great team environment is a group effort. I feel that one person can ruin an environment but it takes the entire team to make a good one. That’s why I believe so many teams fail without the right tools. Making sure every player respects each other and handles problems maturely can help create a great base dynamic.

However it’s up to to each individual to make sure everyday excels. Personally me and my teammates make funny and weird jokes during our free time and bond together off of that. I make sure to save my unnecessary comments and keep them to myself or deal with them at an appropriate time. I think of it as a job so I’ll treat my teammates like coworkers and make sure I’m not speaking out of place.

Yoann: How do you prepare to play against opponents?

Kxtieoh: As any team would, me and my team are always confident going into matches, even hard ones. We will prepare by tightening up our game plan, how slow or fast we will play. Prior to this though, we will likely watch our opponent play and try and understand them so we can perform our best against their play style. Part of our great preparation is due to our support staff. Our coaches provide us with great knowledge prior to going into the match and give us resources to help us excel at beating them efficiently. 

Yoann: What was your preparation routine 1 hour before official matches?

Kxtieoh: About one house before a match usually starts with a warm up scrim. However, preparing before a warm up scrim usually starts with deafening in teamspeak and blasting some music to isolate myself so I’m not overthinking. I’ll drink some tea or coffee and browse twitter for a bit to calm my anxiety.

Once we’re like 20 minutes before the match I’ll hop in the range and just move around and get my movement warm. Once I feel good I’ll play a couple deathmatches. I usually don’t overthink my aim or warmups and kinda just yolo myself into matches.

Yoann: Are you taking this warmup scrim more lightly before the official match?

Kxtieoh: Yeah we usually execute our game plan during the warm up scrim just to see how it goes, if it goes well during the scrim we can maybe troll a little bit just to get the nerves out, get some good vibes.

Yoann: How do you feel about the current Valorant meta? Is there anything you'd like to change?

Kxtieoh: Chamber nerfs just got announced, and I think it’s a little bit too much, I think the teleport nerf destroys the whole purpose of Chamber. And I think there are a lot of ways they could have executed the nerf without ruining the agent. But I’m happy the old good sentinels are coming back, it’s the start of a new chapter.

Yoann: What are your thoughts on the new Valorant franchising program in general?

Kxtieoh: I feel that franchising is a good idea for sure. I don't think it'll work as badly as people expected. Lots of players lost their jobs but there's plenty more opportunities coming that I've seen for Ascension league.

Yoann: What do you think about the current Game Changers format? Would you like to see some specific improvements? 

Kxtieoh: I think that the tournament format is formed horribly. There's very little consistency in the rulebooks and just in general things seems to change too often, and more often than not, for worse. If anything I think game changers should develop a specific set of rules and answer all the unsolved issues that have arisen over time. 

Yoann: How do you feel about Pearl in pro play?

Kxtieoh: Pearl in pro play is fun. It's not a map where you can strictly abuse one style of play. I think that any map where you can have variety in agent comps is also more fun. A lot of new teams in ascension are exploring new comps on various maps and I feel that pearl is one where you can explore without trolling. 

Yoann: Do you feel like your team could try to bring Harbor into the agent pool?

Kxtieoh: We joke about it so much, but I think we could definitely bring him on at some point, maybe on one or two maps.

Yoann: Will you be the one playing it?

Kxtieoh: No, I won’t be playing Harbor, unless he becomes better to be played as a solo controller. So I would probably be playing the main controller, Astra or Brim. And someone else will pick up Harbor in the team as the secondary controller.

Yoann: Which team would you like to play against in the near future?

Kxtieoh: In Game Changers I would like to play against Complexity because, they had a pretty good run for a team that was as new as us. Our rosters were finalised around at the same time and we both had pretty good runs, so I want to play against them next year. 

Yoann: It would be super cool to see Game Changers teams compete against the male VCT teams.

Kxtieoh: Yeah 100%, that would be so fun, just to get the experience I think it would be a great way to learn and make the most out of it.

Yoann: I think it will get more balanced overtime, and hopefully we will see VCT Champions with Game Changers teams. That would be super nice!

Kxtieoh: Of course!

Yoann: What are your short and long-term ambitions with Misfits Black?

Kxtieoh: Short term, I want to place well in next season’s VCT. We couldn’t really make it to Berlin last season because we were a new roster. We would’ve needed to win the whole event, in the end we got the third place.

And long term, I think will be to make it to the LAN at the end of the year!

Yoann: Thank you so much for your time, best of luck for next year’s tournament!

Kxtieoh: Thank you!