My next interview is with someone else who should be recognizable in the community, John Laveille (perhaps better known as zeroskatr12)
First question…. Tell me a bit about yourself (outside of unmatched) …. Work, hobbies, whatever
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So for work I am a radiologic technologist who floats around different local urgent care clinics. Basically I take xrays, draw blood, give injections, take vitals, etc. Not my dream job but it pays the bills and I have an awesome schedule of Mon-Wed 12s, so I have lots of time for other hobbies! Those include of course board games, working out, playing music (guitar/drums/singing), skateboarding, snowboarding, and the occasional video games. I have lots of hobbies I know, haha ?
Sounds like you certainly fill up your spare time! So what brought you into Unmatched?Quote:
Oh I sure do. It's funny because my girlfriend actually got Battle of Legends volume 1 from her brother for Christmas. Random game he picked up since it looked cool. It sat on our shelf for about 3 months before we finally played because we thought it was SUPPOSED to be a 2v2 game specifically and were waiting for a good group! Fell in love with it instantly. We even thought the name was "Battle of Legends" until we looked it up and saw it was "Unmatched" and there were more expansions. Bought RHvBF and Bruce right away and the rest is history.
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Let's do it!
Favorite published hero?Quote:
Favorite Hero is tough. It's a toss-up between Jekyll and Invisible Man.
Do you have a favorite fan deck?Quote:
Favorite fan deck? I don't play customs much. Out of the few I've played, gotta say Morgana LeFay by theKnight618.
If you could add any licensed hero to the game, who would it be?Quote:
Licensed hero would probably be either MegaMan X or Zero.
What public domain hero?Quote:
Public domain hero I think Hercules.
And the all-important question…. Circles or rings?Quote:
And most importantly, circles. The classic, 100%.
Very good. So what would you be most known for in the Unmatched Community?
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I don't know, you tell me! Haha. Probably being a tournament organizer? Maybe being a YouTuber or just being the guy who plays Invisible Man ?
You didn’t mention your hair?!? Seriously, I would say your YouTube videos and the tournaments. Let’s start with YouTube…. What got you started?Quote:
Oh yeah of course the hair, how could I forget!? I think back in the day I would have been known as the guy constantly looking for TTS games, but there are so many new players now that are grinding like crazy which is awesome to see. But YouTube, umm, it just kinda happened. I never planned on being a YouTuber. When the previous tournament was going on I learned how to stream just so I could let people watch my matches. Then once that was over I started streaming Weekend Warriors because I felt like that was another great event to get the community involved with each other. After a while I was wishing that the footage wasn't just a temporary Vod on Twitch, so I made a YouTube channel. I really didn't expect much of it because I didn't know anything about graphic design or video editing whatsoever. But once I started looking into it, and learning, and applying what I learned, it felt so satisfying. It made me want to really create something great and exceed my own expectations. So when I released that first video on the channel, Weekend Warriors #10, the response I got back from people blew me away. I couldn't believe I had done that (after like 40+ hours of work) and I wanted to do more.
The amount of time each video takes is staggering! Have you cut any time off yet as you get more experienced?Quote:
Oh yeah big time. Keep in mind that first video was an entire learning process. Starting from scratch. Now I'm able to take what I've already learned and use that for the next video. Not just the knowledge, but also like templates and assets I've created/found that are re-useable. Things like background music, like & subscribe card animations, outro screen, and video intros to name a few. So it's significantly less time, which is great, but still takes many hours.
Well I can say first hand that the videos are a big asset in the community. The Fan Playtesting Guild has seen a big bump in interest since you started streaming playtests. Let’s shift gears, though, to the tournament. How did the first one come about?Quote:
Well that's great to hear! That's the whole goal is just to get more people into the game and get them excited about it. With the tournament it all began with the monthly (weekly? 
) Discord debate about what a tournament format should look like. This was back in January of this year and was definitely not the first time the discussion had occurred, yet still we saw no tournaments. Being a competitive player, and loving Unmatched so much, I wished there was a real competitive scene. We were talking about how a tournament organization could host the players on Vorpal Board and have it streamed and whatnot. Gary_M had commented that he would be willing to pitch in money for a Vorpal subscription and I had said the same. So we private messaged each other and just started taking the matter into our own hands. We got wanderingcaretaker on board as well since he was the resident Vorpal expert. It all was just a crazy idea at first, but we managed to pull it off somehow after like a month of just talking and planning. Then thanks to my childhood friend, 645development, the finals stream seemed to blow everyone away (us included!) and we knew we couldn't let that be the last one.
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I think we had 35 register and 2 had to drop out before it began. So 33 people I believe went into the bracket. A couple more ended up dropping out early on, but we had around 30 players participate in the tournament. Which was fantastic as we were not expecting much to be honest. I remember talking about how we would be happy to at least get 16! So it definitely exceeded our expectations.
It seemed to go over well with the players, too. Although Finals weekend seemed like a bit of a marathon. How hard was it to coordinate it all?Quote:
It was totally a marathon for everyone involved. I remember I had to drive 3 hours down to my friends house Friday night and do a call with the commentators to prep for the weekend. Then it was action literally all day both Saturday and Sunday and then a 3 hour drive back home to wake up early for a 12 hour shift the next day. Haha it was exhausting but completely worth it. And I can't imagine being Prospero or Bug and how much their brains had to be fried from so many hours of intense gameplay. Overall the coordination worked out extremely well and everything went smoothly. All the players and commentators were super flexible and that made our jobs easy in that regard. I think everyone was just excited for the whole thing, so they were willing to do what was necessary to make it work.
And you're back to do it again! You expanded the field to 64 entrants which seemed to fill up quickly... how long did it take and how many people are on the waitlist?Quote:
Oh my gosh, it filled up way too quickly! I think the very first day registration opened we had like 50 people. It was filled the next day and there are currently 20 people on the waiting list. Which is awesome because that means so many more players are interested, but also unfortunate that a lot of people will be missing out. We thought doubling the last tourney's numbers would be safe but we definitely need to increase the cap to at least 128 next time. So I apologize to anyone we disappointed that doesn't get to participate. Next time I will be sure to have more space!
We seem to be on the verge of really exploding the fan base with Marvel about to release. Do you fear that 128 might not be enough? Is there an upper limit that you think you and the other organizers could realistically handle?Quote:
Man the combination of Marvel sets along with Unmatched Digital could just be absolutely massive for the community and gaining new people. I do fear that 128 might not be enough. And we will be looking at ways to accommodate larger numbers of players without dragging the event on for too long. That is the difficult part. It's a balancing act between letting more players in, and keeping the players that do participate happy with the pacing. Ultimately you can't please everybody, so we just need to accept that fact and do our best to please as many as possible and continue growing the scene. As far as an upper limit, who knows at this point. I really haven't thought that far ahead yet because I'm just focused on making this current tournament the best it can be. Once it's over I'll move on to the next.
It’s great that Restoration Games has supported your efforts, too. Did you seek that out or did they just offer it up?Quote:
Well, they sort of offered it up I guess. At the end of the previous tourney we did an interview with the Restoration guys and they were all just so impressed and said they wanted to have more of these. Justin contacted me and mentioned how they would like to make it official moving forwards and I thought that was awesome. Not that we couldn't keep doing it ourselves unofficially, but there's just something about it being "official" that draws even more people in. So whatever helps grow the scene most seems to be the route to take! Not to mention how big of an honor it is to be doing so.
Well I don’t want to take up more of your time, you have a tournament to run! Is there anything else you want to plug or say before we end?Quote:
That is true! I'm getting some emails ready to send out tonight actually. But yes I just want to say that, although I may be more or less "the face" of the tournaments, I could not do it alone. Alan (645development) does incredible work bringing the stream to life and Gary (Gary_M) and Joshua (wanderingcaretaker) help immensely with many different aspects of the tournament that go unnoticed. So I appreciate them greatly and am lucky to have awesome friends in it with me. Of course check out my YouTube channel, Twitch, Twitter. Also thanks to the community for being so incredible, none of this would mean anything without you all. Finally, thank you for the interview and good luck in the tournament!
Thank you for the encouragement and for your time! Good luck running the tournament and playing (unless we meet up!
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