Hear ye, Hear ye! Daniel "Boink" Pence—support player for Team FNRGFE, of House Pence, The Biggest Boink, He who has been banned from many TF2 Servers, The Slayer of mR.jINGLE, The Statistical Outlier, Breaker of Immortals, King of All Corndogs, and He who goes fast—has graced us with his presence with a brief interview after their nail biting win over Immortals during Overwatch Contenders Season 1. This leads into a big week for FNRGFE as they look Team EnVyUs and the up-and-coming EnVision Esports. They are currently 4th in the standing with a 2-2 over all.

Thanks for stopping by, Boink! Firstly, congratulations on the win over Immortals. From your view, how do you think the game went overall? Were you happy with your performance overall?

Thanks! I think the game went well for us overall. We were proactive and had a lot of nice plays throughout the series. I didn't feel like it was one of my stronger games, but I didn't play poorly, so I'll take it.

Now, you and the guys at FNRGFE come from all different walks of life and all different histories in competitive games. Beating Immortals is no easy task. What about this team in particular has ‘clicked’ to produce this level of success?

I think it comes down to the natural chemistry between our players. We've built a lot of chemistry since the formation of the roster and on our previous teams together, but even on Day 1 we were working very well together. I also have to credit our crazy individual skill throughout our roster. Each person on our team can salvage a situation even one of us makes a mistake.

FNRGFE is starting to take the Competitive Overwatch community by storm. The team’s logo is even finding itself in places where the team is not competing! Let’s fuel the fire. Give me some interesting or funny stories from your time in FNRGFE. What are some of your favorite memories that you’ve created with this team?

Some of the callouts we have are really great. I kept saying I "booped somebody in the air" to try to get people to shoot at them, but that was so long to say. I tried thinking of things to say instead, and it finally came to me during one of our scrims. Buds was playing Widowmaker and when I booped somebody up, I yelled "Pull!" and half our team had no idea what I meant by that. Somehow they never heard of the term in relation to a shooting and made fun of it. Now everybody says it more than I do! Buds came up with another one is for a call when there's a Tracer stalling the cart and she Rewinds. He wanted us to call a direction of the cart we were looking at either the front or the back so that somebody could take the other side and would be able to shoot her no matter where she ended up being. Instead of calling the back of the cart the back, we now call it the butt, so you'll hear a lot of "I got the butt!" in our comms on Payload maps now. I'm sure there are others, and we definitely stole some of the Fnatic ones as well.

Those are incredible! Let’s double back to the Immortals game for a moment. I want you to try and take a vivid memory of sitting in the lobby during Game 4 against Immortals and you get the word that Agilities is being subbed out. What was some of the first thoughts going through your head? What was the overall team atmosphere like in that same moment?

We're generally a team that has a lot of fun and makes jokes, so much so we often tell ourselves in scrims that we lose because we started laughing. Muma also has a thing where he says things that are either slightly believable or tries to play off certain outrageous things as true. He was the first person to say that Agilities got subbed out for Envy, and our coaching staff didn't believe him at all.

They thought it was just a "Muma troll" because he has a history of saying things like that. It took over half the team saying he wasn't lying to convince them that we weren't just joking around. Afterwards, we thought that it happened in order for them to pull off a different strategy, so before the map start, we talked over a lot of things they could be doing in order to be prepared for whatever they would run and made sure to put a lot of emphasis on scouting the starting composition and any comp changes.

Next week on the schedule FNRGFE plays both EnVision Esports and Team EnVyUs. What is your mindset going into next week's games? Any added pressure facing what could be the first and second place teams going into playoffs for Overwatch Contenders Season 1?

I'm very confident that we are able to take both series. A lot more has to go right for us to take the EnVyUs series than the EnVision one, but it is possible for us to take both. There's definitely pressure to take one of them because it is very unlikely we don't make playoffs if we lose both, but we are ready for the challenge.

In that same vein, I’ve heard through the grapevine that the live patch will be updated on the tournament realm. What are your thoughts on the newest patch? Could we expect some odd-ball compositions or maybe even a shake-up in the standings? Can FNRGFE take the chaotic environment of playing on a new patch and use it to your advantage?

The new patch will definitely help us versus EnVision because Doomfist got a slight nerf and Jaru has been a very good Doomfist. I think in the EnVyUs series, it's a little give and take. Effect won't have as much ‘effect’ on the Doomfist even though it's still a strong hero, but Taimou gets to bring out the buffed Junkrat which he's played on the previous patch to a lot of success.  

I think you may see some more experimental comps, but a lot of teams might not feel comfortable bringing out a Junkrat or other new heroes this quickly.

Right on, you’ve got to keep it within your comfort zone. Now, it would not be an Overwatch interview without an appearance of the Overwatch League . Have you found difficulties in practicing while also trying to push for the Overwatch League? Without saying anything that could incriminate you, is there any world where we could see the entirety of the current FNRGFE roster on an Overwatch League team? Perhaps the London Corn Doggies?

Man, I would love it if we could get picked up as a team because I love all of my teammates, and we have such a good atmosphere. I'm not sure if it will happen, but you never know what will happen before the signing period ends. We've definitely had it hard practicing with the OWL looming because that's the end goal for every overwatch player on a team right now. Due to that, we decided that we can't stop any player from doing any trial or anything related to increasing their chances to get on an OWL team. That leads to a lot of time off and a lot of cancelled scrims. (Sorry everybody!)

That is all I’ve got for you today Boink! Thank you again for hanging out and chatting with me for a bit. The last comment of the interview is all yours.Let the people know what is going on in your life and where they can find you.

You can find me on Twitter/Twitch/Youtube with the username ‘Forceboink.’ I haven't gotten into streaming or making videos too much yet due to some computer limitations, but as my conditions change, be sure to expect more from me. I want to give a huge shoutout to my team which has helped me improve so much as a player and have been so much fun working with. I also want to give a shoutout to our staff members Aero, Jcb, and Tikatee which have provided a ton of help for a team that doesn't have a sponsor and the support other teams have. Also, shoutout to kapoww the OG noob.

Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLG’s of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.