Josh "Sideshow" Wilkinson has climb the rungs of the esports ladder and landed in a prime position as a leading expert in the world of professional Overwatch. Formerly a Team Fortress 2 caster and expert. He’s transitioned, like many of his metaphorical TF2 brothers, to Blizzard’s Overwatch. He brings an air of ‘cheeky humor meets serious and concise analytical discussion’ to any analysis desk he graces. This is but a glimpse into the mind of the ever charismatic and charming, Sideshow!

Thanks for taking some time out to speak with me. How are you on this fine Thursday afternoon, Sideshow? Hopefully, the flight back home wasn’t too terribly bad?

It was a reasonable flight despite having to sit next to Bren's octopus-like limbs, I think I've got used to flying around much more now. Having said that, the baggage handlers appear to have played some form of 'shotput contest' with my suitcase and ripped off both of the wheels, forcing me to drag it through the train stops and my hometown like a particularly noisy sack of potatoes.

First, I feel like congratulations are in order. You’ve just got done wrapping up Overwatch Contenders Season 1. What were some of your personal takeaways from the event and how have you personally enjoyed the analysis desk?

Thanks! That's a massive question because my answer has to attempt to encapsulate six weeks of experience working at a scale - and in a role - that I've never tried out before. Working with the talented people around me instantly made up for that lack of experience though, including the directors and producers behind the scenes. There's such a wealth of knowledge and passion there that are being combined for Overwatch. It makes for an incredible work environment, I loved every moment of it with them.

The biggest thing that immediately hit me was the lack of time available on the analysis desk and the necessity to focus only on the most important, relevant, or interesting storylines. It's a whole new skill set for somebody like myself who enjoys gathering every interesting titbit to have to throw most of that away and only focus on the "best" storyline for the audience. Then that was amplified tenfold during the playoffs.

Another was the balance of personalities on the desk and how necessary it was to inject humor and entertainment into the segments. You can't just throw knowledge at people, no matter how digestible, without it getting boring. There have to be those MonteCristo-zingers or the Left Guy dad jokes or the Johnny on the spot moments to keep things light. Combining the entertainment factor was a struggle for me personally but I think I had some moments and it's a fun area to work on for sure.

Now you say that, but I am going to need you to back up those claims. What was your favorite MonteCristo-zinger, your favorite Left Guy ‘dad joke’, and (here’s the change-up) your favorite Bren-ism?

There were two solid Monte zingers that I remember: one where he roasted FNRGFE for their all-too-somber "remember the corndog" slogan and then another where he had a three-part roast, getting Nomy and then NRG and then me. So I gotta go with the corndog one; can't be publicly saying I enjoy getting slammed on analyst desks.

Favourite Left Guy dad joke is a tough one because he was slinging them out quite regularly and wasn't there during playoffs, but I distinctly remember him telling Renegades to the camera that he was very disappointed in them and to think about what they had done. Cracked me up.

Bren-isms are just ... unbelievable. There are so many, he spouts them out at an incredible pace. One per 5 minutes would be my guess. My favorite would have to be "for goodness me man's sake" where apparently his brain forgot where to end that idiom and attached another three on for good measure.

On the desk you called the Gigantti victory, now that you’ve had some time to ponder and think on this more, would you still have predicted Gigantti? Do you think it was it more predicated on how Misfits performed in their match against Cloud 9 EU?

It was very close for me between the two teams. I went back and forth quite a bit before the match. I did fall down on Gigantti's side in the end and would do most of the time again - I called the 4-3 win as well because I felt the teams were that even. It wasn't just based on the single Misfits semifinal though, it also reflected how Gigantti were peaking towards the end of the season. Misfits faced Cloud9 and Gigantti early on in the regular season and both teams improved significantly; Cloud9 had a legitimate plan to shut down Logix which worked well, and it was obvious during that game that Misfits weren't going to stomp the playoffs. Misfits clutched the semifinal through individual plays whenever they were given space, but C9 was playing the better, more disciplined game throughout. Volskaya should be a clear example of that. My impression was that Cloud9 just didn't have the firepower to close the series.

For Gigantti, as soon as it was evident that LiNkzr hadn't utterly choked at LAN during the semifinals, they were in a reasonable position to win. Their team play has become the best in Europe - perhaps barring 123's style but they are a set play team rather than improvisers - and both Davin and LiNzkr were clutching at times. They also have a similar option to shut Logix down by man-marking him with Davin along with a stellar support duo of Shaz and BigG00se, and I think Logix had his confidence knocked by the semifinal match where he was focused so hard. He couldn't play on the edge anymore, he was getting baited into recalls by damage, it gave so much more room to Gigantti.

In Overwatch, there are so few LAN matches or even direct head-to-heads online between teams that form and recent results play a much larger predictive role in my opinion. How a team is feeling in that tournament, where the micro-meta is sat, how the two team's styles go up against each other - all of these things weigh in a bit more than their historic records for close games.

That being said, with Gigantti’s victory, this means that Misfits took second. In all due respect to Misfits -- great bunch of guys -- they had a misstep at TakeOver 2 and now in the finals of Overwatch Contenders Season 1. What do you think needs to change in the team, if anything at all? Where do believe the disconnect is happening?

I don't think you can bring up Misfits former roster in any sense when considering this result. I know some people noted their poor historic LAN record but those were such different teams in terms of roster, style, and leadership that you might as well reference their dominant LAN record in 2016 to counter the argument.

In my opinion, Misfits have essentially had three phases which you can reasonably group together: 2016 from just before Atlantic Showdown to DreamHack Winter which saw Zebbosai, SoOn, and company get two huge LAN victories by perfectly aligning their player abilities to fit the meta and counter other teams, despite sucking online in between. Then they reformed their roster for a Swedish lineup which was a mishmash of flexible talent with no great system to fit them in place. They weren't great online, they weren't great on LAN, and speaking most recently with that roster they went out early in TaKeOver 2 but also bombed in Contenders Season Zero. They just weren't a great team, there was no LAN choke going on there.

This misstep in Contenders Season 1 playoffs is brand new, as I really do consider this roster fundamentally different to their Season Zero lineup. They don't need to change players. All the pieces are there for a dominant team as we saw throughout the regular season. I would have to watch the games again to get a perfect feel for what went wrong but my initial impression is that they were confused by why their dive wasn't working out, why Logix wasn't delivering insane amounts of openings, and kept playing more and more scrappy Overwatch rather than returning to fundamentals and crafting a new plan. They seemed to resort to more aggression rather than more discipline which saw them bleed players and ultimates without creating snowballs for themselves, and without pressuring opponents first. They only found the wins on repeated maps, one being Temple of Anubis which is quite variable at the best of times.

It's a brand new experience for a team this young and presumably they're all going into OWL to represent Misfits there where the LANs will be happening every match. It will be a different environment which should allow them to deal with the LAN experience a bit more. They don't seem to have players who thrive under pressure, whereas others in C9 and Gigantti do, so they need to allow them an adjustment period from online to LAN.

You mention there about the oversight in the ruleset where the teams were allowed to pick a map twice. Take me back to the moment you heard that call over whatever form of communication you all had on the analysis desk. Try and bring the readers back to your experience; What was your reaction? What were some of the reactions on the desk?

Haha, there was a fair bit of confusion for us on the desk because we only realized once the lobby went into Eichenwalde for the second time. Presumably, the miscommunication happened between the admins and the players, given Nate's response on Reddit, we just had to roll with it as did everybody else. My understanding of that situation is actually very limited as I just decided to go with the flow; it was obvious that the Contenders staff realized the error and its origin (and immediately communicated that to the audience), so there was no use digging into it from my point of view. I'd be shocked if it ever happened again.

While it was an error, and people ripped into it, you can't deny it made for a far more interesting final in this specific case! I personally had Gigantti favored on Numbani, whereas Misfits were obviously the stronger team on Eichenwalde, and similarly, Volskaya had been a far better map for Gigantti in recent times and I think they would have won there too. Have to admit I was getting ready to empathize horrifically with Gigantti had they lost Ilios though.

Now, we’ve seen more news start to break around the Overwatch League, the end all be all for competitive Overwatch, and people in the community are still a bit gun shy. From what you know and what you’ve experienced first hand with Blizzard and some of the people working with the Overwatch League, has this changed your mind at all (in either direction)?

Yes, interacting with the other talent and the Blizzard personnel has made me more confident in the success of the league. There are a huge amount of knowledgeable people working on the details of creating a great broadcast, fixing issues with the spectator system, setting up teams for success in their branding and fan appeal, making sure the development leagues are in place, etc. And there are crazy amounts of money involved, to the point where the OWL is a priority for some incredibly influential people. It doesn't appear to be something that can fail quickly or easily

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“I see many more worlds in which the Overwatch League builds off its enormous player base and rabid, small current fan base to become a resounding success rather than, those in which it slowly trickles away into irrelevancy.”

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One big reason people are still so unsure is that it aims to be so huge: localizing esports and becoming the first global league, setting up strong player contracts for everyone involved, having home and away games, including so many huge companies, etc. I'm confident that the Overwatch League will be a success given time, whether it'll be the groundbreaking, the esports-revolutionising success it aims to remain to be seen. Only time will tell, it seems to be going well so far given its youth.

Amazing, that same sentiment has been echoed from a good handful of people I’ve talked too, which is good, but I digress. Leading ourselves into Contenders and the future of Contenders I’ll quit bugging you and leave on this question; If you could make any Overwatch Contenders Season 2, for any reason, what would your dream team look like?

This will almost certainly be a major article topic once all of the OWL teams are announced and we know exactly who is available for Contenders Season 2. Instead of forming my super teams for each region, I'm just gonna say Gigantti and Rogue. Neither team has players announced yet in OWL - though doubtless they will - and for teams who end up in that position, I'd love to see them in Contenders Season 2. For organizations, realizing that there are sick players still on the market and locking them down for the next transfer window should be a solid play financially, especially if you can keep together a core which is likely to be OWL quality as is the case for Gigantti and Rogue. And for the players, if the interest is there for the organizations then playing in Contenders to show they can still compete at that level will be a joy for fans and viewers, as well as increasing the likelihood that the players enter OWL S2 when all the losing team's kick half their rosters and the inevitable shuffle happens.

There's real potential for Contenders S2 to be as competitive as S1 despite losing a huge chunk of players, or even for a Contenders team to end up being the best in the world. Hell, GC Busan is halfway there. Overwatch is volatile and you have to think over the course of a year or longer when planning out "the play" as a player or support staff in my opinion.

Ahhh, I could continue for hours, but I’ll let you get to your day. Again, thank you very much for sitting down with me and having a quick chat, let the people know what’s going on with Sideshow and where they can find you?

I'm not doing anything all day! Another time perhaps, hahaha. If people wanna follow me the best place is Twitter @SideshowGaming - you can catch my written work at over.gg and my video work on my youtube channel at Youtube.com/sideshow1994. If you enjoyed my work on the desk then check it out, it's more in depth.

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.