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Road to FFIC 2021 Fall feat. BLD.Nivesh

02/09/2021

Road to FFIC 2021 Fall feat. BLD.Nivesh

 

Free Fire India Championship 2021 Fall has some of the best teams in the country participating in it. One of the teams that have been invited is Blind Esports (previously known as Team Captains) spoke to us today, and we discussed their journey to FFIC 2021 Fall. We discussed what they had to go through in order to be here, and how they are preparing for it. Nivesh, the IGL of the team also gave us some pretty good insights about what goes on in the minds of a competitive Free Fire team. 

 

Q. Hey, Nivesh! How have you been? Has the high from the win at FFCO worn off yet?

I don’t think the high from any victory ever fully wears off. Simply mentioning that day once makes me smile from ear to ear. Of course, the euphoria I felt after winning the City Open was on a whole new level. It was my first victory at an official Free Fire Tournament. That’s why I’m hoping to win FFIC 2021 Fall so that we can experience that bliss all over again. 

 

Q. What have you been doing after that win in FFCO? Did you take a break or have you been grinding for FFIC already?

We obviously took a small break. But we have been back to the grind after that. All the players went back to their homes for a week or so. After we came back, we practiced with scrims. There have been a few smaller tournaments as well here and there. We make sure we participate and put in as much effort as we can. 

 

Q. You mentioned "going back home", which indicates that you guys have been in a Bootcamp together. Tell us something about that.

Oh yes, the Bootcamp! We have been living together for approximately two months now. The amount of coordination that improves the moment you guys are sitting next to each other is no joke. We live, eat and sleep together. We go back home to spend some time together with our families every couple of months. I feel like it has helped us quite a lot. 

 

Q. We haven’t seen a lot from Abhay. How’s the addition of this new player working out for you? 

Abhay is the new dedicated sniper of the team. Before this, we never had a dedicated sniper on the team. Sure, sometimes we sniped if it felt right, but there was no dedicated role for it. We all used to have ARs, or shotguns as our backup weapons. With the entry of Abhay, we are experimenting with a new playstyle. We don’t deploy him in all matches. Permutations and combinations work differently every time, and we are trying to find the optimum fit for ourselves. 

 

Q. What does an average day look like at the Bootcamp?

We practice a minimum of eight hours a day. I don’t think there is a maximum upper limit. You can’t expect us to keep a track of time either; we literally live in a gaming house. We play all day and all night. 

                                              

Q. What does practice look like for you?

I personally try to get in a few hours of solo practice every day. I hop into Clash Squad and some Classics to warm up. I train my aim every day if possible. Then we hop into scrims and try to improve our synergy. It’s all about exploring each other as teammates and getting to know each other so well that we communicate almost telepathically. Our goal is to become so good that we back each other up without even being asked for help, and know exactly how to react in various situations. 

 

Q. What practice tips would you give to newcomers?

The best way to practice your aim and raw firepower - hop into a few games of Clash Squad. Sometimes there are more intense game modes available such as Death Match, that are perfect for aim training. If you want to work on rotations and tactics, play scrims and small tournaments as much as you can. Follow it up by tracking your mistakes and reviewing how you could have performed better. 

 

Q. These tips will surely help new players get better. But the learning curve for you professionals must be much steeper. So how does someone at your level get even better?

One of the only ways you can become better at your level is by learning from your own mistakes. Experience is the best teacher. Unfortunately, this teacher also kills all of its students. So you must try to learn from other’s mistakes as well. We try to look at what the other teams do. There are several great teams in Asian countries like Indonesia and Thailand. We try to pick up some of their good strategies and try to implement them. 

 

Q. There is a great deal of difference between adopting and adapting a strategy, isn’t there?

Yes indeed. What might work for them might not work for us. That’s why we keep our minds open. We obviously try out what they do first. If it suits us well, we keep it. If it doesn’t and makes us uncomfortable, then we mold it to our liking and try to ‘adapt’ the good parts of that strategy into our gameplay, and skip out on the useless bits. We can’t simply ‘adopt’ their strategy as it is. It’s like adding a desi twist to a foreign recipe. 

 

Q. What works for you the best, and where do you think you lack?

We believe that we are a really strong squad to fight against. We do have a lot of firepowers but what makes us better is our survivability. We don’t get knocked down that easily. We are able to get back into fights really quickly after taking a hit. Hence, if we are fighting another squad fair and square, there’s a good chance that we will win. The only time we struggle is when we start getting pressured by 3-4 teams at the same time. Even then, we only struggle if we panic. If we keep a cool head, we will survive. That’s what we have to improve on. 

 

Q. Which team do you think will be a threat to you in FFIC 2021 Fall?

You always ask this question and we always answer ‘no team in particular’. Hand on heart, we aren’t lying or being diplomatic when we say that, and that’s the honest truth. We don’t often go out of our way to counter some other team. We just focus on our own agenda. Here’s another good thing about us that I should have mentioned in the previous question; we don’t overextend. We engage when we sense an opportunity and disengage when things get sticky. We avoid getting “third-partied” pretty well. 

 

We second that motion and extend our best wishes to all the participants of FFIC 2021 Fall. We also thank Nivesh from Blind Esports for having this insightful conversation with us. Make sure to support Team Blind Esports and many other in the Free Fire India Championship 2021 Fall League stage starting from 17th September on our Free Free Fire Esports India Youtube channel.