by hsdecktech - 3 years ago     show comments

Jerome “Monsanto” Faucher is a character, there’s no denying that. From his distinctive hat, to his sarcastic interview responses, to even his lineup choices, Monsanto has been known for some time as the quirky pro. To that end, his Hearthstone Esports nickname, “The Comedian,” just seems so right.

This week, right after all the decklists were posted, I sharpened my wits, donned my fedora, and sat down with the Grandmasters Season 2 Champ to talk about his role in the Hearthstone community, his preparations for this weekend’s World Championships, and the existential dread that haunts us all. You know, the fun stuff!

In the beginning exchange of pleasantries, I started him off with something easy: “So, how are you feeling?”

He instinctually started to respond before catching himself. “I’m feeling pretty good– actually, I’m exhausted.”

And as I sat there, in my Cheeto-stained basketball shorts, my untamed hair now 9 months since last… tended to, I thought I knew the feeling. This pandemic has left many of us “actually, exhausted.” But, of course, Monsanto has the additional pressure of the biggest tournament of his life hanging over his head. “I prepped so hard in the last couple weeks,” he continued, “for almost a month now, I’ve been doing pretty much nothing but playing Hearthstone. I feel like I prepped so much that it wasn’t always healthy: I barely went outside; I didn’t exercise at all; I wasn’t eating that well; my room’s a mess…”

This Monsanto that we see on broadcasts and in interviews… is this a character, or is this you?

I joked that I had been in a similar boat for nine months now, except without any particular reason for it, and he let out something like a cross between a quiet “oh” and a disappointed sigh. It sounded more like air escaping his body than a particular word, but it said enough. There are two types of professional gamers.

And in the face of that involuntary expression of disgust and disapproval, I wondered, “This Monsanto that we see on broadcasts and in interviews… is this a character, or is this just you?”

“I don’t know what’s me, honestly,” he started, which, again, seemed to me to be a fair sentiment these days. “That’s a hard question… I think it’s kind of me, but more of it… I feel like, in my life, whenever I was with people, I was always kind of the comic relief in the group. But I’m not that witty, I just don’t know to do anything else.”

I got the impression that modesty is one of those “true Monsanto” characteristics that gets amplified into self-deprecating humor as part of the Monsanto character, because even in the throw-away half-comments between answers, I caught a lot of doubt.

When we were talking about lineups, Monsanto was “super surprised that so few players brought Rogue, because it is definitely one of the best three decks, and more people should’ve brought it,” but that was immediately followed by his qualification that there was a “good chance that I’m wrong.” When we were discussing who the best player in the world was right now, he didn’t know who it was, but he didn’t think it was him.

I’m super surprised that so few people brought Rogue, because it is definitely one of the best three decks, and more people should’ve brought it.

I asked him who was in contention for best player in the world right now, and he mentioned that only the eight of them are competing in a major tournament right now, so a lot of the players who might otherwise be in contention for “best player in the world” don’t have the motivation to play as much–and especially not across multiple classes–like the Worlds competitors have to. “It’s probably one of the players at Worlds who has had the most incentive to prep,” he surmised, “the other top players have just been playing their one favorite deck. DeadDraw, for instance, is probably the best at Warrior, but I don’t know if he’s been playing any of the other decks, so it’s hard to tell who’s the best at the game right now, and I think it always changes.”

I suppose in that sense, the World Championships could be a fairly accurate measure of the best player in the world at the very moment–a sentiment that had previously been shared with me in my interviews with the Hearthstone Esports team. And when we talked about lineups for this particular tournament, Monsanto was more confident.

“Three of the four decks I brought are the exact same archetypes that I brought to qualify for Grandmasters Playoffs, and Worlds, and Masters Tour Madrid. The Rogue, the Enrage Warrior, and the Demon Hunter were really good at the time and, I think, are still really good now. I was settled on those three decks by day three of the expansion because I could already see they were better than everything else, so I wanted those, and I spent the next three weeks just playing everything else, trying to figure out what’s the best fourth deck. I ended up with Hunter, which I’m not too happy about, but nothing seemed to be on the level of my first three decks, and Hunter’s not that hard to learn, whereas the other fourth decks I was testing, I was a bit worse at.” He would later tell me that Shaman (most likely Evolve) and Paladin (most likely Libroom) were some of those decks that he considered, but which did not work out as well for him.

Monsanto told me that most of his prep this time around came from just playing on the ladder. “Most of the good players I would normally prep with aren’t also preparing for tournaments right now, so they aren’t trying as hard to be good at the game in this moment. So, for the most part, I prepped by myself… The meta has shifted a lot during this expansion, and is still shifting, and I think when that happens, ladder is the best place to practice. If you start practicing with friends when the meta is unstable, that might hurt you more than help you… [But] when there’s a more settled meta, that’s when it’s a lot better to play with a strong testing group.”

Having played a lot of ladder myself since the expansion launched, I asked him what was up with all the Bomb Warrior, and why half the players brought it over the go-to ladder choice of E.T.C. Warrior.

“From the very first week, I was going up against a lot of E.T.C. Warriors [on the ladder], which only Jarla brought to this tournament. On ladder, it seems like there is no deck in the game that is favored against E.T.C. Warrior unless you are teching hard for it, or Priest, but Priest does not have a good matchup spread outside of that. So from very, very early on, I decided I was going to ban E.T.C. Warrior. I would just concede those games on the ladder on turn zero and move on, since I figured I wouldn’t have to play against Warriors. So I didn’t really think of Warriors much from there, since it was settled in my head that I wouldn’t have to play them… now I have to practice a lot against Bomb Warrior to see if it’s still worth banning, because I think it’s a lot worse than E.T.C. Warrior against what I brought.”

But, he later explained the decision, “It’s just that ladder is mostly Demon Hunters, and if you want to ban Demon Hunter, then Bomb Warrior gets a lot better. So whoever brought Bomb Warrior probably wants to ban Demon Hunter, and then Bomb Warrior is good against other Warriors.” Since he was already planning on banning Warrior, he reiterated, it only matters to him if Bomb Warrior is weak enough that the switch gives him a free ban of a different class. On a similar note, he thinks that Soul Demon Hunter is better against him than Aggro Demon Hunter is, so the choice of several players to bring that archetype seemed like a good sign to him as well.

So, overall, he feels pretty good about his lineup and his group. “I think my group is the weaker group, so I highrolled that a bit. If you ask most people to pick the weaker player from each region, that’s us, in Group B. And, on top of that, I think the lineups in my group are worse than the lineups in Group A.” There’s also, of course, the benefit of him being familiar with his decks. “Jarla brought a really strong lineup, but they are also four decks that are really hard to play perfectly, and take a lot of practice to master, and I don’t think he had enough time to get the reps in with them unless he settled on them right away, so that seems like a gamble to me.”

Because of all that, he told me that picking him for Choose Your Champion was the way to go for some safe, free packs. I was convinced, and immediately locked in my pick. Then he added, “Actually, I’m not sure when this is going to go out, so this might read really poorly.” A bit more of that Monsanto self-deprecating doubt, I suppose; or maybe he’d just call it realism.

That’s when I asked him about this particular nugget from his Hearthstone Esports bio:

He explained that this response was not a condemnation of the Hearthstone Esports system as much as it was just a statement about life and a bit about card games in general, where the inherent RNG makes repeat World Champions particularly rare. “This whole time, I’ve had two goals–the first was the get to Worlds and the second was to win it. But, the thing is, if I make it, then what now? Do I just keep playing? I’m never going to top that. I’ve talked to a few previous World Champions who told me that after they won Worlds they got depressed because they didn’t know what was next… I still want to win Worlds of course, but I do wonder what happens if I win. I don’t know, it’s scary. I don’t have a Plan B. It’s kind of true that if I win, I’m going to be lost for a bit.”

I thought about my own goals, and how I’d feel if I were to achieve them and then have nowhere left to go. We agreed that it certainly would not be a bad thing, but would mean needing some time to reflect and set new goals. I mused that maybe after Monsanto wins the World Championship, he starts applying for jobs on the Hearthstone Team? After all, the route from pro player to game developer has been pretty well established at this point. But, before we got too far ahead of ourselves, we agreed it would be best to focus on the goals ahead of us. For Monsanto, that was winning the World Championship. And that felt like a good place for us to leave things.

Thanks to my fans… I think I have a few… I’m definitely one of the underdogs in here, but I don’t mind that.

“Thanks to my fans,” he signed off, “I think I have a few. I don’t have that many. I’m definitely one of the underdogs in here, but I don’t mind that.” He also thanked people who helped him prepare, “I paid Jambre for coaching in Shaman and we won every game while we played together, but when he left, I kept losing, so I couldn’t bring it. Thanks also to Nohandsgamer, who helped me prep Paladin; again, I couldn’t really win with it, so I didn’t bring it. Thanks also to Luker and Nalguidan for taking a look at my lineup. Luker is one of my best friends in Hearthstone, and he’s always supportive–love you, Luker!”