Here we are again with another edition of Inside Lounge. This time we are speaking to long standing Lounge team CoB Antimeta. As they are part of the CoB community we also invited Lounge caster and CoB Geile Banger captain Gwels to give us some insight into what CoB is all about.
Hello there! Firstly thank you very much for your time.
To get started if you could tell us a little about yourselves- who you are, your history with Heroes Lounge and your role within the team.
Shev’la: Guess I'll start then. My name is Shev'la and this Team is my first and only team in HL so far, also I follow the game since Alpha, thanks to Khaldor, and play it since Beta. Due to my job I only managed to play with friends from time to time but since I relocated I'm able to put more time and effort into the game, which lead to joining CoB Antinmeta. That was for Season 8, first as a sub/analyst/coach and with season 9 as a full time player. Right now I play on ranged assassin,do the drafting and participate in shotcalling.
Moonbyul: Henlo 
I am Moonbyul and play DD for CoB and Antimeta for quite a while now. My role within the team is usually to kill our opponents without dying myself. Also, I bring some of the comic relief into the team. Currently boot-camping in South Korea so I am unfortunately out for a couple of weeks.
Szash: Hi, I am Szash, the resident support player for CoB Antimeta. I like saving my teammates from ganks, cc chains and burst as well as from their own mistakes. Antimeta is my 4th HL team actually. I was captain of my university's team Under Bronze Tier in season 4 and 5, played for Senpai's Groupies in season 7 and Project Hive White in season 8. Now with Antimeta since season 9. This is my first time playing my main role of support in HL and the best/most consistent team I have been a part of. I am currently bootcamping in Scotland (training to play with unreliable internet) and also out for a few weeks.
Balabub: Hey, I'm balabub, the current tank player for CoB Antimeta. I've been playing in Heroes Lounge since the very first season under the CoB label in a team with Lasiroth, Sayne, Gwels and some others. Since then I have played for CoB Saltshakers. Last season the Saltshakers disbanded and so I ended up playing for Antimeta again. From season 2 to season 4 I also joined the Heroes Lounge moderator team and was responsible for the very first blog posts like inside lounge and the weekly recaps (you know the thing for which fictional and Halloween made these awesome YouTube clips) and the social media advertisement. During season 4, my real life got so time consuming that since then I only had time for playing in Heroes Lounge and had to quit being a part of the organization and moderators. However, I really wouldn't want to miss playing Heroes a few nights a week in my weekly schedule.
JohnBranon: I’m JohnBranon, currently captain of CoB Antimeta.
Antimeta was my first Heroes Lounge team when I joined for Season 5. We needed an offlaner at the time so I have been learning to offlane ever since!
Gwels: Heyhey I'm Gwels, I'm a Flex player, who likes switching to the roles my team needs and sometimes picking silly heroes. I started playing HotS around the Eternal Conflict event and am playing in Heroes Lounge since the very first season (back then on Battlefy), always on CoB teams. I like amateur esports more than pro esports and some of the older admins might remember my (sometimes annoying) feedback in the first seasons. I also did some info graphics for the first few seasons back then.
Because of our community growing and evolving i sometimes volunteered switching teams, mainly with the goal to give the most CoBbys (=CoB-Members) that wanted to, the possibility to play in a team. And this is the special thing here: Currently I'm not a direct part of Antimeta anymore! Last season I already stepped back from core roster because of RL responsibilities (with a crying eye, because after a long time separated since season 1, I finally had the chance to play with balabub/sayne/lasiroth again after they came over from the Saltshakers). So i was Sub only and effectively just played very seldom. This season I joined the team "Geile Banger" because they are cool guys that wanted to join the CoB family but needed one more player and a captain for the orga stuff. So I agreed and CoB grew. As a bonus this came in very handy for me, because they are a non-training-team, just play a match once a week, so I'm more free. Additionally I could still sub for Antimeta (won't be more than 3 times a season) or help out at training - and also am allowed to cast them now! Big win! Still CoB Antimeta was my team since season 3 and though reforged a few times because of fluctuation it still feels like my home team.
Other stuff: Some might know those "HotS Census"/"Hero Surveys" I did for a long while on Reddit. Sadly I haven't found time yet for more since last year's BlizzCon. Additionally last season, though I planned to step back and do less, I started streaming and found a lot of fun in doing it. It also was easier for me to schedule, because Heroes Lounge calendar allowed me to decide spontaneously. In the end I was still putting a lot of time in HotS, which I still like a lot.
So this is a team from the CoB community,which has had several teams compete in Heroes Lounge over the seasons. Gwels could you give us a summary about what CoB is all about?
Gwels: Actually CoB is a german gaming Clan founded back then in 1999 with some friends when we had our first LAN parties when we were 12-14 years old.
CoB stand for "Clan ohne Bestimmung" which roughly translates into "Clan without Destiny". We loved to embellish the name with philosophical background story and a website, trying to act like a secret society with the purpose of searching for our true meaning in life. Silly but cool. Our motto was "striving for destiny", we were like restless ghosts and playing games was meant to help us find meaning in life (so edgy).
(btw: CoB does not stand for "Clowns ohne Beine", this is just a cover name with same short handle, we used back then for 2nd or fun-squads or if we tried out new games. We started with that name in the first season of Heroes Lounge as well.)
For some years CoB had over 50 members playing different games. The biggest were definitely Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3, but we had Squads in DotA1, SC1, SC2, DoW1, DoW2, FIFA, CS 1.6, CS:S, AoE3, WoW and LotRO. Some were very successful: In WC3 we played german Bundesliga (Top12 teams in germany), played international matches and won the biggest amateur league WC3CL (were i was lead admin for a while). We had WCG players on the roster and went to LANs from time to time. In DoW2 and SC2 we had EPS players. Sadly RTS focus moved away from clans to 1on1 stars.
On the other hand we always disliked the pseudo professional approach other multi-gaming clans had that were founded in the late 2000s. Our focus was on having fun, being fair-play and building friendship and not taking everything serious or even as a business. The teams were the stars, we had democratic structures and success was a side-effect.
When the people grew older slowly the Clan fell asleep. Some had RL as their main game now, some got lost in the big age of MMOs. We played some DotA1 for fun, but CoB was already deep in slumber when the age of MOBA was coming on. (There is still a FB group for the old CoB age)
But with HotS the seal was broken and the spirit was revived. Together with another old CoBby named Franny we met a few players (from the current active CoBbys only Lasiroth, balabub and Sayne remaining) and all together formed the first team. Lasiroth was the one who contacted me first, he found me on Blizz forums. Team spirit was great and I'm happy I could convince the others to sail under the CoB flag and from then on the community was rebuild and growing again as HotS only. In season 2 we had two teams already (with old CoBby TapioN coming back as well) and currently there are 4 teams in season 10: Antimeta, SlingsHots, Geile Banger and Randomly Assembled. (A list of former CoB teams in Heroes Lounge: Clowns ohne Beine, Misclick, Pyrotap, No Vision No Worries, Facepalm, Digule Digule, Feed the Troll, Puppies in Shark Tanks, Schuldfrage and Saltshakers.).
Though RL also takes tribute, we are really happy to have this thriving community all around HotS. Active and former active players gather on our Discord, we discuss some strategy , have some streamers, help each other out with Subs or just play in random groups. So i think its right to say that we found a lot of cool people and friends here and enjoy playing HotS - and hopefully it will stay this way! :slight_smile:
For everyone else, how did you get involved with CoB and what how would you describe the community?
Shev’la: I think how I got involved is described in my first answer already. I would describe this community as one of the most friendly and overall helpful communities I was part of since my guild in WotLK-times. Although we have several teams and in the last 2 seasons quite some changes in active players as well as team compositions every new member quickly merges into this community. Outside of HL games and training we don't just stick to our team but also randomly play together. We exchange and discuss draft ideas, teamcomps, strategies and so on. In addition, you can always find someone to help your team if there is a need for a sub even when it is 10 mins before the game starts. I would say this community thrives from a philosophy of making everybody/every team better and not just yourself/your team.
Balabub: I actually can't remember anymore. I was playing casually with Sayne (who I know since school) and Lasiroth (who was looking for Heroes players in the Blizzard forum to play with) and his friend Ghaleon every other evening. At some point, I wasn't playing for a week, I can't remember why, but when I came back a guy called Gwels (who did these cool heroes surveys on Reddit) signed us up for a Heroes amateur League with a pretty shitty website which ran via Battlefy. The team name was "Clowns ohne Beine" which was hilarious and the idea of the amateur league was pretty cool.
Gwels told us fairytales from the time when Warcraft 3: TFT was THE esport game and when he himself was part of the organization of an amateur league for TFT. We heard stories from an ancient Clan called "Clan ohne Bestimmung" and over time we attracted more and more players. Since Heroes Lounge doesn't allow teams to have more than 9 members we kinda were forced to create more and more teams.
However, I would describe this community similar to what Shevla said. The last couple of years were really cool.
JohnBranon: I wanted to try Heroes Lounge after my RL friends who had introduced me to HotS all stopped playing. I found CoB through #teams_recruiting and loitered on their discord for a season, getting to know the people before I actually joined one of their teams.
Szash: I basically found CoB the same way JohnBranon did, Antimeta was looking for a new main support player last season and after trying out with them I felt like I had finally found the friendly, relaxed yet competitive and driven community I had been looking for. I can therefore agree with Shevla on all his points!
JohnBranon: Szash joining us is in fact a big part of why we had such a successful Season 9. Our previous main support had left us on very short notice and we couldn't have asked for a better successor 
Last season you won Division 5 (after a team of smurfs was disqualified) and competed in the group stage of the Epic Cup. What are your feelings on how well you performed last season? Did you expect this success?
Moonbyul: Hope this doesn't sound to arrogant hahaha. I remember calling competing in the epic cup out as our seasonal goal. I always felt like we had the individual skill to win pretty much any match and delivering what we had in store was what we had to focus on. With some relatively high ranked and (imo) undeservedly lower ranked players, we were in a position that allowed us to win games that were otherwise even. Also we have a couple of players that put quite some time and effort into analyzing our opponents which often gave us an advantage during the draft. All these things together made for a solid foundation that allowed us to finish on the top spot last season. Finishing first was a pleasant surprise but also nothing we deemed impossible at the start of the season.
Shev’la: I myself kind of expected that. Not us winning the Division but a high placement and playoffs for sure since we dropped from Div4 but added some players that made our lineup stronger. Epic Cup was a little bit of a letdown tho. We probably did not focus enough on it and maybe were a little overconfident which backfired hard.
Our performance was good but in my opinion depended more on good macro play then on us having the best team fight synergy. This was also expected since we had changes on tank and support which had quite a (positive) impact nevertheless. Teamfights is something we are working on right now cause it is our mayor problem in Div4.
Good point from Moonbyul, we but a good effort into analysing opponents and also had some film sessions to improve on our bad games. With him playing heroes like Zeratul and Maiev we also had nice tools in the draft to threaten opponents and force bans.
JohnBranon: you always call competing in the Playoffs as our goal 
I personally was a bit surprised by how well it went. We had many really tense and some awfully close matches but ended up winning most of them. I feel like we improved considerably over the course of the season - yet in our tough as nails playoff group we deservedly only took a single map. That's why we were looking forward to playing in Division 4 this time around so we could continue to improve by facing new challenges.
Balabub: What surprised me the most was our team synergy and communication out the gate although we only played a few games with this newly shuffled composition.
Some of the games were really pretty close and I think we learned a lot throughout the season.
But even when we were on the edge of defeat we could always trust in Shev'la wiping the enemy team with his unexpected godlike Li Ming plays. However, most of the games we lost, if not all of them, the enemy denied moonbyul his Zeratul.
In the epic cup, I think we probably had one of the strongest groups. And it's a pity that the groups could have looked quite differently if there would have been earlier actions against the smurferinos of Division 5.
Nevertheless, the playoff games didn't feel too bad.
Gwels: Last season's performance was overall really good I think. We did not expect to finish 1st in the regular season, but reaching the playoffs was still the dream and realistic goal. Both teams, Saltshakers and Antimeta, lost some players the season before and merged into one team with the remaining very stable and dedicated players, which led to this very solid performance. Also it wasn't the Christmas or summer holiday season so there was good focus all the time.
I personally just played 2 or 3 matches and didn't perform very well, because I wasn't really training but mostly casting that season, but in the end it worked out well.
Sad that the Playoffs didn't went that well. Somehow the drive was lost and the approach was a little bit too lax compared to our opponents who deserved the wins, but we still had fun.
After your performance last season you have been moved up to Division 4. At the time of writing you are 4 wins out of 5, how are you finding the new challenge so far and do you feel you can keep up this good form?
Shev’la: I honestly did not expect us to do that good since we did not play much as a team between the season and played most games with at least 1 sub cause of vacations, job and so on.
Surprisingly compared to Div5 the challenge is not that much bigger. For sure there are some better players involved and different heroes have priority but from a macro perspective we are still in a good state. Our shotcalling and decision making is mostly on point so that we can handle many situations very well and quick. In addition to that our synergy in the second season together is definitely better, which is a big factor especially in the late game.
Every player on our roster and potential subs from other CoB Teams can fit into our lineup pretty good so even when we have to switch players I think we are good to go and keep our form. Not saying anybody is easily replaceable but I guess we as a team have the ability to get others in line with our playstyle pretty quick. It's gonna be difficult to break into top 3 I guess but if we don't have a meltdown I still see playoffs as our goal.
Moonbyul: Playoffs 
Balabub: The start of the season feels kinda weird for me. As Shev'la said, due to vacation, job, etc. we couldn't really develop a routine for this season yet when it comes to practice.
Surprisingly, it didn't affect our results so far. I think there is little to no gap in skill between the average Div 5 and the average Div 4 team.
JohnBranon: I'm very very pleased that we can still compete in this division. I wasn't sure we'd get 4 wins all season so any victory from here on out would feel like a bonus to me!
Gwels: The differences between Div 5 and 4 are not that big, just a few MMR points, which according to the seeding from Hotslogs shortly after Storm League was released, didn't mean that much. It mostly depends on the teams and how good they can make their strengths work. Currently Antimeta has some scheduling and training problems because of summer holiday seasons, but somehow it still works very well. There is great effort by all parts of the team, especially from organizing the dates and planning the strategy, that keeps the team pushed. The players know each other for a long time which is a big advantage and makes the experience very positive and hopefully the playoffs can be reached again. Because of this summer season we didn't have set any goals, so getting into the Cup is no need and not planned but would be very awesome!
That said, I somehow personally got promoted to Div3 somehow, playing in team Geile Banger. Was planning to play in a no-train-team in lower division but admins put us Div3 and to a surprise we are currently still floating somehow somewhere in the midfield. The team is riding the same wave, on the same page without any train, which is awesome, but im still expecting us to lose any next match brutally.
What is your most memorable moment from competing in Heroes Lounge? (any season, any team)
Balabub: Well, from a players point of view it has to be our first HL series ever casted by the infamous duo Venom (who always refused to join CoB) and MacDino (who later joined CoB when Balance of Interest disbanded): https://youtu.be/ZFfdnZw4lxc. It was against Xtremly Xplicit and we were tight in wins for the first spot in our group at that time. It was in the summer and I remember I was on summer vacation home at my parents and I had to play on my notebook with like 20 fps. I was so nervous because: "Mom, our match is gonna be casted and broadcasted in the world wide web". I made my family watch this on the TV, while I was playing in a different room and we got like 20 viewers! Then in the first game on tomb I got to play Raynor and a solo lane match-up against a Zagara and the casters complimented my plays. Naive, young me felt so proud. We won Tomb and lost Infernal and ended up on Cursed for the third map. It was right after the global summer championship 2016 when mYinsanity got to play MVP and pulled out that Morales Cheese. I don't know why but everyone in voice (except Sayne probably who doesn't like cheese) wanted to play the Morales Cheese and secure an easy win. The casters were surprised by our draft but Froge who used to play for Agents007 in twitch Chat figured out what we had planned... As our opponent. They knew what was coming and drafted Illidan. And we had a comp without any CC. It was barbaric... We had no chance, didn't even reach level 10 in that 8 minute game. It really felt bad and I remember Sayne being really salty which later inspired the team name CoB Saltshakers
From a viewers point of view it definitely was the series of James Baker vs Gaming in the Rhythm: https://youtu.be/T3mR7Y8xazk. The Khaldor and Bakery cast was simply hilarious and I still remember the spam in the twitch chat.
Shev’la: Well my personal highlight has to be our comeback win on BoE against Just Friends in the last season were we managed to defeat them after an overall horrible performance but wiped them at the core and finished the game ourselves.
But I have to say I really enjoy the whole time I play with this team because even in bad times we have a great atmosphere and fun with our games – even if we just make fun of each other :D But the video Bala mentioned is also pure gold indeed
JohnBranon: Jumping 1v5 into the enemy team as Sonya to distract them long enough from our core for my teammates to hearth. It's probably so memorable to me because it was one of my first Lounge matches and both the backdoor attempt as well as our defence would not have been possible to coordinate in my Hero League games.
Gwels: There are a lot of great memories made in Heroes Lounge! Of course the very first season on Battlefy, then slowly seeing the community and league grow step by step.
I remember playing the opening match of season 2 div1 with team "CoB Misclick" and getting casted by Khaldor. He complimented me on my Auriel plays and put Auriel as a thumbnail pic for the VoD so I was happy. There was also one playoff match where another CoB team has been casted by CavalierGuest, a really cool guy, as were most of the Lounge admins and mods.
Personally starting streaming matches gave me great memories. I was glad being chosen as an "expert" to join the draw shop. Sitting there dressed up in front of my pc was a fun experience. Big thing was also streaming the season 9 mythic cup finals (div1 playoffs). I was shocked and surprised but also honored when I saw my name on the list, because I just started streaming a few weeks ago, but had a lot of fun. I remember it was really hot weather and i was sitting there for a over 5 hour marathon cast with a lot of viewers and a full-length-Bo7 grand final. I was exhausted afterwards but loved it!
All in all there are a lot of awesome matches, plays and memories made in all the seasons of Heroes Lounge so far and they somehow start getting blurry, so it's hard for me to pick and highlight just one. In the end the best thing is playing games with and against great nice people where the main thing is being sportive, fair and having fun. There are some black sheep, but overall you meet a lot of great people here. I hope there are a lot of great memorable moments to come!
What would you consider your teams greatest strength?
JohnBranon: Low levels of salt.
With how close most of our matches have been, tilt could have lost us many of them. Not that I couldn't still improve in that department as well
Shev’la: I would agree on that. Even after a bad map, like the first map in our last game everyone takes responsibility for their mistakes and openly admits them instead of blaming others. More importantly we can find our main flaws to then solve it for the next map in a quick, calm and efficient way.
Same thing ingame when we lose one or two teamfights early on we are able to adjust our playstyle on the fly and most of the time manage to come out on top again.
Moonbyul: Probably Zeratul. Not sure if it's the hero or player though. No recency bias involved here either!!1!
Balabub: Definitely the ability to refocus after a lost game or even ingame after some lost fights. In previous teams we always carried bad emotions with us onto the next map. That barely happens in this current composition and as the others said, it definitely helps to come out on top again.
Gwels: I think the greatest strength is that we know each other for a long time and the core members walked a long way together. Also some of the regular players now, were Sub players before, so we try to find great additions, in terms of skill and personality, step by step. Now most of us are around 30 and main goal is enjoying this hobby with nice people we like. Success is a welcomed side-effect, but we can handle losing and improving together very well. Atmosphere is great, skill is evenly distributed and if Real Life stress comes up, the others will step in and hold the ground. Of course having the CoB community behind us is another awesome thing to have.
(For team "CoB Geile Banger" i think the greatest strength is that we don't need to train to play somewhat ok with at least some synergy from time to time. The skill distribution in that team is wider than in Antimeta of course, but the atmosphere is also very great and easy with everybody communicating a lot. They are all RL friends and are fine with meeting once a week for a match. Our motto is: "If we don't train, the battery is always full for the match!")
If you have any shout-outs/final words, speak now or forever hold your memes.
Balabub: Shout out to my mum. If she would be honest or at least knew, I think she would admit that she is really proud that I am playing on the top of Division 4 in Heroes Lounge. Shout out to Gwels, to keep CoB alive. I really respect that. Shout out to the Heroes Lounge organizers, mods, team and all the casters who witnessed and bore our ingame-grief. Shout out to that one guy who gave me a 1€-coin the other day when I had not enough cash to buy me a package of cigarettes from that vending machine in this pub. And shout out to Monster energy, which helps me a lot staying focused during Heroes Lounge matches! "Can I get my money now?" "Grmmmlgrmmml" "okay, okay... " Red Bull sucks!
JohnBranon: Shoutout to Poppinfresh for editing down some of these walls of text. Thanks to the Captains that make scheduling as little pain as possible. Thank you to everyone who makes competitive HotS on our level possible - from organisers and casters to all the players!
Gwels: Shoutout to all the people trying to make HotS community better, especially for the amateur level competitive scene! So of course the admins, mods, casters, content creators, etc of Heroes Lounge but also everybody else who does some effort in their free time for everybody! This includes the big content creators, but also the "small" team captains and drafters you meet every week. Thanks a lot, please always feel appreciated, you are awesome!
Shoutout to Lasiroth and Sayne, who are part of Antimeta as well, but preferred to stay silent and mysterious in this interview!
Shoutout to all CoB members for the great community and providing a safe idyllic harbour! Some of us i really don't want to miss anymore!
Shoutout to all the cool people, who watched and liked my stream and content! (Sadly RL is keeping me very busy recently. I hope i can be more active again soon).
And of course shoutout to everybody who likes this game, keep going!
Moonbyul: Gwels answer is way too diplomatic.
We need more trash talk!
Everyone better than us is obviously hacking and everyone worse than us is a noob and should uninstall
That's all we have for this edition of Inside Lounge, a massive thank you to Gwels and CoB Antimeta for taking part.
Keep an eye out for upcoming interviews and other fantastic Lounge content!
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