So, it seems that yesterday was the end of an Overwatch competitive season.  I didn’t actually realize this until I noticed that (a) I was getting absolutely crushed in matches and (b) that many of the other people playing were absurdly high-level.  Like, level 800 or higher, when I’m a lowly level 30.  So we’re talking people with hundreds if not thousands of hours under their belts, temporarily forced to slum with us plebeians since their SRS BSNS mode was closed for renovations.

Anyway, “Competitive” thankfully re-opened and the high-level crowd disappeared, but not before it gave me a crazy idea.

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, I’m comfortably into middle age and my l33t gaming reflexes – if I ever had such – have long since atrophied.  Also, well, I’ve been playing Overwatch from my exercise bike with a controller, against other PC players who are almost certainly enjoying the enhanced accuracy and speed of mouse & keyboard controls.

Three or more hours of exercise bike a night is not a polite thing to do to one’s backside, by the way, and the first night I did this I literally wound up playing standing up because I could not sit down on even a very comfortable chair.  But I digress.

Anyway.  Every competitive season begins with the players needing to play ten placement matches, after which the Blizzard Sorting Hat reviews your performance and throws you into one of several categories, the lowest being Bronze and top being Diamond.  I think they go Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, but I could be wrong and my years spent as a young nerd playing AD&D has me desperately wanting to stick “Electrum” in there somewhere.

Is it ten silver to an electrum piece?  Or ten gold to an electrum piece?  I’ve completely forgotten where it falls.  It’s probably not important.

Damn it, where’s my Player’s Handbook?

OK, that’s settled.  Moving on.

So, I figured that I would play my ten matches and see where I wound up, for science.  Also, I kinda felt like I was missing out on hearing how many people had slept with my mother, which people rarely discuss during Quick Play matches.

For the record, whew boi.  While the matches weren’t QUITE the non-stop barrage of racial slurs I was expecting, there was still a heck of a lot of salt being thrown around.  I had a couple of matches where there were supportive and encouraging and tactically-smart people in voice chat, and then I had … well, the other eight matches, which were either completely silent or mostly-silent and punctuated by people bitching about how poorly everyone else was doing and how they were totally carrying us.

Surprisingly, nobody said a thing about the level 30 Mercy mixing in with the crazy high-level people in competitive.  Maybe they thought I was a smurf account?  I did get one comment about using my ultimate ability at a bad moment, which was fair since I’d mostly pushed the button because I wanted to fly up and check out the rafters of the room we were in.

Also, I will admit that it took me until after the seventh match before I swallowed my pride and exited the game to google “when do I use Mercy’s ult”, because honestly I didn’t actually know what Mercy’s ult did apart from make it so I could fly.

The results of the ten placement matches?  Well…

Let’s be clear.  I don’t think my reading up on what the heck I was supposed to be doing actually helped THAT much.  But it may have meant that I stopped being a complete boat anchor, which is a nice thought.

Oh, and for placement purposes?

SILVER.

THERE ARE PEOPLE WORSE THAN ME.

I guarantee you, no 19-year old adderall-boosted eSports champion EVER felt so proud of his Diamond placement as I am feeling to know that, while I DO suck, I COULD SUCK MORE.

Score one for the old guys.  I shall spend the rest of the night listening to Queen’s “We Are The Champions” on infinite repeat.

NO TIME FOR LOSERS, CAUSE WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS

(wait for it)

OF THE WORLD