Lauren Iroas and Puti Spectate Overwatch Scrims the Day Before the Main Event

NIJISANJI — Lauren Iroas spent Saturday evening watching Overwatch scrims, or practice matches, from the game’s free-camera spectator view alongside fellow streamer Puti. The stream, tagged #にじEX_OW, ran 146 minutes and came one day before the event’s main matches.

Iroas opened by saying he had set up an arrangement that let the two hear the teams’ voice chat while talking themselves without disturbing the players. The teams on the schedule included Wan’ope, Chiru Bota, Hack Eye and D4P4. As the matches played, the pair talked through hero picks, point captures and how each side’s calls were holding up.

“It’s got to be tank in this game. It’s so much fun.” — Lauren Iroas, during a ranked match

Around the one-hour mark they discussed hero swapping. In a short event, they said, teams practice only a few heroes each, so counter-swapping comes up less than in ordinary play, though some teams were already reaching for different heroes against their opponents. Late in the evening they agreed that every team had become more vocal than the day before, and compared the teams to classes working through a textbook at different speeds, with the ones further along on regrouping and ultimate timing looking the strongest.

At about two hours in, the pair read aloud each coach’s answers to a questionnaire on the team’s selling point, what it had worked on and a closing word, shown on screen in a profile-notebook style. Wan’ope’s coach wrote, “Polishing together as six, shining together as six.” Hack Eye’s coach promised the team would finish polishing and win. D4P4 named teamwork as its strength. Chiru Bota’s was the shortest, “We just have to do it,” and the two joked that it had been the last to arrive.

After the scrims, they said they would have liked to play but that joining a viewers’ custom game could run until the early hours with an early start the next day. Puti signed off, and Iroas played one more ranked match as a tank. The game was disrupted when a teammate’s connection dropped. He ended the stream by calling Overwatch fun to play and to watch, and by asking viewers to cheer on the teams still practicing ahead of the main event.