Onotora Spends First Day of Overwatch Tournament Practice Learning Tanks and Teamwork

NIJISANJI — Onotora, a Nijisanji streamer, spent nearly nine hours on Sunday on the first day of practice for an Overwatch tournament, studying the event’s rules and heroes before playing practice matches with teammates as Bastion. Partway through, he told those teammates he had just reached the six-month mark since his debut.

He opened the stream by showing a dragon-themed Bastion skin he had bought for the occasion. He then went through the tournament format, saying the event uses five maps, each tied to a mode: Ilios for Control, King’s Row for Hybrid, Colosseo for Push, Aatlis for Flashpoint and Route 66 for Escort. Choosing a map in the tournament also chooses its mode, he said. He added that he had started the game only two or three weeks earlier, and that he wanted to cover the basics for first-time viewers just as he had needed them himself. About 17 minutes in, he began working through the tank heroes, which a teammate had told him the day before to learn first. He noted that two heroes are banned in the tournament and wrote up notes on each tank’s abilities and ultimate. By the one-hour mark he said he had learned seven.

“Instead of fitting into that frame, I figured the goal should be to become that frame.” — Onotora, reflecting on his first six months

About an hour and 43 minutes in, he joined his teammates on a voice call and reported what he had studied. When he told them he had learned seven tanks, one replied that this was impressive for a first day. He listed his goals for the session: use walls to cut off enemy lines of fire, keep moving while shooting, avoid wasting his abilities and call out more. He also asked what teammates should call one another and told them, “If it’s hard to call me something, ossan is fine,” using the Japanese word for a middle-aged guy. Practice ran through quick matches and custom games, including a lobby that viewers joined, until he thanked the participants around the 5 hour 41 minute mark. A teammate then walked the group through a replay, stressing that players should spread across the map instead of stacking in a line.

Around the 5 hour 44 minute mark, he told his teammates he had just reached his half anniversary, and he thanked viewers for their congratulations at about 7 hours 18 minutes, saying he had been focused on a match when it happened. He then looked back on the weeks before his debut, recalling that he made his introductory graphics by hand and used a paper collage for the closing image of his first stream. He said he hoped his activities would one day be seen as setting the standard rather than following one, asked viewers to tell him if he ever seemed to drift from that, and gave the line above. The chat logged more than 5,800 messages, four of them Super Chats.

Late in the stream he bought a battle pass and began ranked placement matches, saying he would play one game and then sleep. He ended up playing several. He closed by announcing a half anniversary singing stream at 7 p.m., with a larger commemoration planned for after the tournament, and said the next team practice would likely fall on the 20th.