Marshall "Mohr" Mohr is currently a support player for Phase 2, the team that took second place in Open Division 2018 Season 3 NA, and in Overwatch Contenders Season 1, he played for Mayhem Academy. 

Inven Global sat down with Mohr earlier this week to discuss his recent matches against Shu's Money Crew, Bye Week, and GOATS; his thoughts on Doomfist and how to counter the contentious hero; and, his opinion of the skill disparities between Tier 2 and Tier 3 Overwatch.

Where does the team name Phase 2 come from?

It came from an inside joke within the team where many of our players had gotten tryouts and didn't make it to the 2nd phase of them. So as a team, we thought we could turn this into our team name and prove those teams wrong and show them what we are really capable of, and I feel we have been doing exactly that so far.

Open Division Grand Finals seemed convincing, with Shu's Money Crew winning 4-1 over Phase 2.  But you had your revenge, later winning 3-2 over them in Contenders Trials.  What changed?

Going into Open Division playoffs, we didn't have a ton of info on SMC besides the fact they ran Doomfist religiously, and after playing them the first time we gained some knowledge about what we should play against it and how to shut it down.

The first time we played SMC and lost, it was a rough day.  Everyone was very emotional and frustrated, we definitely were not on top of our game going into those Open Div Grand Finals. Going into the Trials match we had time to prepare and make sure we could pull through this time and we did.

Any thoughts on your 3-0 win over Bye Week?

For the Bye Week match, we hadn't done a ton of preparation because we were focused on the SMC match. However, we knew that Bye Week had been known to play tank-heavy compositions such as GOATS, and we knew we could run it better, so we just outplayed them at their own game.

"Responding to Surefour's advice, I would disagree with some of his points.
... [A] skilled Doomfist player will have a rollout to hit wherever they please,"

Would you consider Phase 2 to be the strongest team at running the GOATS-composition, even over the actual GOATS team?

I honestly think it comes down to a day-to-day basis, I wouldn't say one team is better than the other in the case of us vs GOATS.  In our 2nd game against them in Open Div, it was very close with us winning 3-2, but was nowhere near as convincing as our first matchup. 

Generally speaking, I think GOATS-composition is a crutch but works really well against uncoordinated teams.  In the case of our Bye Week match, we just knew that we had better coordination so we could just mirror them without many issues.  I wouldn't say we are the best at playing GOATS-composition, it really just depends who you are playing against and what composition they are running.

You retweeted Apply's "I HATE DOOMFIST" tweet. Do you think Blizzard needs to nerf or rework the hero?

I feel that Doomfist should have some sort of nerf coming, the hero just has too much potential to 1-hit targets and still escape. I would suggest reverting his latest buff on increasing how many shields he gains for landing abilities, and also maybe upping the cooldowns of an ability or two by a second.

The hero is incredibly unfun to play against. No one likes the feeling of being 1-shot in a video game and when Doomfist has the skill set to potentially kill two or more members of your team within 4-8 seconds worth of cooldowns, it can be very frustrating to deal with.

Surefour recently gave advice on how to deal with Doomfist.  What are your thoughts on how to counter him in his current state? 

Currently, to counter Doomfist, a lot of teams have been running team compositions with no back line (Lucio/Pharah/Mercy, Lucio/Moira) so he can't trade out his life for your healers. I don't think there is a lack of a hard counter to Doomfist, it's really just how well you can work with your team to stop him. 

Playing Sombra might seem like the right play and it is most of the time, but its very hard to start every fight off with a hack on Doomfist, especially with how good D.va players are getting at spy checking and cancelling the hack. I do believe Sombra is a very strong pick against him. Some others I might add would be snipers and Brigitte: it can be very hard for Doomfist to have an impact when taking 120+ damage on his engage or being bashed when he lands.

"between T2/T3 ... there isn't a huge gap in mechanics, but mostly the
coaching and resources signed teams have,"

For tanks, dealing with Doomfist is kind of a rough time considering the amount of shields he can receive from landing his abilities on them and also having such an easy escape. I would recommend playing more aggressive, forcing him to not start the fight from a rollout and put him in an awkward position. You can also trying baiting him in if you have the right composition to stop him.

Responding to Surefour's advice, I would disagree with some of his points. Taking high ground can be advantageous, but a skilled Doomfist player will have a rollout to hit wherever they please. 

Playing Zarya in the current meta outside of GOATS usually isn't the play.  I have been seeing it run more recently and it might become viable. But with the effectiveness D.Va has, I don't really see that happening. As far as teamwork goes, I do believe that having good synergy and focusing him can work in some cases, but it goes both ways. If a team really knows how to play around their Doomfist and create opportunities to enable him, it can be just as hard to shutdown.

You were in Mayhem Academy for Season 1. Do you have any thoughts about your previous time with them?

I really enjoyed my time on Mayhem Academy.  Everyone was really fun to hang around with and they're super dedicated to the game. Being on Mayhem Academy made me the player I am today and I have no one else to thank but Reprize, who was Head Coach at the time. I learned so much from being on that team and would go back without a second thought if I ever got the chance.

Has the T2 and T3 scene changed since then?  What sort of skill gap is between T2/T3?

Speaking on the T2/T3 scene, I personally feel it hasn't changed much since Season 1 of Contenders, but there is so much upcoming talent that goes unnoticed and I'm excited to see where everyone ends up for OWL S2 & S3. At the same time, it's sad to see how little recognition the players and scene receive; I would really like to see Blizzard put more resources into the T2/T3 scene. 

I don't have much to say about the difference in skill gap between T2/T3 other than there isn't a huge gap in mechanics, but mostly the coaching and resources signed teams have. There are a lot players constantly improving and grinding everyday, but it is very difficult to compete with academy teams as an unsigned team from Open Division or Trials where you have no resources or financial backing behind you during the season. It's nice to play for money in Contenders, but it's nowhere near how much you would need to self-sustain from it. 

Many players that are trying to make it through Open Division or Trials have a lot going on outside of the game and can't commit as much time to the game as players that are signed to academy teams where your job is to play the game. Some of these unsigned players have jobs, school, and even at-home complications that may get in their way as they pour everything they have to make it in the scene.

I hope for big changes in the 2019 seasons of Contenders and that more organizations get involved and Blizzard gives the scene the credit it deserves.