Overwatch coach Jacob ‘Spilo’ Clifton explains why mindset matters most

Spilo looks concerned while speaking via webcam. “You’re being gatekept from the things you really enjoy because of your fear of letting yourself or letting other people down, and that is honestly probably quite disappointing considering that’s really truly where you’d find the most enjoyment but you can’t get there.” He’s streaming live on Twitch, looking at an Overwatch 2Meet via Discord chat with Winston High-Ranked player that has had difficulty playing in ranked mode. It may sound like therapy, but it is a part of Spilo’s Overwatch Coaching process

At 28 years old, Jacob “Spilo” Clifton has made a career of teaching, well before OverwatchEver entered the scene. He was a high-school gymnast, then he became a teacher at an all-ages MMA gym and he has tutored in advanced mathematics. No surprise, his professional career has been with OverwatchIt took him all of the way there Overwatch League, and he’s now a sought-after expert to evaluate players at all levels.

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Spilo’s life and career with the game have given him a specific perspective on improvement. Many were attracted to the game. OverwatchSpilo was not a first-person shooter and instead spent most of his time in world PVP. Lord of the RingsOnline, as “the world’s best Warg.” After being pressured to try the popular Blizzard game in 2017 by his brother-in-law, Spilo immediately got hooked. He described the game as both tactically complex and fast-paced. Overwatch offered the “perfect combination” of those elements while still not requiring proficiency at first-person shooter mechanics.

Spilo’s journey into competitive Overwatch started small. “I was, you know, the typical Bronze player,” he said. “I actually had a lot of competitive anxiety. I didn’t like playing ranked. I just liked playing Quick Play.” Spilo’s own journey of learning to get better at Overwatch, combined with his love of teaching, first led him back to making YouTube videos, similar to when he’d post montages from his Lord of the Rings Online days. He started out making lighter-hearted videos, but he kept his focus on what helped him as he rose up the ranks.

Create Overwatch content on YouTube is an “oversaturated market,” as Spilo put it to Polygon; he decided to start coaching instead, as well as start a community to share knowledge. What happened next was the “evolution” of his growing love for the game. “Basically, over time, as I got better at coaching, as I got better at the game, I started doing more and more of the coaching sessions, and I ended up doing all of them [for my community]. That’s essentially where the transition started,” he explained. At that time, he told himself: “I like doing this, maybe I’d be like an educational streamer. Perhaps this could be something I do for the long-term. I’d started to watch [season 1 of] Overwatch League, so at the same time, maybe I could do that at some point.”

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images – Blizzard Entertainment

Spilo was able to build an audience on Twitch and also work in professional coaching. Overwatch As well as the Contenders Overwatch League. He credits his “ability to communicate” as what carried him through learning how to coach at that level. According to Spilo, some of the “most rewarding times as a team coach” came from working with shy players over a few months and seeing their personal development. An experience as a coach he shared with us. Overwatch A League player who then came back to Spilo during the postseason. The player told Spilo that he had a lot to think about and that he wouldn’t have been able to finish the season without Spilo’s help and his support, and that it really changed him as a person. “That made my week,” said Spilo. “That was just everything to me, knowing that – you feel like you have a permanent impact, you know?”

On top of esports demanding long hours and location changes, Spilo’s interest in having a personal impact on players led him away from formal esports coaching and back to streaming and engaging one-on-one with players seeking feedback. “Sometimes I just wanted to talk with people,” he said. “You know, sometimes the best parts of my coaching are when I just get to have frank and honest, relaxed conversations, or when I feel like I have a significant impact on somebody personally, or even just the stupid stuff when I’m chatting with folks in Twitch chat about patch notes.”

OverwatchAnd now! Overwatch 2, can be a deceptive game; while it’s visually cartoony, there’s a tactical complexity underneath the surface that makes it feel closer to chess than Duty call. It is easy to miss or misunderstand the complexity of this game, which offers very little information about its mechanics. For many people, getting “good” at Overwatch 2 may sound like an unnecessary time sink that reduces the game’s fun factor. But for others, getting “good” is the main draw – even though it’s made more difficult by the game’s stressful competitive environment and its often-toxic community.

Spilo is acutely aware of the toxic effects that competitive gaming can have on male-dominated spaces. “It’s like the toxic masculinity where it’s – if you’re not a winner, you’re a failure,” he explained. “So then you’re either doing one of two things: you’re winning at all costs, which becomes toxic in and of itself, or you’re being disingenuous and pretending that everything that you do is winning, when there’s just nothing wrong with losing sometimes.”

Returned in 2019 Overwatch launched a robust “replay” feature that gave players the ability to watch an updated list of their 10 previously played matches, as well as share them with others via a unique code. A staple of coaching in competitive gaming is the “VOD review,” where post-match footage is critiqued for areas of improvement. Spilo explained to Polygon how replay made VOD review easier by making it possible for everyone to view what was happening in the game. “But I think [a positive of the replay feature]It was not well-known, but the ability to travel is a key attribute. [to a player], ‘Hey, do you know what’s happening behind you?’” Spilo described how he can show someone a play in motion, from a bird’s eye view. “All of a sudden, everything opens up and it clicks. And they go, ‘Oh, I didn’t even know.’ It just gives the opportunity to like, zoom out […] it just gives context, better context.”

These VOD reviews are now offered as an optional service by Spilo. A few of the VOD reviews can be viewed live via his Twitch channel. In order to get a coaching session, a prospective client fills out a long questionnaire that Spilo uses to get an idea about a person’s goals and lifestyle, which then they talk about, often for a significant chunk of the session. Spilo is able to openly talk with many people, much like Winston the anxious player. Even though Spilo has a lot of experience teaching and coaching, it still surprises him. “Most of the time, people are really frankly honest with me. I don’t know if it’s just because the people that end up getting the coaching sessions are more comfortable with that. That’s something I always definitely try and pursue, is that level of blunt honesty.”

Spilo encourages a level of emotional vulnerability that might feel unusual for a critique if it weren’t also driven by care; his manner feels less like someone picking apart a Diamond-ranked Overwatch It’s more like the work of a diagnostician looking for more severe underlying problems. He has a deep understanding of the game’s tactical mechanics, but moreover, he just wants to help people with what is holding them back from success.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

“There’s like three levels, I guess, of things that we’re attacking. The gameplay is the most important. That’s the least important. Your second consideration is your attitude to the game. [attitude]Your training practices, and other things such as that. These are far more powerful and important. This is the third. The majority It is important to be who you truly are. I think that one’s a lot harder to dig out.” He continues: “ But it’s something like, can we make you more patient? What can we do to improve our perceptions of improvement? Can we change how you view confidence?”

Spilo believes that being able bring out the best of someone is the key to his success.

“I try to do whatever I can in that one-hour call, try to bring whatever value I can to developing players,” Spilo said. “Because some players are great, and they’re well-developed, and they just need a couple tips and how to position. Many players struggle with their humanity as humans. They also need support. So, I suppose that is what my hour-long job is. […] to try and find out what’s going to have the most impact on them. Because like I said, even if they walk away from the session, and they don’t rank up at all, but I’ve made them think about who they are as a person, I just find that so much more satisfying than anything else, to be honest with you.”