Season 8 of Apex Legends has been underway for quite some time now, and it's quite a significant moment for the title. At the time of this article releasing, the surprise battle royale has finally seen steady growth in viewership on Twitch, and we've reached a little over two year anniversary. Today, we got the opportunity to speak to Sebastian "BallonG" Eketrapp of Third Impact (ranked second overall in ALGS points in EU) about Caustic going down, reflecting on the two year anniversary of Apex Legends and the future of the scene.

How did you get into the competitive scene? Could you tell us how you ended up becoming a part of Third Impact?

BallonG: Since I played other games professionally before Apex released, my only goal with Apex was to play professionally, so from the get go all I was focused on was scrimming and trying to make a name for myself/my team in the comp scene. Luckily I knew lots of people since I played H1Z1 before and lots of H1 players ended up in the Apex comp scene and that was also how my first team started out with Fjeldern & SiigN. We played every day of the open EU pro league which was basically scrims with tracked results and had very good results there.

As for Third Impact, we needed an org to pay for travel expenses among other things for the Krakow LAN so we signed a short term deal with TI. We really liked how they treated us even though it was for a very short period. So, when we were looking for a long term home at the start of 2020 when the whole ALGS circuit got announced we reached out to sp0rk again and ended up re-signing with TI.

What do you think about the current meta in comp scene in regard to legend usage and team composition?

BallonG: I like that there's variation in the comps being ran, but I don't really like the actual legends/comps being ran that much right now. I think abilities have way too much power overall and it diminishes teamplay and individual skill in a lot of scenarios. I'd love to see some nerfs to many strong abilities like Gibby's Gunshield, EMP, Bloodhound Scan, EMP, and all of Caustic's kit. The meta right now is definitely way less punishing than before with every team having a Gibraltar which can nullify a mistake every 30 seconds and I don't like that aspect. I do like how many plays and offensive pushes you can do with Gibby also, so it's hard to balance that aspect I suppose. In general, I'd like to see way less abilities that deal damage or have a negative effect on enemies (slows, blurs etc).

Caustic is getting his own limited time event, Chaos Theory, which must of been foreshadowing since the patch notes brought changes to Caustic’s kit (flat 5hp tick and an increased cool down to his ultimate) and a bevy of other positive changes. What were your thoughts on this change and the rest of the other updates (removing low profile from Pathfinder spectator improvements, server stabilization for tournament mode, etc.)?

BallonG: Overall I think they did a very good job with the balance changes on this patch, especially since Gibraltar bleedthrough made it in also. I think the Caustic changes are very welcome and hopefully it makes him a bit less punishing to fight, Time will tell if it's enough to push him out of the meta completely. I doubt we will see that much Pathfinder play though honestly, I've seen a few teams try him out but I don't think he offers enough to warrant playing him. I really hope they get a handle on the server side of things. It's a disgrace that we're still competing on trash servers multiple rounds of each tournament.

Apex Legends has been pretty successful as of recent, with it being the sixth largest earnings game on console and the steady rise of viewership on Twitch. Given that it seems like it’s starting to find its track, what do you think should be done in order to maintain its steady rise or to raise the bar even higher?

BallonG: I'd love to see a big rework of the ranked system because the current system is honestly somewhat of a joke and I'm sure you could ask any pro player and I bet they'd say the same. I think that'd be a really important change to grow the competitive scene even more because if the ranked system represents pro play better you'd have it as a stepping stone for players what want to find their way into comp apex. I'd also love for them to let community figures cast the qualifiers of ALGS tournaments. There's no broadcast whatsoever except from player streams for any of the qualifiers, so giving people that want to do it permission to observe and cast those games would be nice.

Integrity in some of the smaller tournaments such as the Esports Arena has been in question for some time now with some teams not taking it seriously and just griefing in general. How can this be fixed so that the tournaments boost the scene?

BallonG: It's a tough question because there is barely anything to play for in terms of prize money (500$ per week). I can't really blame anyone for not playing 100% serious all the time, even though it might be a bad look from the outside. I guess it's up to the tournament organizers to punish teams accordingly if they think it's an issue. I think that's the only way you will get something to change because signed teams have no incentive to play serious in such a tournament other than the practice we get.

At the time of this interview releasing, it’s been a little over two years since the launch of Apex Legends. You’ve managed to rack up an impressive resumé as a competitor having played since day one. Looking back at it, what are some of your fondest moments in the competitive scene? What are you looking forward too/hoping to accomplish by the time year 3 of Apex comes around?

BallonG: I think the Poland LAN was the best experience for me so far in my time competing in Apex, there's just no feeling that beats LAN and hopefully we can go back to that soon. I'm really looking forward to the ALGS championship, I think that's gonna be wild and I cant wait to see a lot of people that I haven't seen since Poland. I hope that we perform really well in the coming playoffs and especially the championship. I do think we will do well on LAN, me and Ziki have a lot of LAN experience which is always a good thing.

King's Canyon just doesn’t seem to work no matter what iteration we get, and due to that nature, it’s been removed from the ALGS rotation for the time being. It’s understood that the pros don’t like it, but on the viewer side, we’re watching pros play on the same map for hours at a time. How would you fix this scenario if you’re on the dev team?

BallonG: A second map is needed in comp soon I think, it is getting pretty stale in a sense. But it has to be well designed for competitive which I can't really say KC or Olympus is right now. If they sat down and looked at all the feedback us pros have given them about KC, I'm sure they could make it into a decent map for the next circuit, because I know at least the EU side has given plenty of feedback on KC. The main things that needs to be addressed in my opinion is the southwest part of the map and the loot imbalance between the PoIs on that map.

Your Reddit AMA was really good and insightful, and as a fan of the scene, I’m sure a lot of redditors appreciated interacting with a pro in a productive way. Can we expect to see you do more Reddit AMAs in the future?

BallonG: I'm not sure honestly, I really enjoyed it but I doubt I'll do another one anytime soon since that's probably a bit repetitive. Maybe a team AMA or something like that down the line if I can get my teammates onboard.

Anything you’d like to conclude this interview with?

BallonG: I'd just like to say thank you for having me and support us in playoffs where we're looking to bounce back from our recent poor form!

We want to take the time to say thank you to BallonG for participating and wish him and his team the best of luck moving forward!