Michael 'PolarBearMike' Heiss is a Professional SMITE player for eUnited. He began his SMITE career in 2015 with Hi Five and has played for other big teams such as Team EnVyUs and Team Allegiance. Since he's been with eUnited, he's won major events including the 2018 Smite World Championship.

You’ve been with eUnited since May 2017. What has it been like so far in the roughly year and a half that you’ve been on the team?

PBM: In terms of success, I'd say that my time on the team has been great. We've been very fortunate to win a lot since I've joined the team. What we've worked to create here is an environment where anything but 1st is unacceptable and whenever that is your culture there will be a lot of hard work demanded of you by your teammates, and of course the high expectations that accompany it. So when I look back, I tend to remember those stressful moments when we aren't always the best and the feeling of trying to get out of those situations, and there's been a lot of strenuous grinding as a result.

What was the initial appeal of SMITE to you and were you playing anything near the same level before SMITE?

PBM: I thought SMITE was cool because of the 3rd person element. I never really enjoyed top down games and I've played WoW nearly my entire life so that was definitely a big thing for me. I also just thought the characters and the mechanics of the game were fun and it was something that I could just burn time into as a hobby for fun whenever I wasn't doing school work. I was pretty good at other games, specifically I remember doing progression raids in WoW when I was like 11 years old and lying about my age so the guilds wouldn't kick me, and I remember farming stats in Halo and thinking I was really sick. In reality though, definitely nowhere close to the level I am at with SMITE unfortunately for my ego, haha.

For any gamer, being a part of such a great organization would be a dream come true, let alone being the Team Captain. What does it mean to you to hold such a title?

PBM: Being a Captain is weird because it's not like I get the final say in the team or my opinion is more valuable than another teammate's or whatever else the case may be. For me I view it more as a responsibility to set the tone in terms of the expectations and work environment of the team. It's a type of thing where I don't verbally say, "Hey listen to me and do as I say!" and on the other side I don't think my teammates view me as the sole leader. It's more just about trying to lead by example and be a good teammate. I try to make sure that I'm always putting in thought and effort outside scrims, making sure I watch VODs on my own and share ideas in our group DMs and I think that those practices are contagious so I make a concentrated effort to be as consistent with those things as possible. Within the organization, I just try to make sure we're representing eUnited well and that we are working as hard as we can to win another Championship under their banner.

You’ve had numerous 1st and 2nd Place finishes in big events and tournaments, including the 2018 SMITE World Championship. What would you personally say is the even you’ve been in so far that has meant the most to you?

PBM: Obvious answer here is Worlds, since that is the only tournament in my eyes that I really care about our performance in and that is the culmination of all the hard work throughout an entire season. Apart from that I was pretty proud of Season 4 Regionals since it was our first LAN together as a team and for everyone but myself and Benji it was their first chance to make Worlds. So when everyone played super composed and confident and we basically 4-0'd Trifecta (they reset a game after like 10m due to technical issues), that was a really satisfying feeling for me.

At the time of this interview, you and eUnited stand 6-0 in the Fall Split – Obviously you guys must be feeling pretty good, but is there anything you feel you still need improvement on?

PBM: I think there's a load of things we have to improve on. I feel that teamwork wise we still have a lot of room to work with Baskin and fine tuning our ideas of how we want to play the game and approach more macro types of things within games. Things like drafting and meta are always an ongoing progression of course as well and we have to continue figuring that type of stuff out. Other than that, I just think overall just trying to play as cleanly as possible and being the most dominant version of ourselves needs to be the focus and there's a lot of small details we need to get figured out for that to be the case, and I really don't think we're close to our potential about 7 weeks out from Worlds.

Between now and this time next year, what are your personal goals for yourself and the team? What do you guys primarily have your eyes set on?

PBM: Win Worlds again - that's it. This split will likely be our third 1st place finish in NA out of the last four splits and while stuff like that is cool, I really won't look back on it and be happy at all if we bomb at Worlds. World Championships are the reason I continue to play the game professionally.

Baskin was recently traded over to eUnited. What has it been like with him on the team and what was the initial chemistry like? It seems like you guys have clicked pretty well!

PBM: The transition has pretty much gone as expected honestly. We knew how Baskin was as a player and we've all known him personally for a while. We wouldn't have moved on from Ven and decided to go through with taking Baskin from SSG if that wasn't the case. Gameplay wise Baskin is just highly skilled individually; he is one of the best mechanical players in the world and I think that gives him a lot of confidence in his play and that attitude is infectious. I didn't expect him to get along with us as well as he has since we can be a pretty volatile team when we think people are dropping the ball or whatever the case may be, but Baskin has transitioned into our environment well and has definitely raised the bar for what we expect from this team.

As a World Champion Support player, what tips do you have for fans out there hoping to push their Support play to the next level? What separates a ‘good’ player from a ‘great’ player?

PBM: As always the easiest way to improve is just repetition, being conscious of your mistakes, and just focusing on yourself. I think a lot of people in ranked hurt their own improvement when they have the attitude that they can't get to a higher rank because they play support and the role sucks - that just isn't true. I played ranked as a support from plat up to masters within a year and I never changed roles and it just takes a good attitude. Once people get that down I think the best thing anyone can do is watch people stream, ask them questions, ask them to explain their thought process, watch how they position and just try to understand why they play the way they do. If you can understand the game at a higher level then a lot of the game becomes trivial and things like "what do I build after boots?" or "what is the best Guardian?" doesn't really matter as much, even though those are the things people like to focus on.

How would you describe yourself during important matches? Are you pretty calm and collected or are you the exact opposite? Somewhere in between?

PBM: Depends on a lot of things honestly, haha. I just try to be decisive. Some games I feel like I can solo win teamfights because of picks or because of being ahead or whatever and I'll be a lot more vocal in comms and more demanding of really wanting to play through me. Other games I just try to facilitate the leads of my carries and try to listen to what they want to do. There are some things that are consistent, like I'll always communicate timers or how I want to farm or when I want to group or how I want to start fights, who I want to go on, that type of stuff and that's always evolving throughout games and changes game to game. I think it's all a balancing act; most games Scream and myself will be most of the calls and direct the early to mid games with Benji becoming a large part of the late game, but we all have a say and we just try to be on the same page of what we want to play through and who we think has the biggest advantages.

Who has been your all-time favorite teammate to play with? And what teams do you really enjoy playing against?

PBM: The favorite teammate question always trips me up because I feel like it's just so hard to answer. For a long time, it was Lassiz because he helped give me confidence and he was just a great dude to be around so he is definitely up there. Khaos as well when I played with him in challenger cup, then on a split with this team, was really fun because he challenged your thought process and was really methodical with how he approached the game and I learned a lot from him. Someone that I've looked back at and started to appreciate more recently is Zapman. At the time we teamed together we were totally different people and he used to piss me off because I thought he'd just rage randomly but looking back Zap actually taught me a lot of things that I still use today. He was always confident no matter what; he was never afraid to speak his mind and tell me when he thought I was playing like crap, and more importantly he basically taught me to not play like a wimp and to not second guess myself. I definitely hated it at the time but, reflecting on it, I'd say those 3 players were the ones who helped me grow the most.

Teams I enjoy playing against: RivaL is my only real answer here because we've played them at the last three LANs and we're overall 5-6 against them so I'd say they are our only true rivalry (no pun, stop it) honestly. They're just a team of players that are not only highly individually skilled but also have great teamwork and are always a great test for how you play the game strategically and challenging your decision making. I always learn from our sets against them, even the 3-1 vs them at Worlds I probably learned more from that set than any other set I've won the rest of my career.

How do you feel about the current state of SMITE? Is there anything you would change if you could?

PBM: Competition-wise, I think the game is in a good spot. I'm happy with Season 5 and the way the game plays it all feels good to me. I've been really happy with playing Bo3s online this year, and I also think that communication between the pros and admins/balance team has never been better. I wish we had more opportunities to play in Europe because I think it'd be cool and there's a large portion of the fanbase that kind of gets isolated from Worlds over there, and I wish that the competitive aspect of the game and ranked and just the pro league in general was promoted more because I think there's a huge portion of the player base that just sits in arena and misses out on the real game. There's definitely a lot of other things about the game I would have loved to be able to change but in terms of just stuff that pertains to me I think that's it.

For the last question, something easy! If you had to be locked in a room with one of your teammates for 24 hours, who are you NOT wanting to be in there with you?

PBM: Scream, everyone else is fine. That kid would drive me insane he is just too much of a gamer.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions for us! Is there anyone that you’d like to give a shoutout to?

PBM: Shoutouts to EUN of course they've been a great partner to work with and have supported us so much. Of course to my team as well. Looking back on things like this make me very grateful and is a humbling thing to look back on. Lastly thanks to fans who support us and push us to be better we appreciate it!

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