Evil Geniuses Coach Bevils and Rise Nation’s SlasheR Disagree on How Pros Should Approach Practicing Search and Destroy
Embry ‘Bevils’ Bevil and Austin ‘SlasheR’ Liddicoat have discussed the lack of the Search and Destroy practice that professional Call of Duty teams put in, disagreeing on its importance.
Known as a Search and Destroy star, Bevils sat out the entirety of the Black Ops 3 and Infinite Warfare seasons before deciding to take another shot at the professional scene with the release of Call of Duty: WWII.
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Following a handful of top 12 finishes Bevils surprisingly decided to retire from playing right in the middle of Season 1 of the CWL Pro League before accepting a spot as the coach of Evil Geniuses in April.
The new lineup found immediate success with a second place finish at CWL Seattle and it looks like they have decided to keep Bevils on heading into Season 2 of the CWL Pro League.
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With his Search and Destroy roots, it is only natural that Bevils has some strong opinions about the game mode and in the early hours of May 3rd he took to Twitter to make it clear that he finds it surprising that so few professional teams practice it.
Rise Nation’s SlasheR responded explaining that he has rarely found Search and Destroy scrims to be productive, but Bevils was quick to fire back by saying that this is because of the mindset that the players have with nobody taking it seriously.
I disagree. Scrimming snd has only been productive a couple of times out of the 20-30 I’ve tried
— Austin Liddicoat (@SlasheR_AL) May 3, 2018
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With every best of five series featuring two maps of Search and Destroy, it seems counter-intuitive for players not to want to practice the mode but SlasheR gave two reasons why he doesn’t like to practice against his competition.
He states that he prefers to play against ameteur teams because they “take it seriously” and then goes on to say that he is less worried about showing them his strategies and that he sees “no value in scrimming SnD against contenders to win an event”.
I’ve only liked scrimming snd against top am teams. 1. They take it seriously and 2. I’m realistically not too worried about showing them my actual strategies. I find no value in scrimming snd against contenders to win an event
— Austin Liddicoat (@SlasheR_AL) May 3, 2018
Once again Bevils responded saying that Rise Nation is one of the best teams in Search and Destroy and has some of the best players in that mode so he understands why they might not want to scrim against their competition and give away too many tactics.
However, he finishes by saying that he finds it “unacceptable” that so many professional teams are so “bad” at SnD and that the lack practice simply leads to them winging it in official matches and hoping for the best.
Due to a lack of practice in the mode.
Pro snd for most teams is purely winged with everyone using the same rehashed basic strats and seeing who will play better and clutch up.
— bevils (@bevils1sg) May 3, 2018
SlasheR’s opinion about not wanting to show tactics to other teams is one that has been held by many of the top players for a number of years in the Call of Duty scene.
Some would argue that the fact that top CS:GO teams scrim against one another an a daily basis and then play each other in competitions is evidence that this is a non-issue.
However, others would point out that CS:GO’s depth of tactics and strategies with varies grenades and setups make it much harder to predict what someone will do.
It does seem that Bevils has a point, though. To completely avoid practicing a crucial aspect of the game just so that nobody else can practice it and potentially learn something feels a bit like everyone deciding to shoot themselves in the foot.
