Regardless of the region, every successful PUBG Esports team features at least one reliable player whose willing and able to collect kill points and deliver widespread damage to neighboring opponents when it matters most. It’s a role that is typically filled by a designated “fragger” on the team but can occasionally require an “all hands on deck” approach in order to produce high-kill point totals. Another hallmark of any first-class squad is when players, ideally the complete team, maintain the mindset that the team’s overall success comes before any individual player’s achievement. Luckily for Any Trolls In Chat (ATC), you can find both of these characteristics in Marcel “Marcelek” Nietopiel. Alongside his teammates, “Marcelek” and the rest of ATC have asserted themselves as one of North America’s top contenders following their impressive run through the PCS2 Grand Finals.
“Personally, I wasn’t too concerned about top fragging the lobby throughout the finals. I was much more concerned with achieving a notable result for ATC….I’m personally not going to focus on frag and damage bonuses, I’m more of a team player and it makes me personally proud of being able to bring consistent performance to the team and encouraging my teammates to try to perform always at their best potential.”
Entering the PCS2 Group Stage, you would have been hardpressed to find many PUBG analysts, casters, or fans predicting Any Trolls In Chat to be a top-four team by the end of the event. The team closed the Group Stage with an invite to the Grand Final, but it still wasn’t quite the performance they hoped for.
“As a new and developing team, I feel that we need to focus on closing out games better. ‘KnorkiS’ continues to put us into great late-game scenarios but we need to work on keeping four players up at all times”
The team’s play through the PCS2 Group Stage showcased their potential – but it would be overshadowed by an absurd, though familiar, series of matches as Shoot To Kill bullied the lobby. Notwithstanding, Any Trolls In Chat left groups have identified some room for improvement and placed a fair amount of matches under the new roster’s belt.
Coming into the PCS2 Grand Final, Any Trolls In Chat was flying under the radar despite the fact that the team made two notable roster changes since their PCS1 Grand Final. Prior to the start of PCS2, ATC’s two returning players, “Marcelek” and “Agile”, welcomed a pair of former teammates to round out the roster. The team picked up Litian “Melon” Li – who had previous competitive experience with “Aghila”. Completing ATC’s roster was the former teammate of “Marcelek” and fellow Pole, Michał “KnorkiS” Bławat. Who played alongside “Marcelek” as one-half of Elgiganten Gaming in the PUBG Europe League Contenders (PELC). Synergy throughout a team may be one of the most vital factors to success and it seems Any Trolls In Chat have benefited considerably from reuniting with a couple of familiar faces.
“Another major factor in our improvement was bringing Michał “KnorkiS” Bławat – a past teammate of mine on Elgiganten Gaming from PELC. We had achieved success in the past together and I knew how strong a player he is, and the potential he could bring to this team.”
Since making the transition to play competitively in North America, “Marcelek” has drastically raised his game in only a short two-month stretch. The change, however, wouldn’t be absent a few hurdles and regional differences.
“A personal challenge for myself and ‘KnorkiS’ was having to play internationally because of the difficult time zone difference. We’ve overcome this challenge and have started to get used to a challenging time zone while playing from Poland.”
I went further and asked “Marcelek” what some of the biggest differences between the two regions are, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, he provided a small portion of the EU vs NA banter we all love.
“I’ve noticed that the EU scene is a lot larger than the NA scene. This results in EU typically having more top tier regional talent on tier one rosters. Another notable difference between the regions is map movement within the teams. EU teams typically like to play very fast from the beginning compared to NA.”
Regional quarrels and rivalries aside, “Marcelek” is currently one of North America’s most exciting and explosive players dropping onto the battlegrounds in PCS. Approaching the previous tournament with the team’s “reset mindset”, he’s trusting his team’s ability to keep pace with the region’s titans commonly referred to as North America’s “Big Three”.
As a standout player during the PCS2 Grand Final, “Marcelek” and Any Trolls in Chat enter the PCS3 Group Stage with a fair amount of expectations – likely something new to the team, but certainly welcomed. The team is set to face off against many of the very opponents they got the best of during PCS2, but there is also going to be a mix of new challenges entering the Group Stage. Any Trolls In Chat have demonstrated to everyone that they’re capable of not just keeping pace with this lobby, but taking a step in front of the most esteemed North American rosters over the course of a twenty-four match tournament.
Considering the team comfortably achieved their previous goal of placing within the Top-Eight of the PCS2 Grand Final, including a second-overall finish in both Kills and Damage for “Marcelek”, Any Trolls In Chat will need to set some ambitious goals for PCS3. Maybe that is a top-three placement? Maybe it’s claiming the Group Stage player bonuses? Or maybe the next goal for ATC is a PCS3 Championship?
“[Any Trolls In Chat will win the PCS3 Grand Final] if we transform from a meme into a team” – Marcel “Marcelek” Nietopiel