Clan Spotlight: TYR

[TYR] Berserk No Clan Website

Tankers!

This week we take a look at TYR, a Clan that's made some of the top dogs turn their heads. TYR made themselves known by setting big goals and working hard to keep their word. While they have had some great successes on the Clan Wars map, they are also working hard to create a competitive tournament team.

We interviewed these players to learn more about the history of TYR:

RyanGetzlaf - Commander and main Field Commander
DrewDoughty - Deputy Commander, focuses on the management side. Recruiting
StevenStamkos - Listed as a diplomat but I don’t really do anything but make people laugh by trying to speak French

Why did you choose the name TYR?

StevenStamkos - It is the Norse god of War, I believe. I started in March of last year and these guys needed some more tier Xs. I was friends with Ryan through another group of people, so I’m not too familiar with the deeper history.

RyanGetzlaf - When the Clan first started, we had two guys that knew Norse History and they created the Clan. They didn’t want some generic number but something unique.

How did TYR get started?

DrewDoughty - The core of players that founded TYR came from [BD]. During fall 2012, BD was divided into two different ideologies, some wanted to push the Clan into a more competitive ways, and some wanted to have the benefits from being competitive, with only the structure and the requirement of a social Clan. It came to a point where the only solution was to leave and to start a new Clan.

RyanGetzlaf - Afterward, we have been recruiting to try and get all the best French people, so we can be as competitive as we want to.

What is your main goal for TYR?

RyanGetzlaf - To be competitive in Clan Wars, but we have started doing tournaments and been doing pretty well. It is a different style of play, but we love both but our main goal is to be a competitive Clan Wars Clan.

StevenStamkos - We have come a long way in Clan Wars and become a lot more competitive since I have joined last March. I know one of their goals is to be the best French-speaking Canadian Clans.

RyanGetzlaf - We didn’t want to be known by our language, but by our skills.

How has your Clan changed over time to be more competitive?

StevenStamkos - When I first joined, we had one great team, and we had a tough time fielding a second and third team if we needed it. Now we have a good shot at competing with any Clan on the map.

How did you develop the second and third teams, internally or through recruitment?

StevenStamkos - It is a little bit of both. We have recruited a bunch of good players recently, but prior to that we started a smaller social Clan and our second Clan, Dreki, is the one we train our Clan Wars players in. A few of those guys have moved up from Dreki to refill the ranks of TYR. Our lowest Clan, Einherjer, has helped refilled the ranks of Dreki. Einherjer is basically a social Clan and they don’t really do Clan Wars.

DrewDoughty - Being a French-speaking Clan mean we only have access to a small player base. Having few potential recruits makes finding good players who want to participate actively in a competitive environment hard. Prior to TYR there was not really any competitive French-speaking Clan, and that’s why we can find many Frenchmen in the established English-speaking Clans. It is almost easier, but more time-consuming, to find new players and teach them how the game work and prepare them to play in a team. It is the main reason we created two second Clans.

StevenStamkos - It definitely seems to work out better to train players that are just getting the hang of what they are doing and just getting into tier Xs. It is a lot harder to recruit really good talent from other Clans because they are already pretty set in their ways. Training people up is a better way to go it seems, and for these guys, there are fewer French-speaking people out there to recruit.

What do you find is the biggest deficiency of new players, and how do you overcome it?

StevenStamkos - We do a fair amount of training between the Clans. Ryan, Drew and Martin do a good job of taking the players from all three Clans and try to spread them out amongst the teams. We fight against each other in training and I feel like that helps a ton because it gives the lesser guys a chance to understand what it takes to play with the big boys. It also teaches them to keep their mouth shut and listen. The biggest thing that people don’t understand until they start playing Clan Wars is focus fire.

DrewDoughty - When you are on a team, you can trust the tank on your side. It’s not like a pub match where you need to survive by yourself to do your job. You can trust your partner to take the shot and push together. The guys who are just starting in Clan Wars have a tendency to play like they are in a pub. It is something we try to work on and give them the mentality to work more as a team than as an individual player.

Describe the environment in your community.

RyanGetzlaf - We are trying to be a Clan that takes Clan Wars seriously but has fun. At the moment, the Quebec Clans told the people in French that we are taking it too seriously but we are also having fun. So the main thing to do is to have fun first and have a community where there are no problems.

StevenStamkos - Everyone just seems to get along. Everybody has a bad night and something doesn’t go right, but we always talk after the battle and try to work things through. Communication is the biggest issue that some Clans have, and if you don’t talk about things you are going to have a bad vibe going on. We always have a fun, good vibe going on and we are always cracking jokes. Or at least everyone is laughing at me.

How does your Clan conduct Diplomacy?

RyanGetzlaf - I’m trying to be friends with everybody. I keep my word if I say I’m going to do something. The people who don’t do what they tell me should be on the enemy list. My goal is to keep my word. We kept our word with some big Clans and I think that is why we are in a good place to do diplomacy with the big Clans, like G and OTTER. If you start backstabbing a big Clan, that big Clan has friends. It can be rough doing diplo when no one wants to do diplo with you.

How should a new Clan approach a more experienced Clan on the map for diplomacy?

RyanGetzlaf - The first thing is to show what you can do. You got to beat the best. When we first started TYR, nobody knew us and so we attacked the people that were holding the landing for a big time Clan. We picked SIMP that was holding the South Aegean for 82 days. It took us 5 nights total and we finally got them. We broke their landing that they had held for like 3 months. So the first part for us comes from there. After we were going against NUKE, who was holding a landing for 27 days, people started talking about us. “How did you guys lose the landing?!?!?!” “We lost to TYR” and that’s how you make your name. After you land on a big Clan, they are going to say you are good enough to ally with so they aren’t afraid of having new Clans coming off the landing.

StevenStamkos - That is where our tournament team got their name, The Landing Zone Slayers. Some of the other Clans came up with that one and it kind of stuck. We helped out OTTER, Relic and G with the war with SIMP and we got a lot of respect from the big Clans because we got hammered a few nights in a row. There was a good thread on the forums that I think Barroom Mitt_Rommel started it, that said “I heard you liked chips” because we took 60 chips from Havok and SIMP in one night and only lost one of the battles.

Can you go into more detail on how TYR gained notoriety with some of the big Clans on the map?

DrewDoughty - It is something that happened when the Clan was one month old or a bit more. We were trying to fight some decent Clan on the map. We choose to attack SIMP on South Aegean because they were holding it for so long. This landing was a key province in the Donut War when the Legion wanted to encircle the Black Sea and BD was just kicked off the map. At this time South Aegean was taken by SIMP and some of our officers really wanted to break it to show that we are able to. That was the first time that big Clans had really heard of us.

RyanGetzlaf - We only tried three different strats in five matches -- because I always thought that we could have played better and won, but it was not the player that was the problem, it was the strats. Our first strategy for Mines was to go to the hill. The second was the beach and the last one was a surprise. The first two games we tried by the hill and then I tried around the back the next but SIMP has a really good defense against people who run to the hill with mediums. They are just getting there faster. Then when the mediums get there, they are getting slammed by TDs. [...] SIMP is a good Clan and knows how to react. They had been holding the landing for 82 days. Our best player from BD just grabbed his E 100 and said “Can we go there with all E-100s?” I said no but finally it was a yes. So we took twelve E 100s with a Maus and we sent two Batchats to the beach. We sent 5 to the beach, 5 to the city and 5 to the middle and that is how we beat SIMP on South Aegean. [...] The fact that we got there, beat them and tried some strats that nobody does, got people talking about us.

How does your Clan get ready for a Clan Wars battle?

DrewDoughty - We try to call a meeting before the game pops in our Garage and we get everyone in the same channel. We choose the players according to tanks we need and send them to another channel. We will always choose a player because he knows how to play a specific tank we want to play. We won’t throw anyone in any tank just because they have it.

RyanGetzlaf - For example, I have an E5, but I don’t want to play it in Clan Wars because I’m not comfortable playing in it. So if the callers are asking for an E5, I will not say I have it but it’s a lot harder with tank locking.

DrewDoughty - In general, we know our players enough to choose them from the list and say “You play the batchat” or “I want you in your E 100.” After we have recruited the team we want, we switch over to MapTactic. I really want to thank T-D, the previous spotlight, because one of their members created it. It’s is much better than ATC, which is what we used before. We explain the strat with MapTactic and in general the last five minutes we wait and try to keep it relax before the battle starts.

What advice would you give to yourself if you could go back to when you started the Clan?

RyanGetzlaf - When I look at Relic and G, lozarus and Yankee never gave the Commander up to anybody else and that is what I have doing. My biggest mistake is when I gave the Commander to a good friend, I thought he would better, maybe because I was a little burned out due to all the diplo and calling during the Campaign. He running it as the Clan he would like to have, not the Clan picture that we wanted. I should have kept it because it almost killed the Clan the few times that I did it. If you still play the game, keep your role.

What do you think makes a good battle caller and how do get them calling experience?

RyanGetzlaf - I would expect good skills in the player, because if you want to call, you must be good at Tanks. To be a good player you have to look at the minimap, and to be a good caller you have to pay attention to the map while focusing on the tanks you have in front of you. So it’s doing two things at once and that can be rough. When I’m training a caller, I will ask him to do a strat and show it to me. I will figure out where the strategy is bad and I’ll ask them, “If the enemy does this, how will you react?” If he doesn’t know, I’ll show him how to react to the strat. I also play with them and after the battle I take to another channel and explain what to do better or to be clearer about in their call. Be calm and be confident to be a good caller. Even if you are not sure if it is a good call, you have to be clear and be like you think it is good call because if you hesitate in your calling, the people will not follow. So look at the map, call reactive and be good at tanks.

DrewDoughty - In the end, it is really a matter of trust between the player and the caller. It is something that a new caller doesn’t always have because players don’t feel safe playing under someone who doesn’t always know what he is doing. It is a good idea to bring your caller into Tank Companies and force them to react to different strats while building that trust.

What do you consider your Clans greatest achievement and what are your future goals?

RyanGetzlaf - The best achievement we have is doing well in the Campaign and the tanks we earned. That is what makes us different from other Quebec Clans. I use the tank to recruit French people by asking if they have a Campaign tank. “No? I got one. Do you want to join us?” (laugh) During the first Campaign, we were going for the M60, and we had a deal with Villain. They told us we could have Detroit, and on the last day they said we fight for it. If we lost any of the battles, we didn’t have our M60. If we won, we had it. It was really intense. For me, I was calling the battle and I was shaking. We did win and that is our biggest achievement. So the future goal is get the next Campaign tank. I’m also always asking our allies to start a war, but the next big achievement is to fight the biggest Clans and win.

Anything else you would like to add?

RyanGetzlaf - Big love to OTTER. We love OTTER. Thank you for the Clan Spotlight.