A few months ago, before committees for each country were selected and announced, DPS star of Misfits TviQ declared on Twitter that Team Sweden's best chances of winning the World Cup would lie in a Sweden team that was a carbon copy of the Misfits squad. With a committee that included two members of Misfits, Zebbosai and TviQ, the likelihood of a misfit Sweden seemed to be extremely high.

However, when the roster was announced that was not the case. While Sweden featured Zebbosai, TviQ, Reinforce, and Manneten, the other two pieces of the team featured chipshajen of EnVyUs and CWoosH of the then high-performing team Movistar Riders. TviQ had an explanation for what changed between his Tweet and the moment the Swedish roster was finalized, "Basically what happened was our failure to make results happen is what really put brakes on the whole Misfits roster." Reinforce went into more detail:

After TaKeTV the committee members thought it was morally wrong to send the entirety of Misfits, given the poor results we've had. A lot of people raised their voices, asking for Sweden to send chipshajen, iddqd, cocco or Mendokusaii, but we didn't really care too much of those, except if they were voices raised from Swedish people themselves, it's "our" team after all, and not any other country's. And so the committee members discussed internally after TaKeTV, and reached the conclusion that we'd have the best chances bringing in a world class individually skilled flex support in chipshajen, and complement TviQ's hitscan abilities with CWoosH's proven Genji. It felt fairer to the rest of the Swedish fans and playerbase.

Up until that point, the Swedish committee was planning on using the Misfits roster so their World Cup team would gain a chance to scrim and practice whenever Misfits were doing so. TviQ says the last minute change gave him and his fellow committee members hardly any time to hold tryouts, which they would have ideally liked to do, so they were forced to make their final roster decisions based on the information they had at the time. Fortunately for the Swedish committee, it's not hard to find Swedish players playing at the highest level of competition to scout out.

An interesting move that the diversion away from the Misfits roster allowed for is Zebbosai's return to the shotcaller role of Lucio, the role he played when a Misfits that looked a little different won the Overwatch Open. While Zebbosai currently plays flex support for Misfits, the addition of chipshajen to the roster allows him to move back to Lucio. "Zebbosai is a really loud voice in the sense that he's really easy to hear and listen to and thus making it more structural and easier to follow and focus targets," TviQ said. "Of course it all doesn't fall on him, but it will help quite a lot so I believe."

TviQ believes that the previous World Cup experience Zebbosai, chipshajen, and himself have certainly helps, but that the rest of the roster isn't hurt by being first time World Cup competitors. "We have over the roster a fair amount of LAN experience to not fall under the pressure of being on stage," he said.

Sweden enters the World Cup with one goal: winning. "Winning is the only thing that matters. Never lose to Finland," TviQ finished with. With both Sweden and Finland playing in Sydney this weekend, that grudge match may happen sooner rather than later for the Nordic rivals.

Team Sweden enters Sidney with the following roster:

  • Kevyn "TviQ" Lindström (DPS)
  • Johan "CWoosH" Klingestedt (DPS)
  • Tim "Manneten" Byhlund (Flex)
  • Jonathan "Reinforce" Larsson (Tank)
  • Sebastian "Zebbosai" Olsson (Support)
  • Sebastian "chipshajen" Widlund (Support)