Flatline interview
This team review and interview was made for the first 9L website, back in 2006. At that time, Flatline was still a fairly unknown team, although they were quickly gaining recognition as they worked their way to the upper echelon of European NS. Since then they’ve been one of the most stable and successful NS teams of all time and have built up an impressive record of tournament achievements. In season 9, they finally won their first ENSL title and joined an exclusive group of champions.
Written by Tomasz T. “SlayerX” Michalski.
In the past few months, the European NS scene has not witnessed many serious attempts at creating top level clans. However, Flatline has bucked this trend in spectacular fashion by creating a team composed of players by many thought to be low skilled.
They are an example of how a few dedicated players, who have never been in high skilled teams, can cause the very best teams major problems. Led by Morvie, they have exceeded everyone’s expectations. Their skill level and teamwork has increased steadily, leading to greater respect among the European community. In their first season (ENSL S2) they were undefeated in Division 2 and progressed to Division 1 in style. During ENSL S3 they were also flawless, winning the division without too many problems. However, last season they were dropped in at the deep end after being promoted to the Premiership. ENSL S4 was the first time they were put under real pressure by top notch European teams. However they showed their prowess once again, finishing 3rd.
Can they possibly hope to continue this run of form next season?
Roster
Flatline seem to have a somewhat stable lineup, consisting solely of German players, who have developed a wonderful in-game rapport. This is unsurprising due to the length of time the clan has been active, and is the key to their success. They recently acquired Saeppel from the inactive s&m, who is no amateur and will be an excellent addition.
Other than the basic roster info, I would like to comment on their tactics and style of play in this section. The Germans rely on Morvie, their main fade, and phil their most useful alien player in his role as Lerk. Flatline’s competent marine rounds and widespread skulking skills are their main weapons, which have helped them go far.
Lineup: Cosmic, fear, HiVeFiSh, Laugh, Morvie, phil, saeppel, skipjack, wodKa and word
Achievements
ENSL S2 placed 1st in Division 2
ENSL S3 placed 1st in Division 1
ENSL S4 placed 3rd in Premiership
Interview
Hello Morvie. Thanks for taking your time to answer some questions for us. First off, could you introduce yourself? Just who you are and what you do?
Hi, I am Morvie. Many may know me under the alias M. I’ve played NS since 2.0 was released. I graduated some weeks ago and am now enjoying my summer holidays until I have to go to the army in October. Besides playing NS I was also playing handball competitive.
As we all know, you are the leader of Flatline. How did it all start? How did you bring these guys together and start playing?
As 2.0 was released public gaming became more and more boring, phil and I started to think of getting into competitive gaming. First we started to found a new clan with a bunch of newbies called big.red. That didn’t work out that well and we folded soon. In the meantime another clan was founded, reloaded-gaming (later Flatline players word and laugh), and after mercing a couple of weeks phil and I joined them. After some practice we got an active lineup and decided to play in the ENSL. The fact that Reloaded-gaming was a multigaming clan bothered us. We could not be as independent as we wanted to be. So we founded a new NS only clan called Flatline.ns.
How is your team’s form before ENSL S5?
After Season 3 we fought with inactivity because word went inactive, skipjack, syl and alzaroc were only playing WoW (yes I hate it as much as you do). Though we were playing in the first division, we had to get a pretty good roster ASAP, so we recruited some talented public players called cosi, fear and wodKa and started to play PCWs. Although I had second thoughts this became the most successful lineup until now. After we finished Season 4 acceptable word and skipjack came back to the team. At the moment we are ultra active and decided to play next CAL season to give our team the matches they need.
Thanks again for your time, any shout outs for the European scene?
We play against many Americans these days so we have noticed that those guys are gentler then European players. It’s a great pity to see that players in this "big" community flame each other. I am not a such good player as others but I think we are all sitting in one boat and we want to play competitive NS so pls guys be respectful to other players.