Psalm, jack of all esports, looks to dominate his third title

August 31, 2021

by Mitch Reames

Few esports professionals have had as much of a tumultuous career as Harrison “psalm” Chang.

Since 2018, he has competed in three different esports in three different genres. In Heroes of the Storm, he was part of one of the biggest league failures when Blizzard shut down HotS esports unexpectedly in 2018. Less than a year later he won one of esports largest prizes ever at the Fortnite World Cup. Now he plays VALORANT, signed by Dignitas before they dropped their roster in March.

How a top MOBA player ended up in Heroes of the Storm

The roots of modern esports can be traced back to 2011. That was the first year of the League of Legends World Championship, the first year of Dota 2’s The International and the year CS:GO was announced to the public.

At the time, psalm was an accomplished MOBA player but esports wasn’t what it is now.

“I grew up playing Dota 1,” psalm said on Nerd Street’s Esports Meta podcast. “When I stopped playing Dota 1 was about when League of Legends was starting out. There was a decision between all MOBA players at the time, do I play League of Legends or do I play Heroes of Newerth. I chose Heroes of Newerth. Everyone who played Newerth ended up going to Dota 2 so that was my path.”

No one could have predicted that in less than a decade, League of Legends Worlds would get over 20 million viewers and The International prize pool would climb above $30 million.

“I wish I committed to Dota 2 all the way instead of quitting,” psalm continued. “I quit because I was going to college. I really didn’t think esports was going to blow up in the way that it did. I quit Dota and the following year I saw my old teammates win TI.”

His former team, No Tidehunter, was picked up by Alliance in 2013. Four months later they won The International 3 in 2013. The prize pool for that tournament was just under $3 million total, which at the time was the largest esports prize to date. By 2014, TI would climb to about $10 million, and since then has only once been challenged as the biggest prize pool in all of esports.

After missing out on the momentum of LoL and Dota 2, psalm jumped on what looked like the next major esport in Heroes of the Storm. Released in 2015 and backed by Blizzard, HotS seemed like it was poised to join Dota 2 and LoL as the biggest MOBAs in the world. But just three years later, Blizzard shut down Heroes of the Storm esports leagues and the game has suffered as a result, especially compared to the continued growth of it’s bigger MOBA rivals.

But life works in funny ways. Although psalm may have missed TI3 and chosen the wrong MOBA to commit to, less than a year from when HotS esports shut down, he found himself on the only esports stage that could rival a TI prize pool.

From MOBA pro to Fortnite’s World Cup in less than a year

HotS esports shut down in December 2018. At the time, the Fortnite mania was still going strong. The game was the most watched on Twitch in 2018, the only year in the modern era where that title didn’t belong to League of Legends. Neither WarZone nor Apex Legends had been released yet, so it was basically Fortnite and PUBG dominating gaming at the time.

In addition, Epic Games had announced that they were putting up $100 million in prize pools for Fortnite esports over 2018-2019. The Fortnite World Cup was announced in early 2019, so psalm made the switch and went to work.

“The $100 million, it felt like kind of an experiment, a showcase to make a splash,” psalm said. “But they also had no real plans on securing the longevity of the esports scene.”

Fortnite esports existed in a weird middle ground. The game was hyper-casual with plenty of complaints about “sweats” -- basically players who are just trying to show off their skills -- ruining the game. At the same time, no other title was awarding nearly as much prize money.

The competitive peak came at the Fortnite World Cup. The total prize pool was $30 million although each of the 10 qualifiers also were awarded $1 million apiece. Held in New York’s Arthur Ashe stadium, the Fortnite World Cup was primarily split into two events, solos and duos. One hundred players competed in both with even the last place finisher leaving with a decent prize of $50,000.

The absolute peak was the first place solo prize of $3 million won by Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf. Psalm finished second, taking home $1.8 million. That prize, by itself, is good for 42nd on the all time highest earning esports players list according to Esports Earnings. With psalm’s other wins, he jumps to 32nd. Of all the other people ahead of him, only Bugha is not a Dota 2 pro.

“Surprisingly, there aren’t a lot more hoops to jump through after a win in the seven figures,” psalm said. “I was expecting to do a million things with checks and paperwork. But it was just as simple as any other cash winnings that Fortnite paid out. Just a simple bank wire. It came fast too. It just took a couple weeks, I was expecting it to be a year later, that's how a lot of esports payments work, especially big ones.”

The Fortnite World Cup was supposed to run again in 2020, but obviously that didn’t work out. During the pandemic, Fortnite has continued to evolve. They’re hosting concerts with A-list artists like Travis Scott and Ariana Grande. The metaverse has been a focus of Epic Games for a few years now and there’s no guarantee that when live events can be held again, Epic will continue to place a focus on esports. Sure, they have the money, but the game was never balanced with competitive play in mind, so skipping out on esports won’t have a negative impact on Fortnite’s popularity as it would for other games.

“It was weird as a professional player sometimes because Fortnite’s priority was the casual base,” psalm said. “It was one of the major reasons why I ended up switching over to VALORANT. [Epic] doesn’t care about their esports scene. Especially after the World Cup. Ever since then, there hasn’t been that much. I know Riot really cares about their esports scene.”

From MOBA to Battle Royale to tactical FPS

VALORANT was a game of transplants. Many CS:GO players, especially ones in NA, made the switch immediately. A handful of people from the Overwatch League and Apex Legends esports also made the switch. Psalm was one of the first big names to announce he was pursuing VALORANT. On April 5, 2020, just two days before the VALORANT beta began, psalm announced his retirement.

“VALORANT was the toughest game to adjust to,” psalm said. “Just because it's so similar to CS:GO. There are so many former CS professionals in the scene who have 10-20,000 hours in CS:GO. It takes time to catch up to that.”

He was picked up by Dignitas and played for the org for months before they decided to drop their men’s roster in March this year. Since then, he has been playing for Squirtle Squad, a top unsigned team that recently finished as a semifinalist in Nerd Street’s Summer Championship.

“I think if this team sticks together, we’d get signed without a doubt,” psalm said. “Out of all the free agent teams I’ve played with, this is the one with the most potential. We went into [Summer Champs] with literally zero days of practice before the tournament. We just straight pugged it. We just ran out of steam against NRG.”

The Summer Champs were the result of months of qualifying tournaments with a bunch of major orgs coming in through the last chance qualifiers before the event. The four teams remaining in the semifinals were NRG, Cloud9 Blue, Evil Geniuses and Squirtle Squad. Pretty good company for the unsigned roster. It’s a team with a lot of talent. For this tournament the core of psalm, Harmful and Jonard “Jonaaa6” Penaflor were joined by Governor, a popular content creator, and Joseph “Ban” Seungmin Oh, a player on LG who was benched right before Challengers Playoffs.

Ultimately, Squirtle Squad would lose to NRG 2-1 in that match. NRG then went to the grand final where they were defeated by C9 Blue, now featuring Anthony “vanity” Malaspina, 3-1. With Summer Champs over and VCT moving to the closed portion of the year, much of the VALORANT esports world is headed toward an offseason. The top teams will continue to battle it out, but for many players, the year is pretty much over.

The future is promising but uncertain for psalm in VALORANT esports

The future format of VALORANT esports is uncertain. The first year saw crazy viewership for a new esport and some amazing moments. Stage 3 Masters: Berlin and VALORANT Champions at the end of the year will surely provide some more. But every new esport has some growing pains, and that was true of VALORANT as well.

“I would have liked more opportunities in VCT overall,” psalm said when asked what he would change if given the chance. “You play this last open qualifier, then there isn’t much to look forward to for the next four or five months. In VCT, it could feel like you had one bad day and there goes your opportunity for the next few months. Single elimination open qualifier and any team can win any day. I would have liked to see more opportunities, more chances.”

To psalm’s point, it’s easy to forget how close we came to Sentinels completely missing Stage 2. In the first open qualifier, just a week after Sentinels won Stage 1 Masters, they lost to Built By Gamers. They managed to qualify for Challengers 2 but still needed to place in the top four. In the first round of that tournament, they lost to Andbox. If the Andbox match had been in the open qualifier not in Challengers 2, Sentinels could have completely missed Challengers Finals and Stage 2 Masters.

It’s also not an easy problem to solve. Riot is working to provide opportunities for any team in any region to make it to the top level. Some esports have moved to franchised leagues to keep the top teams on top, but that isn’t exactly working perfectly in the Overwatch League or Call of Duty League either. If VALORANT follows League of Legends’ path, there will be about five years of the esports scene before the move to franchised leagues.

For now, psalm is continuing to grind VALORANT. While this game hasn’t brought him the same level of success he has reached with other esports titles yet, his track record sure makes it feel like he’s going to break through eventually. With a dominant Sova at Summer Champs, he’s certainly worth a look for a team looking to add a true esports veteran.

Lead photo credit: psalm