Ahead of the Red Bull Instalock tournament, showcasing some of best women’s VALORANT out there, we got to talk with Melanie “MeL” Capone about the tournament, exposure and the brand new agent.

If I’m correct, you only started with Shopify Rebellion back in November, right?

MeL: We joined the back in November, but as a team, as five, we’ve been together, I want to say, last January 2023 or December of 2022. Even so, the core has been the exact same. It’s just been a difference in org.

How has the experience been working with a different org?

MeL: Honestly, it’s been really seamless. Version 1, our previous org, and SR worked really well together to make it as seamless as possible for us on the players end, considering it was happening so close to the international event. Everything just happened behind the scenes for us and we were just taken care of really well by both orgs to make it as stress free as possible.

So it’s been smooth sailing and there’s been no change in how we’ve been treated. We’ve been treating amazingly. They’ve given us boot camps. They have an awesome facility. I mean, I’m here in Toronto now to make it easier for me to get to the facility. It’s the best I’ve ever been treated by an org for sure.

Sophie: And I guess that means you just get to focus on the game, right?

MeL: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Sophie: So talking about boot camping and how you prep for tournaments.

How you would go about preparing for a tournament like Instalock as opposed to the VCT?

MeL: The preparation for Instalock’s format, where we have three duelists, is very different for us. We’re focusing really a lot on our co ed tournaments coming up. So our practice is still just based around our normal agents and our normal comps because thankfully, it’s three duelists and everyone on my team can play duelist.

If you track any one my player’s histories, they’ve all played duelists. Even I’ve played it to an extent. But most notably, Flor, Sarah and Nicole have all been duelist mains for their previous teams. Obviously, Flor is an insane duelist no matter where she plays.

So it’s easy to prep for this event considering my team just has duelist maniacs.

Sophie: Maybe you will have a competitive advantage then?

MeL: I mean, I’m sure maybe other teams have some duelist players as well. We’ll see.

Sophie: Yeah, I spoke to Petra from G2 earlier and she said she’s most looking forward to playing against SR.

Which team are you most excited to play against?

MeL: Yeah, I would agree with Petra. It’s like a mini match up from the international and just something fun.

Sophie: You’re feeling a bit more relaxed now then, I imagine?

MeL: Oh, for sure. Like this tournament, we’ve been hard at work trying to prep for co ed. So this is kind of like a nice break, like a nice little show match vibe for us to kind of just let loose and have fun really.

Has the team been playing any Clove during the prep?

MeL: I’m not going to leak too much, but I mean, maybe my answer here will kind of leak it, but I feel like I feel like they are an agent that is good in ranked more so than pro play. They just don’t have like the util necessary to do certain things in like a normal single duelist comp.

I could see them being played double controller maybe by teams that are not afraid to venture out into the wilds and experiment a little bit. I could see them playing that double controller role.

But honestly I don’t see them being a well played agent in pro play outside of a niche map pick.

Sophie: That’s a really interesting perspective. I guess they wouldn’t work out so well on certain maps.

MeL: I would say so. I mean, a team would really have to make a whole game plan around them to make it work. But I don’t see them seeing a ton of play. I think they’re a little undertuned right now. And I think some of the ability timings are off. I think whenever they ult, they have only like a two second window and their movement speed almost feels decreased.

I also think their overheal can be extended a little longer just to push them more in the direction of being a pick on some maps.

But as it stands right now, Omen and Viper are super meta, so it doesn’t make sense for people to play Clove.

Sophie: For sure. I also heard Clove isn’t going to be played at VCT because of a bug.

MeL: Yeah, there’s actually a lot of bugs with Clove. I think the most peculiar one is sometimes, whenever you ult and you come back, sometimes you just don’t have your gun anymore in your hands. And it’s not like someone picked it up off of your body, you just have a pistol in your hands.

So I think that’s like, a pretty game breaking bug if, like, okay, here’s an ult that I only get a few times a half and I don’t have my gun. And in order to stay alive, I have to eliminate somebody but now I don’t have a gun to eliminate them. So the ult is kind of pointless if that bug happens to you.

Sophie: I bet that would cost you a couple of games in the VCT!

MeL: Absolutely, for sure.

Sophie: I did actually want to ask about VCT since you’ve had such success with that.

How has your experience with VCT evolved of the years of your career?

MeL: It’s a good question, I hadn’t really thought about it actually. I mean, compared from MAJKL to the different iterations of Cloud Nine White to Version One, I feel my mindset has pretty much been the same. My mindset is what gets my teams to win. Game Changers hasn’t been, “oh, we wanna be the best Game Changers team”. It’s always been, we wanna be the best team we can possibly be irrelevant of the label “Game Changers”. We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves into a label. And that has always been my mindset.

So in terms of mental approach, it’s been pretty much the same since we started playing. I think it has just changed in terms of team dynamics. I’ve been on multiple teams now and just working with different players and getting used to how they wanna run things and how they wanna do things and how they wanna play. I think that has been the only big change in terms of Game Changers.

Sophie: So based on that knowledge and experience with Game Changers and tournaments like Instalock.

Do you have a preference in terms of a competitive VCT or relaxed Instalock vibe?

MeL: I think we’ll be definitely taking it more relaxed considering it’s a fun format. So we’re not going to take it like this is the most important tournament and they’ll take away our paychecks if we don’t win. We’ve been grinding in this off season already so we’re going to show up at London and honestly just have fun with it.

I don’t think we have much more to prove. We literally are the best team in the world considering we just won champs in Brazil. So until international comes in, we really don’t have much to prove on the international level.

We’re just gonna come up, have fun. Lock duelists and run it down.

Sophie: So I just wanted to touch briefly on your experience as a woman in esports and VALORANT.

What value do you think these more fun tournament formats have for the ecosystem of women’s esports?

MeL: I think it’s a way for the community to the community to interact more with. Especially because international events are just so rare to come by for Game Changers. There’s only one a year pretty much and I think it’s a really cool way for these fan bases kind of interact where it’s like you can get some more fanfare. Like, these teams only play each other once a year. They can see each other in a fun format, right?

And I also think with this particular format with the duelist Instalock, I think there’s like a trope where it’s like women tend to lock more support agents in competitive games. They tend to play like support in like, League. Or there’s a meme where it’s like, “oh, they’re always like Sage healing”. But I feel like there are so many players and G2 that, that are just insane on duelist and it’s really cool format to showcase that.

It’s like women aren’t just like insane support players. Women can also play duelist and run it down. And I can speak as well from experience. Like I said, everyone on my team can lock duels in a ranked game and drop 30, I swear. So it’s not just like the support characters. We can run it down. We can take confident duels. We can be mechanical beasts and I think that’s kind of cool.