Last night I was scrolling through TikTok in the middle of an edible comedown and came across something so ridiculous, so horrible, so brilliant, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. It’s called Maverwatch, and it’s a 2018 hype video for the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA, in which its star players double down over watch Characters.
Continue reading: NBA star Luka Doncic is a grandmaster over watch Player, Mains Zarya
Edited to look like one over watch Play-of-the-game clip that highlights a particularly gnarly play (usually a multi-kill) at the end of each match, this minute-long video feels like something my high brain cooked up in a daydream. But it is not. This clip is real and every second is captivating, a strange mix of car crash tragedy and knee banging comedy. However, you can’t deny that the editing is top-notch, with the all-too-familiar Ding sounds indicative of that over watch kill them over watch Font showing “eliminations” of rival players being stunted and the in-game music swelling between each wooden NBA player chanting a hero line.
Athletes, by and large, are not known for their acting and line-reading skills. On the rare chance that you get an athlete with a colorful personality who can actually engage in dialogue without sounding like a kid being forced to read aloud during class, teams will put him at the forefront of marketing materials and commercial Push opportunities (Eli Manning, Tom Brady) or even have them star in a movie (LeBron James, Michael Jordan). I can say with some confidence that none of the 2018 Dallas Mavericks players have the same I do not know what like James or Brady, but that only makes the Maverwatch experience better.
The man behind Maverwatch
The clip begins with Dirk Nowitzki aping Soldier: 76’s ultimate ability line (“I’ve got my sights on you”) while pretending to activate an imaginary sight before cutting to clips of threes sinking him.
“Dirk chose Soldier because he’s the tough old leader of the team,” said Austin Guttery, former in-game media creator for the Dallas Mavericks and creator of Maverwatch my city by email.
The second player highlighted is former Mavs center Deandre Jordan, who pretends to pop a Lucio-Ultra (“Oh, let’s break it down”) under the nickname “Shootscio.” Help me. “Jordan won Lucio because of his great defensive plays and his ability to keep the team alive,” explained Guttery.
But when it came time to assign Mavericks point guard and grandmaster over watch Player Luka Doncic a character things got a little heated. “Luka really wanted to be Hanzo because he usually plays against him, but there was one player on the team, Wes Matthews, who was known for pretending to shoot a bow and arrow after every shot during games, so of course we HAD that to make him Hanzo,” Guttery said. “I chose Luka as a Junkrat because of his blonde hair. Luka was a bit salty and tried to talk us into making him Hanzo, but we had already filmed Wes’ role and we only got one quick shot with each player each year.”
The other players were matched based on any connections Guttery could make between them and an over watch Hero – or if he thought they could manage to mimic a character’s movements well enough. No, I can’t stop laughing at Luka pretending to tow a Junkrat RIP tire.
Aside from the drama associated with assigning Mavs players over watch Colleagues tell Guttery it took forever to get the video approved because his boss “didn’t really know what over watch Was.” But telling him that Doncic was a huge one over watch Fan “really helped sell it.” The clip was filmed during the team’s media day and aired on screens in the arena during a break in play, prompting a “pretty good reaction” from fans.
But if Guttery shared the video on Redditwhere this TikToker presumably found it got into quite a bit of trouble.
“I almost got fired!” he recounted cheerfully. “Once our in-game videos have aired, we typically don’t put them online until after the season, or unless we get permission from [owner Mark] Cubans to guide them. But I was so excited about how this one turned out, I really wanted to see how this worked over watch The community would respond. So I posted it on Reddit and within the day it blew up… It eventually caught the attention of my boss who was, um, quite upset that it was out there and he was afraid we wouldn’t be, if cuban would see that making more videos for them so i removed it. Luckily, Cuban never got wind of it, so it wasn’t an issue.”
But over watch Developer Blizzard actually saw the video and sent Guttery a “really nice Widowmaker figure” for the team to display in the office. And now the exact same video is making the rounds on social media again. Time is a flat circle, but Luka Doncic is no longer a Hanzo main character. Now it’s Zarya.
