Sandstorm: “I am the best scythe player and best boots player”

As an esports personality, Sandstorm is the brightest star of Brawlhalla. Not only does the player have many top-level achievements, but he continues competing with all these wins. Sandstorm’s example inspires the community and adds amazing energy to the global competitive scene. His most recent success is victory at the Trial of Skuld. After the tournament, we reached out to Sandstorm with a few questions.

Esports.gg: Congrats on your Trial of Skuld victory. How do you feel about this result? At this point of your career, what level of wins feels the most meaningful and exciting?

Sandstorm: "A lot of my recent tourney wins feel great. I get a feeling of 'this is supposed to happen' each time I win a new event. There’s often no surprise. I am trying to chase the feeling of winning an offline event again."

Switching from Tezca to Mordex in the top 8 looked like a good decision that helped you win. Was it a matchup moment or do Battle Boots not work very well now? Why did you choose these two legends in the recent tournaments?

"These are my two most played legends at this point, and I use them for different reasons. I use boots against players weak against them, or for certain weapon matchups like axe and lance, and Mordex comes out when I try the boots first and it doesn’t work, and is a more comfortable pick against a lot of people. Gauntlets are very meta and both legends have great attributes. Mordex lies more into good stats and Tezca has better signatures [or] has more gimmicks. I am the best scythe player and best boots player, so I have no issue bouncing off the both of them."

Talking about the legends, have new additions to the roster interested you enough to consider maining them at the esports events? Are Imugi, Vivi, and Seven close to being as good as Tezca?

"Nah, I haven’t thought about using them — although they are very good. They all have weapons I’ve used in brackets before, but I think at this point, I am only interested in my current legend pool."

If you could add any weapon pair to the game, what would that be? Maybe you have ideas about a character’s look and personality?

"I haven’t thought about legend design specifically, but some of my recent requests have been boots and hammer, boots and spear, or boots and scythe. I think those weapons would all pair with boots nicely."

You requested a big Brawlhalla patch in one of your posts. Why do you want a substantial balance refreshment? What do you generally think about the current state of the game?

"The game’s balance has felt like it has been in standstill for a while, with axe and gauntlets and certain legends just dominating both 1v1s and 2v2s. After a while, fighting the exact same things every tourney for over a year can be a bit much. We have had several balance patches in the past year or so, but the meta stayed relatively unchanged. That’s why I tweeted about how it would be interesting if BMG completely shook things up. Most of the balance passes have changes so minor that they might as well never happened.

"I would want to see what the game would look like if they overhauled some weapons and their moves. Not sure if this would ever happen, but I would love some new things to freshen up the game.

"Another thing that I believe is hurting the game is the introduction of the new dash mechanic they released last June. You are able to snap to the ground by pressing dash right before you land, creating new and faster movement than what was possible before. This was nice for a while as it felt like the pace of the game and APM increased, and was really exciting.

"However, as myself and other pros came to find, as fun as the inputs were, it completely altered the neutral of the game. The dash snapping is really quick, and playing online, it can literally feel like your opponents are teleporting. Tracking your opponent in neutral is not a thing anymore. You have no confidence in catching opponents a lot of the time because they can instantly snap behind you and punish you for something that would previously work. 

"There is now far more guessing in the neutral. People often complained about how slow Brawlhalla matches could be with passive play, but this new mechanic makes it an even more optimal way to play. Neutral now consists of players running around the screen and not throwing out any attacks because you can’t really see or predict where the opponent will be a lot of the time, so it turned ultra parry.

"As far as how to fix this? I am not actually sure. I would love for BMG to take community feedback on this — more specifically from the pros on this topic because I doubt they will revert this new mechanic — even though I believe that is what they should do."

Are you satisfied with the format of esports year nine: many online events, two invitationals, and two big LANs over the year? Would you change this?

"I think it is alright. I’m a fan of a circuit system, but not really how it plays out with the online tournaments. The events don’t feel weighted or important at all — you can literally skip an entire tournament and qualify first seed for the in-person royale like I did. I think people miss the regular seasonal tournaments, with other surprise events and tournaments sprinkled in.

"As far as the LANs go, it is a step down from last year. Four in-person LANs and four royales, halving the numbers on both of those. I am a huge LAN guy and am always in favor of having more, but I know it can be a nightmare to run sometimes, so I’ll take what I can get. 

"I miss having nine LANs like we did in 2019, and I will attend every LAN that is hosted."

How are the South American players so dominating now? What does the North American scene lack to be back on top at the international events?

"South America as a region seems to have the most passion, and therefore the pros play more than the NA and EU pros. They also have a super good understanding of the meta and are confident.

"I don’t actually believe that NA and EU are super far behind, however. At the winter royale, literally everyone from every region was taking sets. I myself lost to and beat players of each region.

"At the Midseason this year, five of the top eight players were NA. Some SA and EU players got upset early. Kyna, who won the event, still was having Game 5 sets with players beforehand. It isn’t a complete stomp, in my opinion. We need to fix a couple of small things, and we’re there."

Is there someone in NA you consider your main opponent such as the hardest to play against or generally super strong?

"The hottest name on the block right now is Marckiemoo, but I haven’t actually fought him in a while. Otherwise, no, I know how to beat everybody else."

You’ve posted that you need 2XKO now. Why is this game interesting to you? What do you think about MultiVersus?

"2XKO is all the rage right now, and I just want to see if I like it. I’ve been wanting to test other fighting games and see if I would enjoy them the same.

"I love MultiVersus as a game, but I have been putting most of my focus into Brawl esports since its release."

The competitive year continues, so we still have two online trials, a Royale Invitational, and the World Championship in 2024. It’s certainly interesting to follow Sandstorm at these and many other events. Stick around on esports.gg for Brawlhalla news and updates.