Once upon a time, I wondered through a rain forest when out of all sudden, I run into group of ultra violent monkeys. Being a nice girl, except obligatory fight I also sat with them, had a sweet banana party and asked them a question or two.
Valhanya: Hello monkeys! I hope everyone is doing great. Can everyone introduce themselves briefly?
Baddy: Hello, I am the silverback of the troop. I am here to defend the jungle!
Aby: I’m Aby! I’ve been playing this game for about a year now and I’m the ace for Return To Monke, because I am a monke.
Habaduba: Hi I’m Habaduba, just a party member of a team that won ETL3… wait when do you publish this?
Graveryl: I’m the last recruit of team Monke, but certainly not the least. My mashing prowess is becoming legendary. The way of the unga holds no secrets to me.
Bread Master: Hello, I’m Malcolm, also known as Bread Master. I am the 5th secret member of Return to Monke by being their moral support whenever available.
Valhanya: Except Aby and Bread Master, everyone has already participated in the ETL. What are your reasons behind your participation in season 3?
Baddy: I wasn’t too sure at first about participating in ETL yet again, but decided to give it another run, but this time focus on just having a blast with my team.
Aby: I’ve considered joining last season as well, but decided not to due to my weird schedule. I’m glad I joined this time.
Habaduba: ETL2 was plenty fun, also the moment I heard Baddy is making a team i thought it would be really enjoyable if i can make it there, we got rather lucky and managed to end up with a team I couldn’t be happier with.
Graveryl: I need to get back into the game more seriously after my hiatus. ETL was fun last time so I saw it as a great opportunity to have fun and practice against tons of talented players. I also appreciate the FT5 format more than the shorter sets of other events.
Bread Master: Due to where I am, participating as a player in the ETL would be impossible (or a poor experience with the other players). However, Baddy one day asked me to join them to participate with them during their team streams, hang out, and be moral support, and of course I was going to say yes if it was possible. Being under the team name Return To Monke was the icing on the cake.
Valhanya: This season, your team has a very unique theme and personality and everyone seems to enjoy it. How did Baddy and Aby come up with this idea? How do Habaduba, Bread Master and Graveryl fit in?
Baddy: Root cause is very much Malcolm who keeps sending me monkeys and we played Bloons together for quite a while. His enthusiasm about anything he takes a liking to is infectious. I wanted to do something more fun, lighthearted and a bit goofy this season; the monkeys as a theme were the perfect fit. Malcolm joined us as the hypeman too!
Aby: Baddy told me about the theme and I was instantly hooked. As someone who has loved sharing monkey/gorilla memes for the past few years relating to being a monkey in fighting games, this idea is dope to me.
Habaduba: Monkey has always been hiding within.
Graveryl: I mean… Do I need to explain?
Bread Master: Monke
Valhanya: What do you think of your course in this season 3 so far?
Baddy: My team had my back against the fishes where I absolutely dropped the ball. Allstars was the team I was most concerned about as they seem to have the overall highest average skill level across the ETL teams. Haba and I came through and managed to tie against them. I am very happy about how we are doing so far.
Aby: So far as a team we’re doing quite well and I’m happy about our performance. Only thing I’m a bit unhappy about is that I didn’t manage to beat Zanaken, but that will be for another day.
Habaduba: I’m satisfied with our performance, we tied versus Allstars which is a strong candidate for first seed and that gives quite a confidence boost. Given how balanced the teams are it’s going to be hard and I bet the playoffs will be riddled with tie breakers but I believe Top 4 is the lowest we can go.
Graveryl: Our team is performing very well, we have each other’s backs like a true monkey family. Someone is always shining when it counts. I’m sad I wasn’t able to bring another victory versus AllStars but a tie is already something to be happy about. I’ll try to bring my best to the team and it motivates me to practice outside of ETL.
Bread Master: In their fight between Jungle and Sea, I had a blast with them! For their fight against Allstars, I was unable to join them on stream sadly. Overall, I feel like this team is doing so well. I can definitely see them taking the gold!
Valhanya: Every week, teams have to decide on the matchmaking against their opponent. Do you have a universal strategy? What are you aiming for when you pick a match?
Baddy: Not really. Some picks are made because we think we are going to win that Match up and some are made just because we think it could be fun. Against Allstars for example, the team was very indecisive about what to pick, so I asked the gang if I can have a runback against Domitto, even tho I lost against him the last couple times we played. They were cool with it and I ended up getting the dub.
Aby: Monke see enemy, monke do smash.
Habaduba: We usually just spend like 5 minutes talking about it and decide based on who we want to fight.We generally aim for equal matches with a potential to win over guaranteed ties since that makes it more exciting and hopefully more educational for the players, also when everyone plays a factor it’s more in the spirit of a team tournament. It’s not even rare that we pick losing matchups just because we want to challenge ourselves and we didn’t regret it yet.
Graveryl: Usually it’s a strategic discussion about match-ups (characters but also players) peppered with Haba or Baddy wanting to duke it out with someone in particular. We try to respect one another’s wishes, and at the end of the day, our only strat is to be true to our inner monkeys, smash heads with rocks and leave no bananas unpeeled.
Bread Master: Bloons Tower Defense walkthroughs. Optimal strategies, to be honest.
Valhanya: Is there a team the monkeys are afraid of?
Baddy: Allstars was my candidate. That one is off the list. The other teams are strong too, but I believe my team and I are capable of winning against the rest.
Aby: Allstars is scary, but I think our team matches up to them just fine based on how it went last week. Dark Love is another really scary team, and I’m excited to fight them as well. I think all of the teams this season are quite good though so there’s no pushovers, even if these two stand out.
Habaduba: If my team was a monkey then there are only two bananas the monkey cannot just grab off the tree we call ETL, that would be Allstars and Dark love, all the other bananas are on the grass for the monkey to chew on. That being said monkey can reach the two bananas if it jumps high enough and you bet the monkey is going to take a leap…also no monkey is scared of a banana!
Graveryl: We’re too dumb to be afraid.
Bread Master: The only thing that can scare a monkey is another monkey. Therefore, there is nothing we’re afraid of.
Valhanya: What is your favorite highlight so far?
Baddy: There are so many moments already that are just great. But from the clips I’ve seen, I really enjoy this one, because everyone is having a good time:
Aby: The moment that habaduba decided to return to monke vs guilu and 5-0’d him was pretty cool. Also he just hit him with the most absurd shit, it was lovely.
Habaduba: When Graveryl pulled a CE backtech trap on a 5 hp Branstar just to assert dominance and everyone freaked out, you know he is making a comeback after that.
Graveryl: Haba versus Guilu obviously comes to everyone’s mind, but I also enjoyed the moment before that: Baddy going for the WR kick while being extremely low health, throwing his set but in doing so transmitting all of his power to Haba for his extraordinary apey match… That was beautiful. I still shed a tear when I recall it. BUNGADAMA!
Bread Master: Habaduba going bananas against Guilu (and the rest of us going bananas on the mic).
Valhanya: Thank you guys for this interview ! Any last thoughts you would like to share with our readers and your fans ?
Baddy: I really like how many teams we have in this Season. Bunch of them went for redesigns, others went for new teams and even make their own stream designs, resulting in so many different flavors of teams; it’s great!
Aby: Sorry, don’t have no time for no monkey business.
Habaduba: I’m gonna be shameless and ask to advocate for rollback netcode coz one of our monkeys is an ocean away and any such event would be way more enjoyable with better connections
Graveryl: Losing is temporary, banana is forever.
Bread Master:
