Alliance Hakis on ALGS Crypto Meta: “It's Like the Character is Made for Bad IGLs…”

The Apex Legends competitive scene is often bound to the current meta, for better or worse. It’s this constant cycle, however, that not only keeps the scene interesting, but keeps the community on their toes. For the pros, however, the slightest change can have dramatic consequences. If they’re not using the current meta, they risk falling behind at the first hurdle. 

Ahead of the ALGS Year 4 Split 2 Playoffs, we saw the meta shift in favor of Newcastle, Pathfinder, Bangalore and, for IGLs specifically, Crypto. But it’s not a meta that everyone is keen on.

Speaking with Alliance’s John “Hakis” Håkansson, the Swedish IGL admitted, “I like changes. it's good that, from LAN to LAN, we're getting different metas. Different playstyles. I'm not very fond of this one though.”

Recon class Legend, Crypto, has rocketed into the meta thanks to recent patches and, even in the early Group stages of the Split 2 Playoffs, that couldn’t be more clear. “Crypto is a very, very boring character. It's like the character is made for bad IGLs to just get all the information in the world to do better. So it's kind of sad because it lowers the skill ceiling overall.” 

Hakis’ signature Recon Legend has been Seer, but there’s been little room for the Season 10 addition in recent times. With things changing so quickly, even following Alliance’s historic win at the Esports World Cup, the team had to shake up their tactics.

“As soon as we got home, like literally the day after, we had a whole meta change. They had a big patch in Apex. So, we basically had to get back on the ground and put in the hours,” Hakis said.

“So, you get used to the new stuff. At EWC, we played a Pathfinder, Bangalore, and Fuse meta. It's very different now because there’s barely any Pathfinders, barely any Fuses. Everybody's on Crypto. So this has been a lot of hiding in drones, sitting in drones. So yeah, it's been a little bit of adjusting.”

But it’s not just Alliance having to adjust to the changes. The majority of competing teams will have had to adapt their strategies for this Split 2. Not only does it mean that their own methods have undergone a rework, but their intel on other teams quickly becomes outdated. But for Hakis, he’s not about to start worrying what his competitors are up to.

“I always have the mindset of just focusing on ourselves,” he said. “Whatever fits our playstyle the best. As long as we have a playstyle that fits our UIs and Team in general, then we'll do good. It doesn't really matter what other people do.”

Alliance entered the Year 4 Split 2 Playoffs at a slight disadvantage. Their usual frontliner, Miron "Effect" Novikov, was unable to attend due to visa issues. Filling in has been British player, Tyler “Tyler” Woods, who Hakis has the utmost confidence in, especially when it comes to executing tactics.

“I would say it is kind of easy, because he already plays the character that he came into the team to play. He's already played with unlucky (Andre “unlucky” Türk) before on a previous team and he's basically had the same role as Effect on like every single team has been on. So, I feel like it's not too hard to just point him in the right direction of what we want as well.

I've already played with temps before, like I got top five with Mande (Mikkel "Mande" Hestbek) subbing for Effect as well in the past. So, I'm still super confident. And even if we're only at 80 percent, we're still one of the best teams in the world.”

Alliance are currently battling it out in the ALGS Year 4 Split 2 Playoffs, taking place in Mannheim, Germany. You can catch the action as it unfolds throughout the tournament on the official Apex Legends Twitch stream.