Echo Fox's New Madden Pro Is Nothing To Joke About

In January 2018, the Echo Fox Roster Day event was held in Los Angeles, CA, which showcased some of the absolute top gamers in the pro scene, all hailing from the esports team Echo Fox. Early in the event, Echo Fox’s founder Rick Fox made a surprising announcement that the team will include Madden on the roster this year.

He boomed an emotional speech at the beginning of the day. But, near the end of the speech, he added: “I’d like to announce that Echo Fox will also be going in 2018 into a new game. That new game will be Madden. Our player is here, so you’ll get to meet him: Joke.”

Twin Galaxies took the opportunity to sit down with Raidel “Joke” Brito, the first and (so-far) only Madden player on the Echo Fox team, briefly. Brito had only been within the team, internally, for a week or two at the time of the interview. He had recently come from Noble Esports the year prior, but was excited to get to work and make Echo Fox proud. We asked him what qualifies Madden in the esports arena and how he got there.

“So, I started playing Madden at Madden 07,” he began. “I started going to tournaments, competitively, around Madden 09, when I was, I believe, an eighth grader (about thirteen or fourteen years old). Recently, last year, Madden got into esports. So, every year now, EA has four Majors. Last year, I made three out of the four of them. In the finals, I made the final four. There’s been two events so far and, in the first event, I made the finals, whereas I lost the second Season One game before the major event.”

A new team awaits!

Brito continued by explaining what was upcoming now that he was part of Echo Fox.

“In a few days,” he explained, “I play in the Major event for the Cleveland Browns where you play for an NFL team. Every NFL team is participating in the tournament called the Club Championship Series where basically you have to qualify for it. Four players play on every team. The winner of that tournament basically represents the team in a 32-man format, which are the Club Series. Then, after that, comes the Madden Ultimate League, which is supposed to be a league of sixteen players and to get into this thing, you have to qualify for it by either making the finals of the EA Major (which I did and have been locked in since September). So, that’s six finalists, six out of six teams. Or the next ten players are chosen from the top ten point scorers, where you get these points for every event you go to.”

Most people out there think the Madden games are churned out every year and have little to no differences. While that seems true on a cosmetic, skin-deep basis, subtle changes happen between each game that can completely change the way people play the games. Brito explained into something there was something a little deeper in prior games and how the newest game completely messed up his flow by making the game more approachable for newcomers.

“So, back in the day there were the things called ‘nanos’,” he explained, “which were basically these defensive plays that got pressure on the Quarterback in what they called ‘nanoseconds’. As of last year, they added a new mechanic in the game called ‘nano detection system’, which prevents that from happening. Now, the game is a lot different, because defense is harder to play since there’s no gimmick. You have to actually play defensive and adjust based on what the opponent is doing. Now, offense is easier to play because you don’t have the pressure on the quarterback anymore.

He explained further that this isn’t something that can be gotten around easily and it’s made him and all of the other pro players have to figure out how to work with it.

“Before,” he continued, “there were ways to block it. But, a casual player wouldn’t know how to block the blitz. So, what they did was just completely take it out of the game for anybody to be able to play. It’s made it a much harder game now to win consistently and be dominant because the game is now so balanced for the casual players. There’s different ways for pro players, like myself, to find the edge against the casual players.”

Since Brito mentioned that the newest games in the series caters to the newcomers, he wanted to also give a tip on starting out and what to focus on to become a pro like him.

“If you’re first coming into the game, first thing I’d say is practice being able to run the ball, because if you can run the ball, you can dominate the game. If you can control the clock, you dominate the way the game goes.”

Making a physical sport into an esport

When most people think of esports and professional competitive gaming, Madden isn’t generally on the top of their list of games mentioned. Due to this, EA and Madden are coming out swinging in 2018, but it plays very different than most esports tournaments. Brito talked more about how it works and how teams are established in the event.

“Every season is different,” he started. “Season one for the EA Major was regular NFL teams, meaning you choose any team, like the Falcons, Seahawks, Browns. Season two is this thing called ‘draft’ where you get a random playbook and 25 rounds. In each round, three different players come up and you each have to draft a player in each round. You draft the 25 players that consist of your team and then the first round is three offensive and defensive playbooks that you choose whichever suits you best. Then, the last, and what I think is the best, tournament is the one that we basically build our own team. There’s 900 points and every player has a certain amount of points assigned to them. You have to design the best team with exactly 900 or less points. So, like, do you want to use Randy Moss or any of the legends that are in the game (Johnson, Jones, etc.). There’s current players, retired players, and even college players. You get to design your team however you want it."

Echo Fox is taking a risk in having faith in such a new esport arena, but Rick Fox’s confidence in new games calls for expansion. Brito is the first Madden team member for Madden and he’s happy to be a part of it, even this early.

“I’ve not been part of the team very long," Brito explained. "I just feel good that I’ve done enough to make Echo Fox, which is such a good team, actually look at me and want to sign me. It makes me feel like what I‘m doing is worth it.”

Echo Fox is coming into more uncharted territory by adding Madden to the list, but with plenty of crazy-good players under their wing already, they seem to know what they're doing. Madden is busting into the scene and Echo Fox plans to make their foothold quick with Joke and other incredible players bound to join.