Benbest on the match against the Defiant - ''We just weren’t on the same page''
The Paris Eternal fell 1-3 in their debut match against the Toronto Defiant. After a less than stellar ending to their inaugural season, Paris made some eyebrow-raising additions to the originally all-European roster during the off-season. Paris opted to completely change their coaching staff, bringing in Hee-won “RUSH” Yun as head coach. An Element Mystic alumnus himself, RUSH bolstered Paris’ ranks by bringing in highly sought-after players in Yeong-han “Sp9rkle” Kim, Han-been “Hanbin” Choi, and Ki-hyo “Xzi” Jung.
However, both Sp9rkle and Hanbin would be too young for the Eternal’s debut, so many speculated about their ability to perform without their star players. While they manage to take Lijiang Tower at the beginning of the series against the Defiant, Paris couldn’t find the same success in the next three maps. After the match, Xzi, RUSH, main support Brice “FDGod” Monsçavoir and main tank Benjamin “BenBest” Dieulafait spoke to reporters.
Click to enlargeRUSH made it a point to mention that even though there are a lot of Element Mystic players on the squad, they’re still figuring out how to make roster compositions that work best for the players. Xzi, who had shown an exceptional performance, highlighted that even though he and his teammates came from winning The Gauntlet and Korean contenders, it was a step up to what he had experienced in Korea. For Xzi though, he was glad he was able to perform on his signature hero, McCree. “McCree is one of my strongest heroes, and he actually suits the meta right now so that’s why I played him so much”.
FDGod, another rookie player entering the squad, was another standout during the match. “I wanted to show my skills on Lucio and show people that I can be on an Overwatch League level”, the young Frenchman stated in regards to his performance on match day. During the match, he had shown to be able to keep up with Toronto's flanking efforts, repeatedly keeping Reaper off his front and backline while also scoring important environmental kills on Lijang Tower.
Paris played a double-main tank composition of Orisa and Reinhardt throughout the match, a decision both RUSH and BenBest stated was something that worked for them in scrims. Overall, RUSH explained that they had set strategies for each map, but once things weren’t going their way, the players lost a lot of their confidence and felt insecure. “We just weren’t on the same page”, BenBest put bluntly. Off-tank player Eoghan “Smex” O’Neil could have presumably provided some variation in strategy. "We actually don't have a visa issue with Smex”, Assistant General Manager Kyoung Ey “AVALLA” Kim stated in regards to their off-tank player.
Image courtesy of Stewart Volland for Blizzard Entertainment