Team BDS Reaches The Summit (Press Conference Transcription)

Team BDS - Photo Courtesy of Team BDS

(This article is a transcription of the World Championship Sunday Press Conference, edited down to just questions from Shift).

The long grind of the RLCS ‘21-’22 is over, and despite the ups, downs, surprises, and disappointments that teams faced during the 9-month marathon, it ended in a way you could’ve easily predicted at the start of it all: with Team BDS at the top. Comprised of Monkey M00n and Extra, two-thirds of the roster that terrorized Europe throughout the online era, along with Seikoo, who capped off what may be the greatest rookie season in the history of the esport, BDS may not have had the smoothest ride through the year, but they played their best when it counted. They overcame a red-hot Karmine Corp and a FURIA team that had just come off the most memorable LAN win in recent memory, and finished it off by dominating G2, who sported the best resume of any team going into the World Championship. Shift spoke to the players of Team BDS as well as coach Mew after their championship victory to see how they’re feeling, and their thoughts on the season, their careers, and the powerhouse they faced off against in the first Worlds finals in three years.

As a full-French roster, when you won the World Championship, was there a sense of pride in continuing the legacy of French excellence in Rocket League?

Extra: Yeah, we’re very happy about it. We want all new French players to look at us the way we looked at the ones that came before us. 

Mew: Before our series with FURIA, we realized that if we lost the series, it would be the first season ever without a European team in the Finals, and the first in a long time without a French player. We knew we had to win. 

Seikoo, when you first took the field as a rookie with Endpoint this season, did you have any feeling that you’d end the year a champion?

Seikoo: No. I think my first game was against Karmine Corp, and I was just focussed on winning a series. I didn’t think it was realistic that I’d be a world champion this year, but I’m glad I was wrong. 

Extra and MonkeyM00n, you guys were already extremely successful without Seikoo and Mew. What was the motivation to bring them in?

Extra: I think we wanted more structure and someone to help with our mentality. I think we fell apart a bit with Marc in the Winter Split, and that’s why important to bring someone like Mew. We also wanted someone who could help us play better on the field, and we found we played best with Seikoo. 

Obviously, you don’t get to choose who you play in the Finals, but was there a team you especially wanted to play for the championship?

Extra: G2. 

Mew: All of us wanted to play G2. We scrim a lot against them at LAN, and they were the only team that really blew me away in scrims. They were the best in practice. I’m really happy we got that chance. I do think the team we missed playing was Moist, though. We were 1-1 in the Spring in finals, and I thought it would be cool for the Grand Finals to be a best-of-3 of sorts. I’m pretty sure they’ll bounce back. 

It didn’t look like G2 played up to standards in the Finals. Did you notice this, or did you expect this level of play from them? 

Mew: I think we can find things to explain why they played the way they did. We had just played and they had played earlier, so we were warmer than they were. They also seemed to be a bit off mechanically. There were a lot of misses, and G2 never misses. To be honest, I didn’t recognize the G2 that I saw until maybe game 3 or 4. It’s a bit sad for them, but we take those. 

Was there anything specific in your playstyle you changed to play against the teams today?

Mew: We didn’t change anything. We knew exactly how G2 would play, but they play it perfectly. We decided to do the same thing; we found one playstyle and mastered it, and luckily, that playstyle countered G2 well. We like to take our time, and G2 is a team that’s really explosive. They have trouble when you take time to respond to their aggressive nature. 

Looking forward to next year, are you on the lookout for any teams or players that could make a big splash in Europe or internationally? 

Mew: Liquid. If they stick together, Liquid is definitely going to be a contender. 

It takes years of grinding to even get to a level where you can compete in RLCS, let alone be a top player. Was there a moment in your life when you guys realized that you could be a pro, and an elite one at that? 

Mew: I don’t think you can expect this in any way. I think there are lots of players that can be world-champion level, but it always comes down to details. Any team that made Sunday could’ve won it all, so you can’t look too far ahead. You have to live in the moment. We beat KCorp; we focussed on FURIA. We beat FURIA; we focussed on G2. At any point today, I thought to myself, “I could be World Champion”. But in single best-of-7s, anything can happen. Thankfully, we took care of the details.