Rogue have one of Overwatch’s most storied histories. Signed shortly after the game’s release, they consistently ranked amongst the top teams in Europe. Among their success were victories at the Atlantic Showdown and APAC Premier events, as well as deep runs in other LANs.
In December, the team traded TviQ and Reinforce to Misfits in exchange for SoOn and Skipjack, part of a three-way trade that also included Luminosity. After a disappointing trip to Korea for IEM Gyeonggi, Rogue released Skipjack, and then vanished from the public eye to train. Now, after over two months away, Rogue are back, with new member NiCO. The team relocated to Las Vegas last week – a move that’s been in the works since at least November – and their first competition as a North American team will be February’s Overwatch Alienware Monthly Melee.
Rogue will face some of the strongest teams in the region, including Hammers, who claimed the January Melee, and Immortals, who won the $100,000 Winter Premier at PAX South. How will these titans of Europe fare against NA’s new elite? We spoke to Rogue’s aKm to get his thoughts.
Welcome to North America! So how do you like Las Vegas? Are you excited that the long-awaited move has finally happened?
Thank you! I personally love Las Vegas, only because I come from a small city of France, so it’s a huge change for me! We’re obviously excited that it finally happened after talking about it for months, a new adventure begins, and the future looks bright!
We’ve seen very little of you guys since the three-way trade with Misfits and Luminosity. Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve been up to in the last two months?
We took the necessary time we needed to finalize our roster, we wanted to be 100% sure of it for the long term. We haven’t participated to any tournaments because sadly, there were no tournaments in EU, that’s the main reason why we moved to NA. But now that we’re here, and our roster is ready, we’ll be as active as possible, so you’ll see a lot of Rogue in the future!
You’re about to participate in the Overwatch Alienware Monthly Melee, Rogue’s first tournament as a North American team. Cross-regional play has been pretty limited thus far. Have you played any of the other teams in the Melee before?
We sadly haven’t had much time to play against those teams, but we’ve watched some VODs of all of them from the last tournaments, so we pretty much know what everyone is doing. We just gotta adapt to the NA playstyle, which is different from EU in my opinion, and hope it works out.
How do you think your new roster stacks up against the other teams in the tournament? What about against the Western teams playing in Korea?
I think we have a great chance to become one of the best teams in the world, if not the best. It’s all about hard work and dedication, only the future will tell us.
We have to win it. Winning will always be our main goal. Anything but first place is a failure to us, but it would also be a motivation to work even harder.
With all that in mind, how well do you have to do at the Melee to consider your NA debut a success?
We have to win it. Winning will always be our main goal. Anything but first place is a failure to us, but it would also be a motivation to work even harder.
Shifting gears a bit, this will be your first event on the new patch, which seems to be friendlier to DPS-heavy compositions than the patch you played on at IEM Gyeonggi. What are your thoughts on the current meta? Is this patch a good one for Rogue?
It surely is way better than it was at IEM. The triple tank meta was just horrible to play in, and probably horrible to spectate as well. I think this meta can be a good one for Rogue, but with us moving to Vegas, we haven’t had much time to actually play in this meta. But the short amount of time we’ve scrimmed, the meta looked good, and favorable to us, since it’s now 2-3 DPS.
You and SoOn have overlapping hero pools. Now that more teams are running two or three DPS heroes, how did you guys decide who plays which hero and when?
We simply decided that I wouldn’t change my role, and he would if it was necessary. But right now we’re playing on our comfort picks, which is a good thing for us. We might, in the future, play heroes we’ve never played, we’ll see.
One last topic: the Overwatch League is set to start later this year, and many people believe that Rogue brought you over to Las Vegas because they intend to bid for a spot. What are your thoughts on the league?
We haven’t had much information about this League yet, but it looks very bright for the future of Overwatch, and esports. I just hope some of the rumors I’ve heard - like doing a draft - won’t happen for the first season, which could be a terrible thing.
You were part of season 1 of the Korean OGN APEX league. Are you hoping that the Overwatch League is set up the same way? What worked well and what didn’t work well?
Yes and no. The setup was amazing, so having something similar to that would be great, but for a League, I’d rather have another format, LCS-like. Everything was in general great at OGN, so hopefully Overwatch League will be similar!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Good luck at the Monthly Melee. Do you have any shoutouts? Where can we find you on social media?
Thank you very much for this interview! I’d like to thank Rogue for believing in us, and for giving us this opportunity to live in Vegas, I would also like to thank our sponsors The Loop, Clutch Chairz, LEET, CVBN Law, Dim Mak, and Meta Threads. And thanks to everyone who is cheering for us, and hope you’ll continue to do so in 2017. We’ll do our best to not disappoint you!
You can find aKm on at @Rogue_aKm. I'm on Twitter at @PestoEnthusiast. And, of course, for more competitive Overwatch news, follow us @GosuOverwatch.
