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HyP on his future in Overwatch: “I’m not allowed to talk about it yet, but I should be able to very soon and all I can say is I’m super excited!”

Volamel 2018-10-04 05:22:10
  Damien "HyP" Souville is now an Overwatch Contenders champion. He and his now former team, Eagle Gaming, took the tournament by storm after a wavering group stage. Group B, which housed teams like CIS Hope, Team Gigantti, and One.PoinT competed alongside Eagles Gaming to keep their playoff dreams alive. Oddly enough Eagle only advanced out of the group as the 3rd seed. However, going into playoffs the team took off and did not exceed more than a single map loss to every team they faced as they cruised to win the grand final against Angry Titans, 4-1. Now, HyP looks for the next step in his career but took some time out to sit with Esports Heaven to discuss the finals in Paris, the format of team building, and much more! _____ First and foremost, you and your former team, Eagle Gaming, took home the Contenders EU championship in convincing fashion in front of a roaring crowd in Paris. What was it like to finally raise the trophy up and celebrate on familiar soil? It was amazing, I don’t even know how to explain the feeling of winning in front of such an amazing crowd cheering for you. I’ll always remind the last fight, SuperPlouk did a big Earthshatter with the help of Leaf’s Brigitte. A lot of our opponents were on the ground and then the crowd started to stand up and cheer for us. At this time I knew we were champions, it was amazing. It was a long run and we worked very hard for this trophy. I think we deserve it and we’re obviously very happy and proud of what we achieved. Speaking of the match, the team seemed to look a bit flustered when it came to Temple of Anubis. It was the only map you dropped to Angry Titans in your 4-1 victory, could you walk me through what happened on Anubis? Yes, we were laughing about it in-game, to be honest. We worked a lot on Volskaya Industries because we thought they were going to pick it but instead they chose Anubis. They had the best composition to counter our game plan and we got surprised and didn’t know what to do and how to adapt. But we are used to losing Assault so we didn’t panic and we just stayed focused for the next map. Now you just announced your departure from Eagle Gaming, a 12 man, entirely French roster. As someone who has lived and experienced trying to incorporate twelve team members into practice sessions and discussion, do you think it’s the most optimum team structure? This is a very good question and I don’t think that someone has the answer yet. It depends on so many [things]. The 12 players have to understand that six of them will be on the bench and might not play much but they need to stay at their best level and motivated. In a situation where everything is perfect, all the players are happy [whether] they’re on the bench or not. Then it’s good because you can work on what you want as much as you want. For example, if you wanna practice GOATs against a counter GOATs composition on the first point of Numbani, then you can practice this point as much as you want. Then if the meta changes you can swap players. And in the situation where the players are not happy, then it’ll create a toxic mood in the team and it can be very negative. A follow up to that last questions: how important was it that you all were of the same nationality and, more importantly, all spoke the same language? Do you think it would have worked if you had to deal with a language barrier on top of everything else? I don’t know if it would’ve worked. But to be honest, speaking the same language between teammates is a good thing for the time you spend out of the game. Being friends with your teammate is a good thing and you can feel it in-game. A good team is a team who plays together and helps each other--not where you have six very strong players killing [each other]. Your former teammate Lilbow recent posted that even after winning Overwatch Contenders Season 2, he -- and apparently some of your other teammates -- were not even being given opportunities to trial for Overwatch League teams. From a players perspective, could you expand on this topic? I’d love to get your thoughts on this. I retweeted his tweet and I talk a bit about what I feel in the answers of my own tweet if you want to see my thoughts on this. I have nothing more to say, to be honest. I just don’t really [understand] why some of my teammates didn’t get trials [with Overwatch League teams] after what we achieved. Obviously, because people think we are good on tanks only but by not trialing players because of that, they don’t even leave the chance to the players to prove they’re wrong.     I’ve spoken to my fair share of players and gotten mixed responses to this question, so I’d be interested in what you think of this as well. As a player, would you say it’s more important to do well in Contenders or make the Overwatch World Cup if your end goal is to play in the Overwatch League? The best is to do both is obviously as NicoGDH did. But I’d say it depends on your country. Playing the World Cup is definitely huge because a lot of people are watching it, and you play with and against players from the Overwatch League. So I’d say you have more chance to be scouted and known if you play the World Cup than in Overwatch Contenders. Many players and personalities alike have come out and said that Eagle Gaming was one of the best, if not the best, GOATs teams in the world. Would you agree with that and what differentiated your style of the composition from the way that everyone else played it? I just think we are the best when we play tanks against people who try to play dive or counter GOATs. We worked so hard on this and everyone obviously tried to find a counter to what we were doing. Some of the teams found some counters sometimes, but the next day we had the answer and they didn’t finish the maps. I don’t think we have much advance in tanks against tanks. We just worked a lot and we optimized a lot all of our compositions and gameplans. With your chapter closing with Eagles Gaming, what comes next for you? Are you looking to explore other options outside of being a player? I’m staying and will continue as a player as long as it’ll work for me. For my future, I’m not allowed to talk about it yet, but I should be able to very soon and all I can say is I’m super excited! _____ Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLGs of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel. Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.
 

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