Risze: "LeStream is far stronger than Millenium"

Risze, AceeZ, Hicks, Liven and Renshiro made up the top team in French R6, Millenium, for the majority of 2018 however, big changes came to the roster following TeamMillenium’s withdrawal from esports and the decision to kick Liven and Renshiro from the roster. Now with the pickup of UUNO and Alphama and the roster’s acquisition by LeStream Esports the team has a new look and play style which they hope can bring them to the very top in Europe.

We spoke with risze about how the new players have been integrated into the roster and what they can achieve with the lineup:

Firstly, can you introduce the new roster for us?

Sure, we have UUNO, the first opener, the main entry fragger, he’s playing operators like Ash, Twitch, Zofia, he’s playing strong operators to make the entry kills and unlock opportunities.

Then you have AceeZ, he’s playing operators like Doki, IQ, Maverick if we need one, Capitao, Thatcher - operators that can either refrag on UUNO or me or flank.

Then we have Hicks the IGL of the team, he’s the one who’s making calls at the beginning of the round and he’s playing hard breachers, he’s playing Thermite and Hibana. Sometimes he plays Zofia and he plays really well as Zofia by the way.

Then you have Alphama who’s the second support/flank holder so he’s the one who’s gonna play operators like Thatcher, like Hibana if we need both hard breachers, or Capitao - smoke operators for example - and he’s the one who’s holding flanks. He’ll hold the whole flank with drones or good positions and drone for the other operators if necessary.

Then you have me, I’m playing a flex role. It means that most of the time I have to react to the calls of my teammates, if someone needs me to hold an angle, to use Capitao’s fire, or flash here, push here or just needs a nade from me I’m playing most of the time Buck, Sledge but I can play basically everything, I can play shields, I can play - I’m the flex of the team basically.

Many people would be surprised to see Liven, in particular, leave the squad; how have you adapted to these new changes?

The thing is Liven didn’t leave, we made these changes so we didn’t have to adapt, we wanted to play a certain game style and we are playing it right now with UUNO and Alphama. The game style we wanted to play since led by Hicks is like a real packed game style even though we can play split push and stuff like this. We wanted to avoid flanking unnecessarily every single round and that was one of the problems we had before the new roster. We didn’t really adapt, we are just playing the game style we wanted to play since the beginning.

Is LeStream as strong as Millenium was in Season 7 or 8?

I think LeStream is way stronger than Millenium because we are way more consistent and that’s a big part of the new game style we wanted to set up so yeah, I think we are definitely stronger than Millenium.

You’ve been with LeStream Esport for almost two months now - how are they treating you?

They are treating us well. We have a new gaming house and we still have access to the previous bootcamp area in Paris and we have new offices that are coming up soon. Even if it’s not the same management team than Millenium it’s the same place so we are used to it and we are feeling very good.

What do UUNO and Alphama bring to the squad and how have they been fitting in?

They have been fitting in very well, they both are former IGLs so I think they’re both able to make calls and bring that smart vision of the game we always wanted in Millenium. UUNO also brings a lot of firepower as well, that’s why he plays as a first entry fragger and he’s not the main IGL anymore and that’s a really big relief for him to finally focus on his game and when he can focus on his game he’s really really good at it so he brings the firepower and the smart calls when we need it.

For Alphama he sometimes brings his calls but I think at the beginning of the roster we had too much of these calls and it was not productive at all cause there were too many calls at the same time and we couldn't choose the best one. I think Alphama brings just his smart vision of the game alone. He’s not gonna make calls for the team but most of the time he will play very very smart by himself and for the team because he has a support role as a flank holder he will have good placement, he will have a smart vision of the round.

Your first game at the Invitationals is against EG followed by either Nora Rengo or PENTA - what kind of results can we expect in these matchups?

I don’t really know because we haven't played against EG with this roster yet and I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be a very good match because we look stronger than ever and EG as well. I think we are ready to play against EG. We will do the work on the matchup and I think we are ready as a team to fight against such a good team like EG. So obviously you can expect a good match for this one.

For Nora-Rengo or PENTA probably gonna be the same because Nora-Rengo is really improving these last few months and PENTA as well with the addition of blas. We scrimmed a lot against PENTA after the roster change they’ve made with blas and they really really look strong at least in scrims. I think he fits very well in the team and yeah, definitely, it’s gonna be a really good matchup.

In the Pro League, the European region seems really mixed at the moment - which teams other than yourselves do you think will be topping the table by the mid-season? (question answered after play day 4)

We already played four games by the time I’m doing this interview so I think Empire will continue to perform so they will probably be 1st/2nd and if Chaos don’t release the pressure and they keep going like this I think, yeah, they can definitely be one of the two top teams in the mid-season, Chaos is really doing well at the moment, they are playing really good, they have another mindset since their new roster so yeah, definitely, I would say Empire and Chaos.

Concerning G2, what would you say has changed that have caused their recent defeats/draw and do you think it will continue to the Invitationals? (question answered after play day 4)

I don’t know, I really don’t know to be honest about what is happening to G2 at the moment. I think they are not invincible and that sometimes you can play bad, especially in best-of-1s. From what I can see in the VODs it looks like a coordination problem but to be honest I think it’s way more deeper than that and to be honest I couldn’t answer to this question cause I really don’t know how the roster is functioning so, yeah, It’s really difficult to answer this question. I don’t think it’ll continue to the Invitational, I think that they’ll come back stronger than ever because, well, they are all experienced and really good players so, yeah. I think they are motivated enough to know what to do, to work out and correct the problems.

What one gameplay change would you like to be implemented into R6?

I don’t want something more to be implemented but not implemented definitely the QE-spam and the crouch spam, these two features have to be removed, let’s be honest, that’s nothing but toxic. It’s not competitive at all. I barely use it, to be honest, and it’s very frustrating to see people over abusing it and I couldn’t really blame them, you have to blame the game, right? But, yeah. I would like this to be removed

What are your goals for 2019?

To win it all as always, I really want to lift a Pro League trophy, a Major trophy, I will do whatever it takes to win it all and I think the team I think the team is going to do the same.

Any messages to your fans?

Thanks! A big thank you to the fans to be there, for the support they showed during the Six Invitational qualifications and after it really gave us strength for that long week - long and rough week - so yeah, thank you very much to them to be there, we really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

 

---

LeStream has just one game left this half of the Pro League Season against a struggling G2 Esports on Thursday and will then play in the Six Invitationals 2019 next month on the rainbow6 Twitch account with the following roster:

 Théophile "Hicks" Dupont

 Valentin "risze" Liradelfo

Maurice "AceeZ" Erkelenz

Aleksi "UUNO" Työppönen

 Léo "Alphama" Robine

Laurent "Crapelle" Patriarche (their coach)

You can learn more about this team by checking out my interview with Crapelle from last July right here with the full details and results of their upcoming matches, as well as more interviews, right here at SiegeGG!