Photo by Riot Games
After finishing the Pacific Stage 2 group stage as a top seed, VARREL has returned to competition. A new-look comp, a Duelist IGL, and the newest chapter of VARREL’s C1nder-Klaus rotation highlighted the return, a 2-0 loss to Global Esports.
Star player Jung “Foxy9” Jae-sung spoke with Ult Orb after the match and shared that there was some rust to shake off after three weeks away, but that any readjusting to live play was done midway through the first map.
“Ultimately, that’s not why we lost,” Foxy9 said. “We’ve always had our weaknesses, and it felt like GE did a good job of exploiting our weaknesses to win.”
VARREL, along with KIWOOM DRX, has been one of the teams exclusively running a six-man roster in Stage 2, switching out the 1999-born C1nder for the 2007-born Klaus in the Controller role depending on the map. Foxy9 expanded on what difference the two players bring in-game.
“I think a lot of people probably feel this way, but when we play with Klaus, there’s a real sense of pushing forward aggressively in terms of firepower, but since he’s still a younger player, the calling doesn’t get organized as cleanly,” he shared. “But when C1nder comes in, there’s some drop-off in firepower compared to (Klaus), but even so, C1nder is better at organizing and cleaning up calls between us, so I think that’s the main difference.”
Against GE, C1nder was the pick on both maps, Split and Summit. Throughout Stage 2, VARREL has struggled to figure out its play on Summit. Against GE, the team went with its third unique comp, with Foxy9’s Veto the lone Sentinel and a Phoenix-Yoru Duelist pair.
“We originally ran Cypher or Viper in our previous matches, but after running it a few times, we kept asking ourselves what color/identity suits us, so we came up with Veto, Yoru, and Phoenix,” he said. “There were strengths that came out when we played with that comp, but we weren’t able to show them off properly and ended up looking shaky instead, which was really disappointing.”
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One of the more interesting aspects of the comp was in-game leader oonzmlp on Phoenix, a look that has been used a few times.
“If the IGL plays Phoenix, people might think, ‘The IGL is playing entry? Won’t they have trouble shooting?’ But I don’t think that’s the case for our team,” he said. “Sometimes I’m the one calling, sometimes oonzmlp’s the one calling, sometimes another player is calling. Even though we do have one player officially designated as IGL, we play more like all five of us are IGLs.”
It’s not too long ago that Foxy9 was the hot-shot DRX rookie, but he’s slowly settled into a veteran role on a young VARREL team.
“For me, the biggest source of pressure was always feeling like I was never the underdog, but always in the position of being the favorite,” Foxy9 said. “I tell the team that the other team should actually be feeling more pressure and more strain than us right now. So if they are feeling pressure, that it’d be good to look at the other team, think about their situation, and figure out how to work through it on your own — that’s roughly what I tell them.”
Foxy9 and VARREL will kick off their lower bracket run against Pacific powerhouses Paper Rex, who are coming off of a dominant 2-0 win over ONSIDE GAMING.
“Well, we’ve only got one life remaining, and honestly, even with that one life, there’s basically no safety net,” he said. “Because of that, I think if we just play with real hunger, it’ll go well.”
