Once upon a time, the Overwatch Team France 2018.

Among them, a shooter precise enough to draw furrows.

An essential turret to any battalion.

It’s Dylan « aKm » Bignet.

Source : Rogue

Today’s the 21st of August 2016, in Cologne. Two hours ago, the semi-finals match opposing EnvyUs and Rogue has started. It’s up to the last round of Lijiang Tower, Night Market, to decide who’s going to win. The last fight was coming and Reinforce killed two EnvyUs players immediately, Rogue just had to clean up. « It’s not over yet, put your headset back on son, you have a game to play ! », shouted UberShouts about uNKOE already celebrating this historic victory. The 57-win streak of EnvyUs had collapsed by the best european time who recently became the best in the world.

In this team, there was aKm

Born on December 11, 1995, aKm was always a video game passionate. In his young age, he followed the steps of his brother and started competing very quickly. Not on Quake however, but on Counter-Strike : Source. The popular Half-Life mod had already convinced millions of players and became the reference for multiplayer FPS on the side of Valve, with its aim and strategy-based gameplay. The game did not only affect casual players. The first LANs were appearing with authentic games such as Quake and Counter-Strike. But aKm was at the moment too young to participate at LAN events. Too young to his name in history over already big names. In 2012, a tough choice had to be done : play Counter-Strike : Global Offensive or the new Nadeo individual property : ShootMania. Frustrated by not being able to be recognized properly in Counter-Strike, he decided to follow the fast-FPS route with the last game from that french developer mentionned above. He regretted this choice. After living for two years, it did not anymore, and it was not possible for him to come back to Counter-Strike as he had not played it competitively for so long.

However, the ShootMania experience was a great way to rocket him towards success. The game was a fast FPS, requiring reflexes and aiming was even more important. His first 6 months he played in a team with Lanf3ust, manager for Team France this year and Kryw, who you saw in action in 2016 for France. With this lineup, aKm won his first major event. In June 2012, he finished second of the SOPALAN, the first LAN for ShootMania ever. But who got the gold there ? A person known as Michael « winz » Bignet. At this moment, his brother realized that his sibling had potential, and when one of his teammates retired, aKm was picked up right away to replace him.. Everything fell into place, with a great promise : to dominate completely then french scene. That’s what happened in ShootMania in France : they became world champions by winning ESWC, in 2012, while winning IPL in the meantime.

Source : aAa

Issue is : the game wasn’t enjoyable for his team. Bit by bit, the duo was parting ways with ShootMania. aKm stayed a bit longer on the scene and would playfor his last team : aAa. During this period, he met with SoOn and uNKOE from Aera Esports. In every tournament, Dylan’s team had to battle Aera in finals, and every time, SoOn and uNKOE took over.

In the meantime, Overwatch was about to launch its closed beta.

When the game became available, aKm had a team project with winz. But SoOn and uNKOE were also interested by the new Blizzard licence. ShootMania allowed these players to know each other better : as a follow up, uNKOE asked aKm if his duo could join his team. The answer was yes. That first french team was born, completed by Kryw and nadir. The team however did not last long : aKm was approached by 2GD to build a top players team. So MyDong was born, and then picked up by Rogue. After a victory at TakeOver, iddqd was replaced by KnoxXx and the 4 french + 2 swedish players iteration was born.

This version of Rogue had, in 2016, written a new page of Overwatch history. This was done in a few instants at the Atlantic Showdown, in August 2016. After a nearly perfect group stage (lost to REUNITED 2 to 1), Rogue had to fight EnvyUs (today’s Dallas Fuel). The american organization was at this point considered as the best team in the world, and for good reasons. Fifty-seven wins in a row, a number they wanted to increase. But it didn’t work out the way they were hoping. One of the closest matches Overwatch had ever seen occurred. Lijiang Tower, the last map, saw its five rounds played in order to find a winner [note : at this time of the game, control maps were played in BO5]. Two hours later, only one victor : Rogue. EnvyUs’ win streak had evaporated, from 57 to 0.

The team chained performances after performances, until tensions started to rise in the team. Changes had to be done, and that is when the three-way trade intervenes : Rogue picked up two Misfits players : SoOn and Skipjack. The latter was german and was not kept, which led to looking for a projectile DPS : NiCO was chosen. The 6 was born, and its 2017 domination period had just started, with more and more victories. That was until the results of APEX and Contenders Season 1. The lineup was selected to represent France in 2017 and ended up fourth in the World Cup, the last Rogue tournament, as the team split up a few days before. aKm’s teammates found a home, but not him. He wanted to play again as soon as possible, but knew that patience would be the key towards success. A vast majority of Contenders teams offered him opportunities, but he kept on waiting, convinced that a slot in Overwatch League was at the end of the line.

Source : Rogue

His strategy paid off : on February 13th, Dallas Fuel announced the signing of Dylan « aKm » Bignet.

When the french player joined the texan team, not everything was going well : the team had major issues at securing victories and lost a lot of matches. This, followed up by internal issues and suspensions, including xQc leaving, EFFECT going back to Korea and OGE’s suspension has he arrived. Lots of changes happened in the meantime : uNKOE, formerly Rogue, was traded for Custa and picked up in Fuel, Rascal was released alongside coach KyKy. Players had to play heroes they were not comfortable with, such as Taimou playing main tank and Seagull playing D.VA. aKm had to adapt and play heroes he did not play before at this level, Genji and Tracer especially. The result were showing up immediately, and Dallas Fuel’s crash kept on happening. aKm had finally the opportunity to play his comfort picks in the fourth stage, but it was too late : Dallas Fuel was already at the bottom of the rankings. The org had very recently announced the destiny of its players for the second season of Overwatch League : aKm will continue to burn in blue the next seasonssues being now solved, he only has a single objective : prove himself in the role he was picked up for.

This role was also the one he was picked up for in Team France : if NiCO is very flexible, aKm specializes truly in a type of heroes : the « hitscans », the instant-damage heroes. Soldier 76, McCree, Widowmaker and Sombra are hitscan heroes for example, and aKm’s strength, his aim, allows him to play it at the highest level. Add some Pharah play and you get a DPS player with solid picks. A good game sense is also required for him, especially for his positioning because some of the heroes can be killed very easily. The meta does not help hitscans to shine, but aKm is ready to do everything he can to improve his reputation.

To honor France, aKm will give everything in his power.

A man ready to sacrifice everything for his team.

His fire power will bring him a pair of wings.

His visor will point towards the firmament.

It’s his story.

#avecle6

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Written by @HammerKick_OW with the help of aKm

Assisté et relu par @NannaOW

Translated by HammerKick

Front page image source : Blizzard. Visual by KrapoPlay