Proilios, and I will be sharing my thoughts on the Paris Eternal with you today. In my previous post, The Paris Eternal had an underwhelming season in 2019, and decided to ditch their 'all-European roster' model in order to go for something more efficient in the 2020 season. Hello and welcome (back) to The OverSeer everyone; my name is, and I will be sharing my thoughts on the Paris Eternal with you today. In my previous post, I reviewed the Chengdu Hunters , so if you want to read about them as well, feel free to do so whenever you get the time.





Now, I'd ranked the Paris Eternal 13th in my end-of-season power rankings for 2019 , and this year, their roster does look better overall. Does that necessarily imply that they will have a more successful season this year though? Let's review whom they have on each role and decide for ourselves.





Before we begin though, I just want to make it clear that I'll be reviewing the roster as a whole. Essentially, the roster will be treated as the sum of its parts, and even though we'll discuss the value each part brings to the table, that value can only contribute so much to the entire team. Also, the Eternal have a couple of underage players who will be eligible to play later in the season, but for the sake of this post, we will ignore that factor, and just talk about the team considering every member to be available full-time. I'm just doing this to normalise my discussions, so that we review every team on equal terms.









TANK

The Eternal currently have BenBest and NoSmite on main tank, and Smex and Hanbin on off-tank.

BenBest has already spent a year on this squad, but he sadly wasn't able to find much success with them. At the beginning of the 2019 season, I had high expectations from him, since I'd seen him play a fairly good Reinhardt at the 2018 World Cup, but sadly, he didn't do so well in the Overwatch League. I feel like he's still a talented Reinhardt player, but he needs his teammates to pump more resources into him, similar to how the Titans dedicated their cooldowns to Bumper last year, and I don't think he got enough support from his team during the Goats Meta. Speaking of his play on the other main tanks, I think he is an okay Orisa, a below-average Wrecking Ball, and a terrible Winston, so unless there's a Reinhardt meta, I don't think he will be able to shine much this year. He could make things work on Orisa if the rest of his team gets cozy playing the meta, but that's not saying much about his own prowess on the hero. The second main tank on the Eternal's squad is NoSmite, who was with the Hangzhou Spark last year, and although his team ended up advancing quite a lot in the Season Playoffs, he saw very little playtime throughout the year. Because of this, I don't have much to go on in terms of reviewing him as a main tank player, but based off of his Liquipedia page, the most success he's had seems to be during the Moth Meta, during which Winston was the main tank of choice for most teams. Hence, we can consider his Winston to be good, but other than that, I just don't know where to rate him, so to be fair, I'm going to consider him middle-of-the-pack.

A new Western off-tank that's been added to the team is Smex, who hails from the United Kingdom. Now I know for a fact that Smex plays a good D.Va, since I've seen him show off his skills on her during the 2018 World Cup. His Roadhog is also seemingly good from what I gather, so he should be capable of performing to a decent level in the Overwatch League on at least those two heroes. His South Korean counterpart on the same role is Hanbin, who played for Element Mystic until very recently, and I've actually watched him play in the Contenders Gauntlet. I thought his Sigma was pretty good, and I also know for a fact that he's a good D.Va player, so considering his success in recent (and not-so-recent) times, I think, he's the best tank player on this team.

Considering the quartet of tank players on this roster, I think the Eternal's frontline will be middle-of-the-pack this season, and that's simply because none of them is notably terrible or consistently amazing. Sure, they're all of different skill levels, but I think their average skill level isn't all that impressive, which is why I don't expect Paris' tank line to contain a 'wow factor' this season.





DPS

SoOn, NiCOgdh, Xzi and Sp9rk1e currently form the DPS line of the Eternal.

If you've even slightly followed professional Overwatch before, you will know who SoOn is. He's a veteran of the scene, and is a very talented hitscan player. Although he didn't get to show-off a lot of his specialty heroes in 2019, I think he's still got that special juice in him. In the little time I saw him play Widow last season, I was really impressed with the way he took off-angles and found his targets, even though it was risky and led to trades a good amount of times. However, his hero pool doesn't really extend beyond those hitscan heroes, and that means he's either not good in the recent high-sustain metas, or has to ride the bench until that trend goes away, and that is honestly a bigger problem than most people realise. Also, the hitscan talent in the League is going up severely this year (it almost seems like power creep...just kidding, power creep doesn't exist /s), so rating SoOn against his competition probably won't yield as good of a result as you'd expect. Slotted in on flex DPS alongside SoOn in 2019, and even in 2020, is NiCOgdh, who I think is the weakest damage player on this team. He got famous playing Genji and basically nothing else, and it's shocking because I've seen way better Genjis out there who can flex to other projectile heroes and flankers with not much trouble. He also showcased some decent D.Va play when needed, and was able to do a decent job on her during the Goats Meta, but he's probably not going to be fielded on the tank role any time in the foreseeable future, which means he's stuck as a Genji specialist, if you can even consider him that. It's sad, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful here, but NiCOgdh pulls down the average power level of the Paris Eternal by a considerable amount, and I don't think he brings any value to the team other than being a French national at this point. If he proves me wrong, I'll be really happy for him, but until then, I'll be wondering why he's on this roster, especially considering the two new damage dealers we're going to talk about next.

Xzi was part of Element Mystic along with Hanbin, and he is a hitscan and sniper player who hasn't seen as much playtime as the other damage dealers on the Contenders team in recent competitions. This kind of puts him in a similar position to SoOn in my mind, except that I think Xzi might be slightly better, especially alongside his Element Mystic teammates and coaching staff, some of who are now part of the Eternal as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Xzi wasn't fielded during the Double Barrier Meta by Element Mystic, was he? I just remember watching Sp9rk1e and Doha in every match I checked out, which is why I'm assuming he's not as good as either of them at the high-sustain heroes the Season 3 starting meta will possibly dictate. That said, let's move on to Sp9rk1e, one of the shining stars of Overwatch Contenders, who has now been added to their roster by the Eternal, and is already being eyed as a 'Rookie of the Year' candidate. This flex DPS player has contributed quite a lot to Element Mystic's recent successes in Contenders, and is well-known for his iconic Doomfist play. He also plays many projectile heroes to a high level, and is therefore, a very scary opponent to go up against. According to me, Sp9rk1e is the best DPS player on this team at the moment, and will probably be fielded every single time when he's available.

So, to round off the DPS line, I'd say there are some high highs and some low lows. Sp9rk1e certainly brings a ton of flexibility to this roster and can be what this team is built around when he finally comes of age, but other than that, you've got a couple good hitscan players who will certainly be challenged by the other hitscan talent in the League, and you've also got NiCOgdh, whom I don't think matches up at all to most other flex DPS players in the League. This is a tough one. I have absolute faith in Sp9rk1e, none in NiCOgdh, and a fluctuating amount in SoOn and Xzi, whose usefulness will likely depend on how strong hitscan heroes and snipers are in the meta. You know what? I'm going to take one for the 'hot take team' and say this is a bottom-5 DPS line, and it's really shocking that I have to say that, but considering that there are a lot more flexible DPS lines out there, I have to give this one a relatively low rating. I'm sure this stance of mine would change if I'd be talking about 'the two best fieldable DPS players per team', but this is about team averages, and the Eternal don't have a very high number to bolster when it comes to this parameter of comparison.







SUPPORT

The Eternal currently have two main supports in Kruise and FDGoD, and two flex supports in Hyp and Greyy.

The British main support, Kruise, has already spent a year with the Eternal, and I think he is an incredibly well-balanced player. It always seems like he's making the right decisions in-game, switching between passive and aggressive playstyles at the right time as both Lúcio and Mercy. As Lúcio, he's always speeding his team around when they need to reposition, healing them up from poke damage, and wallriding into the enemy team to get eliminations when his squad doesn't need his support for a few seconds. Even as Mercy, he doesn't hesitate to pull his pistol out every once in a while to finish off kills, which is something not many Mercy players go for, and I guess that comes from his origins as a DPS player. Anyway, all I'm trying to say is that Kruise has never been one of the reasons for Paris' mediocrity, and that retaining him was a wise move on the management's part. This season though, Kruise will be joined by the recent French breakout player, FDGoD, on the main support role. I think this is a really good signing, since firstly, it bolsters the French brand, and also, because FDGoD is a ruddy talented player. I was really impressed by his Baptiste play at the 2019 World Cup, and he's also great at setting up plays, chasing low-health targets, and displacing enemies with his Soundwave as Lúcio. I can't say much about his Mercy since I haven't seen him play her enough, but I'm sure he's good at that hero too. This is a great signing, Paris, I'm impressed.

The first player on the flex support role is Hyp, another Frenchman who has been on the Eternal's roster since 2019. He didn't impress me at all for the entirety of last season, and I don't think I have anything more to say about him. His Ana wasn't worth talking about, and he had quite a poor showing on Zenyatta as well. That's it, that's all I'll say about Hyp. Coming to Greyy, he didn't have a very good season either. I don't know if it was a mentality thing, but he just seemed very scared to go for offensive plays all the time, other than those pre-fight Ana nades he would sometimes go for on 2CP. When I spectated most other flex supports in the Replay Viewer, I'd see them go for offensive plays way more often than I'd see Greyy attempting them. Defensive nades as Ana, an unnecessarily high number of healing orbs as Moira, and an unusually high amount of focus on breaking shields as Zenyatta are points I noted about him while watching his perspective over multiple stages. I mean, I usually don't even notice so many details about a player after spectating them for hours, but Greyy's playstyle was so different compared to the other flex supports that I felt like I had to put these points in there.

To round off the support line discussion, I think the main support slot is in a fantastic place, but the flex support slot is still cause for worry. I think Hyp isn't a good fit for this team, and that even though Greyy is still an okay player, his playstyle needs to be fixed and really worked on by his coaching staff to shape him into the flex support the Eternal need. If either Greyy or Hyp starts playing at even an average level, I think Paris' backline could possibly be Top 5, simply because of the exceptional main supports they've got. If all else fails, I'd even say field Kruise and FDGoD at the same time and play Lúcio-Baptiste comps. You'll get all the eliminations you need and still be able to stay alive in tough situations. Anyway, that's unlikely, so let me summarise what I think of Paris as a whole before we end the article.





THE RAW LOOK VS. REALITY

At a glance, the Paris Eternal have a mid-table tank line, a not-very-flexible DPS line, and a half-baked but still potent support line. I'll have to factor in the knowledge that not all these players have been on a mixed roster before, which means communication can be tricky for them at least at the beginning of the season.

It's a clear answer for me here. Both realistically and on paper, the Eternal will be a below-average but not bottom-tier team. They've got a mixed bag of talent, with underwhelming players on their main tank and flex support roles, and also highly adaptable players like Sp9rk1e and FDGoD, which is why I think they'll rank somewhere like 13th or 14th once again, and not make the Play-Ins this time round as well. It remains to be seen how powerful the French brand ends up being though, and if the crowd in Paris, which is one of the most passionate I've ever seen, influences the team's chances in the standings to a significant extent.



