Once upon a time, the Overwatch Team France 2018

Among them, an unmatched strategy-maker, worthy of our best battles

A veteran healer with multiple medals.

It’s Michael “winz” Bignet



Source : Rogue

Today’s October 13th 2016, in Shanghai. Rogue is currently facing Lunatic Hai in the APAC Premier 2016 grand finals, and is only one map away from winning the series. Lunatic Hai did not manage to push the payload until the Hollywood studios entrance, and was stopped in the far west town of the map, close to the second checkpoint. With their back against the wall, the Koreans try to regroup in order to contest the payload near the yellow mark. On the side of Rogue, it’s not gonna happen: a graviton surge is used. TviQ on his Hanzo unleashes his dragon. Every member of the Lunatic Hai squad is down. The “end of 2016” Rogue squad claims an other title and keeps showing to the world that they are the best of the best.

The clutch graviton surge was coming directly from winz’s cannon.

Born on June 13th 1987 in Paris, winz was quickly called by the video games universe: he started playing video games at the age of four. He knew the good old days of the nineties, the MegaDrive (Genesis in the US) was his first console. At first he played video games for fun but it was only for a time. On December 2nd 1999, 29 days before opening the new century, an iconic game of the FPS family came out: Quake 3 Arena. If Doom was a reference for the solo fast-FPS, Quake 3 multiplayer mode was the foundation of many games. His forerunners too, games being moddables and giving birth to a certain Team Fortress.

When the game came out, the LAN concept was florishing. winz participated in the majority of them in France on Quake 3, and have some good results. In 2004, he’ll switch games and started to play the concurrent license: Unreal Tournament. Everything changed for him: in 2005, he won the ESWC and became world champion on this game. He did not stay on Unreal Tournament and went back to Quake with the release of Quake 4. winz won the ESWC again, his second one, on a different game. In 2007 he got a bronze medal at the same tournament. During this time, winz clicked: when he was young, his main issue was the stress management, which he didn’t manage very well. LAN after LAN, year after year, this issue became a real strength. However, ESWC 2007 was his last one, and for a while. Following a pneumothorax, winz has to retire. He couldn’t travel anymore, knowing that he was doing this a lot to go to Paris, to a friend’s house to play with a good internet connexion (he hasn’t at his place). He will play competitively again in 2010. Quake Live has been released in the meantime and obviously winz got into it. Results will follow extremely quick: a DreamHack Summer win in 2011 and a DreamHack Winter win the same year.

In 2012, he started playing ShootMania. This game was team-oriented so he had to find partners. But you know what, his little brother aKm followed his path. He teamed up with him and stermy and won an other world champion title on a new game, finishing first at ESWC 2012 and IPL5. He stayed on the game for a while then went back to his roots and to Quake Live in 2015, the year he would win the QuakeCon.



Source : Team aAa

If Quake has always been a game which pleased winz, an other game rang a bell to him: poker. Since 2008, he played very often, and to live thanks to his passion for the cards game, he moved frome France to go to London or Prague. As in video games, he became professional and won several competitions.

Today he stopped poker. But why? Because an other cool fast-FPS was coming out in closed beta: have you heard of Overwatch?

winz started playing Overwatch with a first team made of French players only, already mentioned in the stories of SoOn. aKm, Krym, Nadir et uNKOE will be a part of this team with them, which did not last long. He will be approached by an esport personality he knew well: 2GD. His ambition was to create a team with the best players to dominate the scene. The first ever lineup will welcome TviQ (now a Florida Mayhem player), Mendokusai (Houston Outlaws), Reinforce (OWL analyst), aKm and uNKOE (Dallas Fuel). Mendokusai was replaced quickly by iddqd (ex SF Shock). MyDong was born, with winz as a support player specialized in Lucio. This name will not be kept: the Rogue organization was entering the Overwatch scene and chose this team to begin his journey. The first ever Rogue squad was born and shortly after, their first result: a TakeOver 1 win in Germany. iddqd left after this tournament: the team was looking for players who could stand the high pressure of the scene, and they did not take risks with the Swede. It was at this moment that KnoxXx (Eagle Gaming nowadays) was hired. Alongside this change, a roleswap occured: KnoxXx was playing support back in these days and to let him on his best role, winz played offtank. This is now the second iteration of the Rogue squad. This one will win the Atlantic Showdown and lose the Overwatch Open after a close series against Misfits, SoOn’s team.

The next tournament was APAC 2016, one of the best victories of the team. Rogue lost twice against Lunatic Hai in group stage. The squad still qualified for the playoffs, and reached the grand finals, to take her revenge against the korean titan. This match needed six maps to see a winner emerge: Numbani, the first one, ended as a draw and was replayed and won by Lunatic Hai. The next four maps were close but Rogue won each of them. winz will then go to Korea to play APEX Season 1, but things did not go well: after a qualification for the playoffs, they lost 2 to 3 against EnVyUs.



Source : Rogue

In the meantime tensions were rising in the team and changes happened. It was time for the famous three-way trade between Rogue, Misfits and Luminosity, resulting in the arrivals of SoOn and Skipjack. But Skipjack did not stay for long, as the team wanted a fully French communication. We can point out that the language was not a big deal for winz. For him, speaking in an other language makes the players speak less fast, less precise, less natural, and creates a sort of filter in the team communication of the team.

The replacement for Skipjack was none other than NiCO, and the third iteration of the Rogue squad, the full French one, was born, alongside the future 6 of France.

Now you know the story: the north american scene was dominated, they won TakeOver 2 and were selected for the World Cup. The only downs were APEX and Contenders S1 2017. This squad sadly did not stay as a whole. Rogue did not find an Overwatch League spot, and disbanded after a 4th place finish at the World Cup 2017. winz stayed in the shadows for several months, but he kept playing Overwatch ranked games. In the meantime he got back to his first love Quake with Quake Champions and ended 4th place at QuakeCon with Team Liquid, and won the DreamHack Winter of this game.

But Overwatch stayed his prior engagement. He managed to maintain his level of play by playing ranked games and reviewing VODs. His only objectiveobective to focus on: Overwatch League.

To enter the League, he’ll show all of his qualities in this French team. According to his teammates, his strength lies in his comprehension of the game and the development of team strategies. Michael is a strategic mastermind, heir of Sun Tzu, and the main healer of the team, playing Mercy and Lucio. His challenge will be to learn to play Mercy, which should be no real big deal for him.

France needed a strategy-maker to win on the battlefield. Michael answered the call.

A competitive veteran, immune to the pressure.

His heals will be the key of a french success.

Only one outcome: victory.

It’s his story.

#avecle6

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Written by @HammerKick_OW with the help of winz

Verified by @NannaOW

English translation by @ChabaLoutre

Front page visual source : Blizzard