It is an unmissable event in French esports. Lyon Esports starts this Friday evening and from Saturday, two participants in the tournament Fortnite will probably be a little more observed than the others. Nicolas “Nikof” Frejavise (France, 20 years old) and Karim “Airwaks” Benghalia (Switzerland, 25 years old) surprised their world two weeks ago by leaving the Tours club of Solary to join the capital and Vitality. Between two streams and their training, they came back to this choice.
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“Why did you decide to leave Solary for Vitality?”
Nikof: It’s a whole lot of things. We hesitated a lot, we were very good at Solary, we made a lot of views and we had good results. But we streamed seven days a week, we hardly saw our families … And elsewhere, others made a better living, with less success. We received a big proposal from Vitality. Money is still a motivation because in this environment we have the feeling that everything can stop suddenly. But it’s not just that: Paris brings us closer to our families, in Switzerland and in the South …
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Airwaks: There is also the staff. We wanted to work with a sports coach for a long time but we must admit, we are lazy … There we are going to have someone to push us to pay attention to us, to what we eat. Even if what we do does not require incredible physical efforts, it will help us to endure long efforts and mentally.
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Nikof: I went to the Stade de France to see the premises of Vitality and I met the coach (Raynald Choquet, also physical trainer of Paris Volley), he is a machine. He told me : “ The goal is not to build muscle, it’s to make you better at Fortnite “.
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Airwaks: I add ping (connection speed) also. Here the conditions are ideal when all is well, we take all the walls it is indecent. An example: during training, I had the opportunity to take a duel against a guy for a while. Nikof says to me “ don’t play it, don’t play it “. I played it, I took all of its walls, I exploded it. The difference is crazy, you have to take advantage of it.
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Wasn’t it too complicated with Solary?
Nikof: We received Vitality’s offer in December. She was balèze, we talked about it immediately to Solary. They made a counterproposal to the pitch, to show that they wanted to keep us. But Vitality outbid. From there, we knew it would be very hard to refuse. We made the choice that we thought was the best, even if it was hard, because we are leaving a real family. But we did everything to make it go as well as possible. We will stay on very good terms.
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Airwaks: We made our decision in mid-January, we wanted to give them as much time as possible to find replacements. We did not have contracts that bound us to Solary, we could have left as we wanted but it would have created a big mess, especially to run the webtv. We wanted things to go well. It was not an easy decision to make, but we weighed the “pros” and “cons”. There was more “for” in favor of Vitality.
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Nikof: And there’s the story with Kin. We felt a little betrayed. (in the final of a tournament, while the team of Airwaks and Nikof played the win, that of Duong “Kinstaar” Huynh, player of Solary too, came to hunt them at the start of the last game, condemning their chances)
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Airwaks: Our departure did not happen overnight, we wondered what we were worth, if it could be better elsewhere. This event is a bit of what turned things around. At the time, we did not understand the support that was given to him.
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Nikof: Afterwards, we’re not kids, we talked together. There is no bitterness. But we do not forget.
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Did leaving Solary also mean emancipating yourself?
Nikof: We wanted more autonomy, freedom yes. Today we launch a stream a bit when we want, we can take the time to go see our families …
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Airwaks: Now it’s probably more professional here too. Solary is a family and it has its good sides. At Vitality, we will have more pressure. But they were looking for competitors with a strong community behind them.
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The fans were surprised but reacted rather well elsewhere.
Nikof: On the day of the announcement, it was ” why are you leaving Solary “,” it’s a joke “… People were surprised and we understand that it saddens them. Today, 90% of those who comment support us, there are people on our Twitch lives … They follow us for what we are, what we did, whatever the team.
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Airwaks: The last ones, we will have to convince them at Lyon Esports (to laugh). We are expected at the turn. Many still hope that we break the face. But we’re going to play hard and it’s going well in training. We are hungry and we want to prove that there is no “Vitality curse”. After, it’s the magic of LANs … Last year we had to make everyone believe that the tournament was canceled to be able to finish it. And then this is only a first objective, a step. We are looking forward to the announcements from Epic Games.
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How do you live this absence of a competitive circuit for 2020?
Nikof: It’s annoying, we don’t know where we’re going. We are professional on a game and we do not know if we will stay tomorrow, if there will be competition … It is frustrating. But that’s how it is Fortnite. Overnight, they cut the game, they put a black hole, nobody says anything and then they announce something and everyone comes out that it is the best game in the world. But it’s not easy not to be able to project yourself into the future. We could already work. There, we feel that everything will be announced overnight and the competition will start two weeks later.
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Airwaks: Now we already have our trio, our squad … We will be able to react quickly.
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Nikof: Change of club, new season … There are a lot of things that motivate us. As a duo, it’s been a while since we’ve practiced seriously. Since the Winter Royale in December?
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