Benjyfishy at Red Bull Home Ground #5: “You’re never gonna be the best if you don’t love the process”

It has been a good couple of months since we last saw Benjyfishy and Team Heretics on the server. I got the chance to catch up with him during the preparation for Red Bull Home Ground #5, due to kick off on November 20th.

Sophie: So how are you? How are you doing?

Benjyfishy: Yeah, not too bad. I arrived in Berlin yesterday, did some content stuff today. Yeah, feeling pretty good. Feeling very good.

Sophie: Good! You feeling all ready for Red Bull Home Ground?

Benjyfishy: Yeah, always. I’m always ready to play. I mean, I haven’t played a tournament in like two months so yeah, I’ve been kind of bored, so I’m happy to just be back.

Sophie: I was going to ask because obviously, you did VCT last.

What have you been doing since then?

Benjyfishy: So off season, I mean, we finished Champions, and then I travelled to Japan right after Korea. So went from Korea to Japan and I spent nine days in Japan and since then, I’ve kind of just been relaxing at home, spending time with my friends, my family. I mean, during the season, you don’t really have time for that. So I’ve basically just been chilling and my trip to Japan was kind of like my holiday.

Sophie: What did you get up to in Japan?

Benjyfishy: I went to three different places. I went to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Fuji Oshira. Fuji Oshira is like a little town right next to Mount Fuji. And that was probably my favorite place. It was, like, super peaceful. And everywhere I walked around, it was just like a perfect view of Mount Fuji. So I loved it.

I kind of just traveled around. I just wanted to experience, like, the culture, the foods, the people. Yeah, it was perfect. It was a perfect trip.

Sophie: And take a little break from the server, right?

Benjyfishy: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

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Sophie: Okay, so you’re also a MOBA guy too?

Benjyfishy: I mean, League was the first ever game I played. I mean, there is Fortnite but nowadays, I’m sick of Fortnite, so I have more fun on League for sure.

Sophie: That’s cool. You never wanted to give Dota a try?

Benjyfishy: I did play Dota, but I never got too into it. For me, I think when I was younger, I liked League more because the graphics were better than Dota. Like, it just appealed more for me as a kid. So I’ve kind of just developed into still liking League more.

Sophie: Very understandable. Have you been watching Arcane?

Benjyfishy: Oh, my God, I watched like up to episode six or five last night, and I cried. I cried. So now I’m just going to wait until the last episodes come out and I’ll probably get to cry again.

Sophie: What was the bit that proper set you off?

Benjyfishy: Okay, I’m not gonna lie, I cannot say it because MiniBoo is currently in the same room as me and he asked me not to leak it. And if I say it, then yeah, but it was the Vander bit.

Who on your team?

This is your first Red Bull Home Ground event, right?

Benjyfishy: So we played last year, but in the qualifier, not the main event but we failed to qualify. It was with our current roster. We were in a qualifier with FUT, G2 Gozen and FOKUS, and we lost to FUT and FOKUS. It was our first ever event as a team so it’s kind of going full circle, like from the first event we played to now.

There’s been a lot that happened between then, so. Yeah, we never played, the main event.

Sophie: I mean, I guess a second place finish at Champions shows you’ve come a long way.

Benjyfishy: Yeah, we have indeed.

What are you most excited for at an event like Red Bull Home Ground?

Benjyfishy: For me, it’s kind of getting back into the swing of things. I mean, we’ve had so much time off now, and getting to play an official again feels really good. Just like being back home. Obviously, it’s nice for a while after having such a crazy year, but finally getting back and seeing other teams, meeting some friends that I haven’t seen in a while because obviously when you go to so many events and you’re in Berlin, you get to meet a lot of people and you become friends with them. So it’s nice to see people again and just to be in the environment again.

If you were to go to the Grand Final, and I’m gonna say you will, if you could choose your opponent, who would you choose and why?

Benjyfishy: I would choose T1, because, first of all, I’m a big T1 fan. Like, just the team in general, like in League and in Valorant, I think that is a very cool team. And also I am friends with them, with the players, because we went to visit the T1 facility in Seoul and we got to meet all the players there.

Yeah, I’m also a stax fan. I love stax, so being able to play against them in Grand Finals would probably be the best outcome for me.

Sophie: Yeah, definitely. I saw that you went to Worlds finals in London too.

Benjyfishy: Yes, yes, I did. This event was the best event I’ve ever been to. I’m a T1 fan through and through.

How did that come about, you going to Worlds?

Benjyfishy: So I got invited to the finals by Red Bull. It was before the T1/Gen.G game and I think that was when Bilibili was already in the finals. I’m pretty sure.

I got the invite to go before [that game]. But to be honest, I love League. Like don’t get me wrong, it would have been very cool to go even if T1 didn’t go. But if T1 didn’t win that game, I would have been really sad. Like really, really upset.

The main reason I wanted to go was to watch T1 in person because I got to watch them before MSI last year in London and they lost. So I really wanted to get to see them win and to get them to see win Worlds was like, it was amazing.

Sophie: And it was a hell of a finals.

Benjyfishy: It was. Oh my God. It was the best series of League of Legends I’ve ever seen. It was incredible.

Sophie: So I guess let’s maybe go back to Valorant. You’re kind of known for playing a bunch of different games. It’s not something we see often at a professional level.

im so happy 🥲🥲 thank you zofgk pic.twitter.com/FKX25krzX6

— benjyfishy (@benjyfishy) November 2, 2024

How do you jump between them?

Benjyfishy: I mean, for me, I feel like I’m just a very competitive person. I’m naturally pretty good at shooters and just games in general. And I knew I was already good at Valorant when I played it in the beta because I was still a Fortnite pro up until maybe like a year or two after Valorant came out.

I started playing Valorant on the side while I was still Fortnite pro and I realized I was able to hit top 500, I was able to hit Radiant while I was still a Fortnite pro and when I realized that, I was kind of like, well, if I can hit Radiant while I’m still like full time Fortnite, I’m just playing Valorant for fun, then if I was to put all of my effort into Valorant, then I could probably be pretty good at it.

So that was kind of my vision. I didn’t expect it to happen as quickly as it did. I was kind of thinking, like, maybe in the next three or four years I’ll get to play in VCT. But it happened within an 11 month time span from me quitting Fortnite to joining VCT. And I think me being well known did help with that, but I think I just improved very quickly when I went full time in Valorant.

Sophie: I mean it definitely proves you were right.

Benjyfishy: Yeah, exactly.

How would you compare like the pro Fortnite and the pro Valorant ecosystems?

Benjyfishy: I think Valorant for me is way, way better. I think the Fortnite competitive scene and the way they do things just isn’t very competitive. It isn’t much like esports.

You know, when I was younger, my dream was to be a pro gamer and I think part of that dream was having like, Worlds to go to. Having it be like it is with Valorant, right? You’ve got three international events. You’ve got the last event of the year, which is really big.

But in Fortnite, when I was playing, there was none of that. Part of it was probably due to Covid, but, you know, I feel like I kind of missed out on some cool experiences because I was a Fortnite pro during COVID and everything was online.

And also there’s, for example, in Fortnite, there would be a tournament on Friday and they’ll do like a major patch on Wednesday and they’ll make us play on the Friday. Like, it wouldn’t make much sense. But Valorant is way more of just like an esport, which is what I kind of love about Valorant.

Sophie: I’ve always found like the production value to be better on Valorant as well.

Benjyfishy: And that as well. Yep. A big thing for me, or maybe not that big, but what I realized about Valorant as well is that if you were to do something cool during a tournament in Fortnite, there’s a good chance the observers are not gonna see it. There’s a very high chance they just won’t see it because there’s a hundred other people playing the game, so it’s unlikely.

But if you do something cool in Valorant, it’s gonna get seen. It will almost 100% get seen.So I also love that about the observing aspects.

Sophie: Yeah, I’ve actually never even thought of that before because I guess that’s the same for all Battle Royales, right? Okay, so I guess obviously we talk quite a lot about how much you’re playing Val and how much you’re playing other games.

How do you balance your training with having an actual life?

Benjyfishy: You don’t. You don’t really, to be honest. I mean when I’m living in Berlin, I don’t really have much of a life. My schedule during the season is waking up at like 10:00am, going to the office 11 and then scrimming from 12 until 7 and then playing ranked until like 11 at night and then going back to the apartment and sleeping. That’s my day to day routine five out of the seven days a week. And on my two off days, what I do, I just wake up later and I go just play ranked. That’s it. Those are my days.

So I don’t really have much of a life when I’m living in Berlin during off season. When I’m living at home, I’d say I have more of a life just because I’m able to go see my friends, I’m able to go out, you know, where if I want to do something, I don’t have to wake up for scrims or whatever.

But in Berlin during the season is very full on and you can’t really have much of a of a life.

Does that ever bother you?

Benjyfishy: No. No, not really. I love it, to be honest. I feel like if you don’t love doing it then you’re never gonna be one of the best if you don’t love the process.

So I feel like that’s kind of the sign something needs to change is if you’re not loving the process.

Sophie: Yeah, that’s a really good point actually. I mean, I guess if you don’t love it then you just wouldn’t do it. So just one last question to end on.

If you could design your own Valorant agent to do anything you want, what would that look like?

Benjyfishy: Okay, it’d be a Sentinel, because I play Sentinel and the last two Sentinels that Valorant have released have been Vyse and Deadlock. Both of them are not meta at all, they’re both really bad.

If it was up to me, I’d make like some broken Sentinel. Like, I would have some sort of combination between Vyse and, I don’t know. I’m bad at coming up with, like, new tech. But if I was to think of, like, combining agents, I would love Cypher and Vyse in some way to be combined with having the visual trip, stuff like that. Something with something along the lines of Cypher.

I like kind of having setups where if someone comes into a site, you can just like 1v5. Whereas maybe kill Killjoy isn’t as much like that. You can’t really 1v5 with Molly’s, but with Cypher, Cypher trips you. You can in theory. So I’ll do something along the lines of Cypher for sure, something that gives wall hack, which is what I like.

Red Bull Home Ground 2024 takes place 20–23 Nov in Berlin, Germany. The quarterfinals and first semi final will be played on the 22nd. The second semi final and grand final will be locked in on the 23rd.