Meta Athena marked their first victory in APEX Season 2 as they blazed past BK Stars 3-0. Meta Athena showed solid teamwork with timely skillshots and coordinated macro. The beginning two sets turned out to be quite one-sided with BK Stars’ Beyblade combo not working so well while Meta Athena had smoother connection of skillshots from Hoon’s Zarya and Sayaplayer’s Tracer. BK Stars seemed to get back up in Temple of Anubis, but was soon taken down during the final set in Oasis.

Below is our post-match press interview with Jaehoon “Hoon” Choi.

How does it feel to win?

We had a new tank player as we went through rebuilds. We had rough beginning and there were worrying voices, but we managed to pull a 3-0 victory. We didn’t expect to win this decisively, though.

BK Stars advanced all the way to quarterfinals in the previous season. How did you prepare?

We scrimmed hard to stay sharp. We focused especially on coordinating with new teammates.

What came across your mind looking at how the groups were organized?

Other teams did not worry us as much, but when we looked at EnVyUs, we thought it would be hard for us to come first in the group. We thought it would be more feasible if we were matched up with other invited teams… We are confident that we can come second in the group.

How is EnVyUs different from other foreign teams?

We do not know because we have never fought against them, but I can tell that they are really strong.

Did your experience in Challengers give you more motivation?

We continuously went back and forth in between the tournament and scrims. We pushed really hard, won all the matches in recent Challengers and finally joined APEX. I think our experience motivated us to try harder.

How do you like APEX?

It’s really fun. The crowd was really huge and it made me nervous at first, but we soon regained confidence as the match went on. The best part was that there were fans that recognized us.

What do you think are the virtues of a good Zarya player?

You should shield your allies to buff up your damage output. Once you get good enough energy level you should care less about getting more energy and focus on protecting your allies. You should constantly protect allies that got hooked by Roadhog or ally Ana that is being attacked by enemy Genji or Tracer. Make sure you can fully shut down the enemy when you decide to go after him.

Korean fans gave you a nickname Hoon-ddo-goong (Hoon ults again) named after your continuous use of Graviton Surge.

I like that nickname because it means that I am good at charging ult meter and pumping damage output. I don’t know who came up with that first but I am really thankful.

Any last words?

We want to reach higher together as a team. I am really thankful for everyone that are cheering for us. Please keep it up, and we will reward with good performance.