With the 2021-22 RLCS season now in the rearview mirror, we had the opportunity to sit down with Dignitas pro player Jack “ApparentlyJack” Benton to discuss the World Championship, as well as the season as a whole.

Hey, Jack! So, you have finally come to the end of another long RLCS season. Any big plans for the offseason?

ApparentlyJack: I do have a holiday coming up in a few days! Going to be heading to Bali. So, I’ll have a break. But I’m also just going to be focusing on grinding and improving a lot for next season. That way, I can be better than I ever have. I really want to keep that up.

Bali sounds amazing! So, looking back on this season, what were some of your favorite moments?

ApparentlyJack: I think, of course, winning a Regional Event was great. It was really nice to finally win something like that. I think getting to walk out in front of a crowd at the World Championship was amazing. And honestly just going to LANs. They were my first LANs ever, so it was very exciting. I just really love that sort of thing.

So, the season of course came to a close with the World Championship. This was your first Worlds appearance, but it was also the first Worlds in general since December of 2019. How special was it for you to not only be at your first Worlds, but be a part of a pretty historic one?

ApparentlyJack: It definitely felt special. It feels good being a professional and playing on the Worlds stage, and having that opportunity is something I will probably cherish forever. Being a part of the first one back after two and a half years made me feel very blessed to have such an opportunity!

You guys ended up finishing the season 4th in Europe, which means you just missed out on auto qualifying for the playoffs, but you got a pretty high seed in the wild card. Naturally, this did mean extra games. How did you prepare for the gauntlet that was ahead?

ApparentlyJack: We just kept it positive! So, there were two ways we could look at it. We could feel really annoyed that we barely missed out on the top 3 to auto qualify, or we could look at it like a good warm up and extra games under our belts. That gives us even more experience on the big stage. I didn’t mind it personally! We did lots of scrimming and lots of playing going in to the tournament. We were all on extremely high hours to prepare for it. We just went to it with good vibes.

In the wild card, you guys ended up getting a 4-0 sweep over Gaimin Gladiators in round 1, but fell 0-4 to Optic Gaming in round 2. What were your thoughts on those two series?

ApparentlyJack: So, the Gladiators sweep was kind of expected. They’re a decent team, but they obviously haven’t had the experience that other teams have had. I’m sure they won’t mind me saying that, they’re absolutely lovely guys. The Optic series was a bit of a hit. We felt like we just didn’t perform under pressure and didn’t execute our gameplan. The games were close, we just couldn’t fully get it going.

Despite the loss, you guys did bounce back really well in the next two rounds, scoring a 4-1 victory over 01 Esports and a 4-0 victory over Spacestation Gaming, two teams who had gotten the better of you at previous LANs. This qualified you for the main event! Talk a bit about those games.

ApparentlyJack: The 01 series was really nice to win, especially since we had just lost to them recently in Saudi Arabia. Winning a match you had lost beforehand is great for building confidence. We also won it very convincingly, as a lot of the games ended up not even being close. It showed us that we can play at the level we want to be at, which was especially good after getting swept the previous series.

That being said, the Spacestation one gave us even more confidence. To sweep a team as good as them, especially when they had beaten us in the past, gives you a lot of confidence and motivation. It put us on a good note heading into the next stage of the tournament.

Speaking of the next stage, the road did unfortunately come to an end there. You guys fell 2-4 to Team Falcons, and then fell 2-4 to The Club, a team that surprised a lot of people. However, you did get to have the experience of playing on stage at the World Championship. Talk a little bit about your takeaways from the match ups and how it felt to be in that environment.

ApparentlyJack: So for the Falcons series, we actually had a pretty good gameplan. We actually performed quite well in my opinion; it wasn’t that we played terribly. However, we did lose that five-minute overtime in game 4. We were up 2-1, so if we had won that, we would have gone up 3-1 in the series. Unfortunately, that put it at 2-2 and it changed the entire series. They had a lot of momentum after winning such a long overtime and I think that ended up being the decider.

The Club definitely surprised us. They played a lot better, and they just took that one. Sometimes, that’s just the way it goes. Playing on the Worlds stage was incredible though. There were like 12,000 fans or something. It's very hype, but it’s also a lot of pressure. I’ll take away a lot of experience and tips when it comes to playing under that sort of pressure. I’m looking forward to the next one and hopefully making a run at winning it.

So, we talked a little bit about The Club already, but were some of your other surprises from Worlds? Whether that be teams or just the event in general.

ApparentlyJack: I was definitely surprised that Falcons dropped out when they did, I thought they were going to be top 8 at the minimum. I thought that Team BDS could win Worlds, but I didn’t expect them to absolutely dominate like they did. They were by far the best team there, they deserved it for sure which was great to see. I was also surprised about how big the event felt. There were advertisements for it on banners throughout Dallas. It really felt like we were a part of something huge. Psyonix did a really good job with content as well, like with interviews and skits and whatnot. I even got to be in a skit with the Version1 boys!

Oh man, that skit was absolutely great! I definitely loved the content side of things as well. So, after such a long season, what do you think was your biggest lesson learned and how do you plan on implementing that next year?

ApparentlyJack: Biggest lesson for me is that it’s very easy to fall behind. If you aren’t on the grind, another team who is will overtake you. Next season I want to keep up my hours, I want to make sure I’m hitting around 70 hours every two weeks, or even 80. There were some times where I dropped to around 50 and that’s just not going to work. I also want to make sure I don’t get distracted with stuff outside of the game, no matter what happens. I need to make sure to separate my gaming life from my regular life.

Finally, where can people keep up with you and do you have any shout outs you’d like to give?

ApparentlyJack: So, you can find me on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube and Instagram! Big shout out to Dignitas for supporting us all season long. Shout out to my teammates for a good season, as well as our coach, Nick, and our psychologist, Lenny. And of course, shoutout to the fans. They’re such great supporters of Dignitas. Sorry we couldn’t bring home Worlds this year, but maybe in the future!