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Rocket League

18 Jan 25

Interviews

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Welcome Back, Jack! An Interview with ApparentlyJack on His Return to Dignitas

ApparentlyJack talks about his return to Europe, thoughts on NA RLCS, and goals for the season.

With a return to familiar faces in the 2025 season, Dignitas is ready to take on the RLCS with a roster of legacy Dignitas players Jack “ApparentlyJack” Benton and Joris “Joreuz” Robben joining Gaspar "stizzy" Rosalen Andres, this time in Europe! We were able to talk with ApparentlyJack about his return to Europe, thoughts on the 2025 RLCS scene, and his hopes for content and competition.

Hey Jack! First off, welcome back to Dignitas and European RLCS. This is, without a doubt, a huge change from last season in North America with Gen.G; how does it feel to be back home?

Jack: Thank you, I appreciate the welcome back. It's definitely a little different but it's very nice being back with family and just being in a familiar environment where I've grown up in. It's definitely a lot nicer in Europe, at least for my life outside of the game; in the game, Europe's a harder region to compete in, but it's a challenge and I always like challenges. I always like harder opponents and tougher practice. I'm extremely happy to be in Europe and especially back with Dignitas again. I was with Dignitas for just about two years, a long time, and it's nice being back on the org with some familiar faces as well.


It's wonderful to hear that your transition back to Europe is going swimmingly. I know a lot of readers will be curious about this: how exactly did you end up returning to Europe?

Jack: Yeah, I definitely wanted to come back to Europe. I knew I did pretty quickly as the off season started, but I wasn't just going to say that I'm competing in Europe no matter what. I was open to both regions, so I was doing tryouts with North American teams and European teams. Eventually, we landed on this roster with Joreuz and Stizzy where it was still up in the air on where we were competing, since all of us had competed in both NA and EU. We just had to decide whether we wanted to compete in Europe or North America and we chose Europe in the end.


That sounds like quite the decision the team had to make, but I think your final decision seems reasonable especially given that you all call Europe home. In particular, how does it feel to be returning to Dignitas, especially with former teammates Jos “ViolentPanda” van Meurs and Joreuz?

Jack: It feels great, you know. Dignitas is a fantastic org and always has been, so it's really nice being in the organization, especially with Joreuz. I used to team with Joris for around a year and a half on Dignitas and it's nice being back with him. I know how he works, and he's grown a lot as a player and person since I last teamed with him, so I'm excited to see those different elements of him. And ViolentPanda as well, I teamed with Panda previously alongside Joreuz actually. It's great to have him as a coach, as the eyes and ears for the team, because he's such an experienced player and a good friend of ours. It meshes nicely, being back on an org that I'm super happy with and back with players and coaches that I've already been with in the past. It's a nice feeling.


I'm glad to hear you're happy to be back, and we're just as elated to have you. As a player, what aspects of Dignitas do you enjoy the most versus other organizations?

Jack: In particular, I think it's their prestige as an organization in Rocket League. It's a tall order to be competing with Dignitas and having to put up some solid performances, because you're competing in an organization with past legends of the game. They're World Champions with loads of LAN runs in RLCS and other events, so they're very prestigious both in this game and outside of it. They're also just very helpful and very accommodating to us if we need any support; they're more than willing to try and help us, which is really nice and sometimes rare with other organizations. With that being said, I have been very fortunate with all the organizations I've been on in the past, they've all been fantastic and Dignitas is another one of them.


The legacy of World Champions is definitely a tall one, but I have high hopes for our current squad. Let's shift to some more competitive questions. You're unique as one of the few players with top-level RLCS experience in both EU and NA; what are the key differences between the two regions that you've learned firsthand?

Jack: Europe is just more competitive by nature. For example, the ranked scene is very toxic and very cutthroat; you have to win every game or you're just getting quick-chatted, so it breeds an extremely competitive environment. North America isn't exactly the same, and I think it's just a different mentality. North American players don't really play ranked, so the ranked scene in NA has been really dead for about the last year and a half. For example, you would rarely see any of the current NRG players in your ranked lobbies over the last year and a half.

In terms of gameplay, European teams naturally play closer together, a little bit quicker, while North American teams have a ton of mechanical players with extremely good mechanics. However, in Europe, the teams know how to work with each other better and we've seen that in the past few RLCS seasons. The former BDS roster is always a team that comes to mind, they played extremely close together with incredibly team-based gameplay. In North America, it's more solo play mechanics, like with NRG for example. Even though NRG have an insane structure and they're one of the best teams in the world right now, it's just a different style. The upcoming players in North America try to be very flashy. In Europe, it's not quite the same; you have a lot more solid players coming up, so it's definitely a little different.


I really appreciate your insight, the divide between NA and EU has only been growing and it's helpful to understand how exactly the regions differ. In your experience and opinion, what do you think are the “dark horse” teams in NA and EU that fans should be looking out for?

Jack: In EU, we unfortunately lost to 100% and were eliminated from the regional. They're definitely a dark horse team that nobody was expecting to do so well, so they're definitely my choice for Europe. They're a good team and I think they'll continue to play really well; they were pretty good in scrims so it's not a massive surprise that they were able to make it far into the bracket. It's definitely annoying to have that loss, but they deserved it, and we need to move on and learn from it.

In North America, I'm going with Reed “Chicago” Wilen, Colby “hockser” James, and Angel “kofyr” Lopez on 9Lives. I like that team a lot, they were previously with Spacestation Gaming with Logan “Lj” Wilt last season, and now they brought in Kofyr. Kofyr is a very young, very hungry, and talented player, and I think he will bring a lot of excitement to NA as a whole. He's got a good mentality and is quite mature in tournaments - in ranked, maybe not so much. He's going to be good for his team mentally and on the pitch he's a great player, so I'll have to go with 9Lives for my North American dark horse.


Those are solid picks, I'll definitely keep my eyes out for those guys.
Also, a fun fact: I played Kofyr on LAN in 2023 at a high school event… it went about as well for me as you would expect. Touching on your match with 100%, the team went to Champion's Field thrice this weekend, once in game seven versus 100% and two other game fives in the preliminary bracket. How does the squad deal with stressful games like these?

Jack: We just need to stay relaxed and understand that we're in a good position regardless of what happens. That's always the mentality that I've had, and that's helped me. Some players prefer to be a bit more ruthless, acting like everything matters in this game so they play better, but I prefer taking a lot of the stress out of it. It helps me play a little bit better, and as a team we reinforce the ideas that we're working and remind ourselves of what we need to do on the pitch to give us the best chance at a good result.

I don't think that we played up to our level at all throughout the whole weekend compared to what we know we can do, and I think that's why we went to game five in a couple of those first series where we shouldn't have. In the last series against 100%, we went to seven, and in the future, we'd definitely want to replay that match and hopefully get a better result next time.


I'm optimistic that the next time around will go better for you guys; that match had me at the end of my seat, and you guys have what it takes to go on a deeper run. In terms of this first split, what are the team's main goals?

Jack: Not setting our expectations insanely high is a very valuable thing to do. If you go out there and say you want to win a LAN, that's great, and the team is definitely capable of that, but it's too long-sighted. I think the first goals should be set at each regional, and our main goal is to improve every single time we play together, whether that's in scrims or in tournaments; it's not results-based, but it's easy to measure and achieve. Of course, we want to make LAN; for that, we need top four, so we need to improve on our first regional result. Hopefully we can keep going through to the top six in the upper bracket of the tournament on the first day. If we can win those two matches each Friday, that's massively important. Those are our main goals, and if we make it to LAN, we will look further on from there to set bigger goals. However, I think looking at goals regionally first and keeping them a bit more focused is our best bet.


Focusing on those short-term goals for morale and clear progress is smart, and the team is definitely capable of smashing those expectations. Best of luck with making LAN, as well! In terms of your content, I know a lot of fans, including myself, enjoy watching your YouTube content, e.g. your videos with Gen.G's Slater “Retals” Thomas, which are always super fun. What plans do you have for your future content, and how have they changed with your return to Europe?

Jack: With Retals in particular, those are always great videos and I'm very happy to hear you appreciate them; we've actually recorded two videos coming out a couple of days after this interview. It's harder since we aren't in the same region anymore, but we'll work with what we have. I don't have many specific plans for content; my content job is pretty straightforward, since people fortunately just enjoy watching me play the game in ranked, so I'll just keep trying to push for rank #1 in 1v1 and 2v2, that type of thing. Now that I'm in Europe, it's a lot more exciting because I have access to the best players more consistently. In North America, it was somewhat difficult to get the best players in my videos, but in Europe, I can queue a game right now and get a lobby with Zen, Joyo, Vatira, any of the top guys. It's very nice to have such a variety of top tier players that people want to click on and watch every single day. I also want to do more content with the team, hopefully getting them involved in some videos in the future.


I'm excited for some great videos in the future. Maybe if both Gen.G and Dignitas make the Birmingham LAN, we could see the dynamic duo of you and Retals return to YouTube! Now, as a closing question, let's throw a prediction on the table. From your gut instinct, which team do you think will win this first NA RLCS event?

Jack: NRG. I think the Ultimates have the best chance after NRG, but NRG is too good. They're the best team I've seen in a long time, maybe ever. In my opinion, they were the best team of last season overall, even though BDS won worlds. I think this roster was on average the best team in the world. I'd be surprised if they're not the best team in NA this season, and it's possible that they could be the best team internationally again. These guys are too consistent, too good, and I think they'll win. They had a shaky first qualifier, and they didn't look great—they'd be the first to tell you that—but if I were an NRG fan, I wouldn't be concerned. They're the team that was never knocked out before the grand finals in the last season of RLCS, so they're pretty good, I'll leave it at that. The Ultimates could potentially upset them for the win, but NRG is my pick.


NRG definitely has a lot to live up to, but you have a lot of faith in them! Let's see how the regional and this split turn out for them. This season is sure to be an exciting one, both in NA and EU!

To close out this interview, let's get your socials so the fans know where to find you, and any message you may have for the viewers who've been supporting you through this journey.

Jack: My main social platform is “ApparentlyJack” on YouTube, and I also have Twitter (@ApparentlyJxck) and Twitch (ApparentlyJack_RL). More importantly, a message to the fans: we really appreciate you guys, you give us energy and motivation to improve every single day, so thank you for supporting us. The first regional wasn't amazing; it was an okay result, but we'll look to improve for you guys because you always support us. We appreciate you all and will always continue to do so.


Thank you so much for this interview, Jack. It was great having you on, and best of luck with the rest of the RLCS split!

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