CoD: Standy Talks Joining ROKKR, Esports Inspirations and Returning to LAN
| Tags: Call of Duty
| Author Charlie Cater
Recently ESTNN had the opportunity to sit down the Minnesota ROKKR’s new signing and CDL Rookie, Eli “Standy” Bentz. We discussed everything from his first CDL matches, to early inspirations and returning to LAN.
The full interview can be found below.
Standy’s Childhood
How did you become interested in Call of Duty and the competitive scene?
“My interest in COD starts with my love for video games when I was younger, I love video games. I played with my friends from school and from there I met a few friends online throughout gaming that taught me and guided me and told me what competitive COD is. So from there, when I was about 14, 15, I learned about the competitive side and that's when I kind of began my journey.”
Was there one specific player you looked up to as a youngster?
“I think one player I looked up to has to be OpTic Scump just because he's the king. He's one of the faces of Call of Duty and he's really inspiring. He has a big name, so he's a one to one great person to look up to.”
Standy Joins ROKKR
We could see that Saintt was interested in you during the Scouting Series, when did the discussions with ROKKR start?
“I definitely had some talks in the past few months with Brian and Jake, but it wasn't anything too serious, just a little chit chatting. But recently, after I won Challengers Cup #9. They gave me a call about 20, 30 minutes, maybe a little bit more after I won the challenger's cup. I was getting a facetime from Jake (Reppin), and there's Lamar Accuracy right there on the phone. I honestly thought I was going to get a sub spot, but I got the starting opportunity and they put me in pretty fast and I’ve got a long road ahead of me.”
How did it feel when you got the call from ROKKR?
“It felt great, but it also reminded me that I have to stay hungry and I have to keep pushing because I want to get this opportunity, but I also want to win and I want to keep this opportunity. I want to make sure that I come out here with a bang and show what I can do and make sure that I keep winning and doing what I can do.”
Standy’s Debut
You went into two tough games, OpTic and Dallas. How did you feel ahead of the OpTic series?
“I thought, If I just come into the stage with my head forward, do what I do best and just communicate well and show what I can do, we’ll be alright. I think after the first map I was feeling really good and from there I just let the adrenaline ride and I kept pushing. And I think the whole team is feeling really good, too.”
You took another victory against Dallas, what were your thoughts going into that series?
“Going into the match against Dallas, these are your former world champs, you can't take these guys lightly, you’ve got to go in hard. I knew it was going to be a close series, but I knew that if we did have a close series, we are likely going to lose the respawns because we're more of a newer team. But I know that in Search and Destroy, I'm surrounded by great Search and Destroy players. I'm a great Search and Destroy player myself. So I know that if the series did go to the distance, we had to win those Search and Destroy’s. That's just what happened.”
We discussed all this and much more in the full interview, which can be found on our YouTube Channel.