Melty have been on a downward trend for months, slowly slipping down the ranks in Europe. After a particularly troublesome period recently, this has prompted their managing team to cut captain and tank MoonL in a "drastic decision" to fix their downward spiral.
Since their formation, Melty have made two key roster changes. The French side lost Kryw to Misfits, and KabaL decided to leave the team after practice schedules could not be made to align. These two players had been an important core to the team and despite talented replacements in Flippy and tek, Melty continued on a slow downward trend. After having their hopes of a resurrection dashed repeatedly, the team has been understandably frustrated.
At the same time as recruiting tek, the team also added former TF2 and Paladins pro k3 as manager and analyst to join coach Pipou. The two of them assumed responsibility for team decisions to replace the ebbing will of captain MoonL and had to steady a team that was frustrated at its own inability to perform at the top. Another spanner in the works came when NiCO was asked to join a top European side and ditch his long-time comrades; after a tense bootcamp in Paris where the team's situation came to a head, the managers decided to remove MoonL from the team.
k3, manager and analyst for Melty, faces more tough decisions
Flippy broke down the situation that Melty were facing after tek joined:
We had players at this time that were having doubts about the team. We also had a bootcamp at this time and things were really messy.
Because we have obligations towards our future with Melty, and even for the sake of our esport careers, we had to fix this situation by taking drastic decisions.
The goal of the team is more than ever to be in top 5 EU. We've lost too many times already.
Currently Melty is trialling Norwegian player Badger, forcing the team's communications to English. In a manner that seems reminiscent of sister side ex-Team Aera, the team has reportedly found this change challenging but an overall positive for the calls.
Flippy explains, "It's pretty hard for everyone to switch from communicating everything in French to only the essentials in English, but in my opinion it's maybe one of the best things we've done in the team, switch to add Euros," indicating that the team may continue on even if the trial with Badger does not succeed. "I really like it - we are way more focused and everyone has a real input into the game."
Melty still have all their work ahead of them despite their desperately positive tone. The team now finds itself without a crucial half of the roster that was able to perform during the beta. A new tank will have to bring much more than excellent individual play to see Melty return to those heights, but any improvement would be welcome.
The roster for Melty Esport Club is:
- Julien ”baud” Robert (DPS)
- Hugo “Flippy” Perhirin (DPS)
- Nicolas ”NiCO” Moret (Flex)
- Théo "Tek" Guillebaud (Support)
- Laurent “DeGuN” Prinderre (Support)
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