After a disappointing Season 11 of the Pro League that saw Team BDS finish last, the all-French roster has replaced its former captain, Morgan "rxwd" Pacy, with former Team Vitality player Loïc "BriD" Chongthep. The move also reunites BriD with his former teammate Adrien "RaFaLe" Rutik, with whom he had played on Team Vitality.
BriD had played on the Team Vitality roster since it was under the Supremacy banner in October 2017, having signed from Lucky7 Gaming. His long service had thus made him virtually synonymous with the roster and it had come as somewhat of a shock to see him depart alongside Teemu "Stigi" Sairi in favour of Fabian "Fabian" Hällsten and Valentin "risze" Liradelfo.
During his time with Vitality, despite the team having had potential, BriD and the roster did not have as much success as they perhaps could have had. The team did not make it to an international LAN event since 2018, where it was flying high after appearing at the Six Invitational 2018, the Six Major Paris, and DreamHacks Valencia and Austin.
It was at that DreamHack Valencia event that the Frenchmen had finished in second place, only behind i don't know, in their best international result to date, though the quarter-finals appearances at the Six Invitational and Six Major Paris could well be considered equivalent. That year had also seen BriD win the Gamers Assembly, but the team then struggled greatly in Season 8 of the Pro League and was relegated.
BriD at the 6 French League 2019 Finals with Team Vitality.
Team Vitality then made it back to the Pro League after winning the Season 9 relegations, but did not have that much better luck, finishing fifth in Season 10. The team also finished second at the 6 French League 2019 Finals and did well in Season 11 of the Pro League, even though it finished in sixth place in Season 11, as it was only three points behind second-placed G2 Esports.
Team BDS, on the other hand, has had a mixed bag of results since coming up to the Pro League following its Season 10 Challenger League victory. In general, the team has been a force to be reckoned with on LAN, having finished third at DreamHack Montreal 2019 and fourth at the Six Invitational 2020.
However, the team finished dead-last in Season 11 of the Pro League and lost 0-2 to the eventual champions of Team Liquid at the OGA PIT Minor. Team BDS also struggled at the 6 Open Cup 2020, losing to PENTA despite their opponents being in the Challenger League.
Observers pointed to rxwd's statistics being less-than-stellar as a possible reason for BDS not achieving its potential, as he finished with the lowest playoffs rating at the Six Invitational 2020 with 0.83 and the lowest rating in the Pro League with 0.73.
Team BDS at the Six Invitational 2020, with rxwd in the center.
With this the presumable reason, Team BDS dropped rxwd a little over two weeks ago and has now replaced him with BriD with 10 days left for the start of the FACEIT European League (EUL).
As such, the Team BDS roster is now:
Stephane "Shaiiko" Lebleu Olivier "Renshiro" Vandroux Adrien "RaFaLe" Rutik Bryan "Elemzje" Tebessi Loïc "BriD" Chongthep
