PENTA has been a staple of the Rainbow Six scene from the very beginning. Starting with the Season 1 Pro League winning roster, featuring now-G2 Esports player Niclas "Pengu" Mouritzen, and the roster that cruised through most of Year 2, winning two Pro League titles and the Invitational, PENTA has always been a part of the scene.
G2 Esports bought the title-winning PENTA roster just before the Six Major Paris.
After losing its title-winning roster to G2 Esports, it signed the Mock-it Esports roster that would form its current roster today. While results were decent in Seasons 8 and 9 of the Pro League, and downright impressive at times like during DreamHack Winter 2018, the team eventually saw its shifting roster relegated to the Challenger League in Season 10.
Playing the Challenger League in Season 11 with a roster of ENEMY, RevaN, BlaZ, Kaktus, Alive, and Janixs, with BiOs coaching, the team embarked on an attempt to make it back to the top-flight in time for the new and improved FACEIT European League (EUL). However, a single point saw PENTA miss out, and OrgLess (now Team Secret) make it. Nevertheless, the organisation put in a vote of confidence within its roster, announcing that it would be keeping the players throughout the FACEIT Challenger League 2020 season.
To know more about PENTA's approach to its roster and the scene, SiegeGG spoke to its Managing Director, Andreas Schaetzke.
Firstly, can you introduce yourself and your role within PENTA?
Hello, It’s a pleasure. My name is Andreas Schaetzke, I am the Managing Director at PENTA.
Your organisation has a long and storied history with Rainbow Six, how excited are you for this to be continuing?
We are very excited about the upcoming months. As you said we have a rich tradition in Rainbow Six Siege and the last few weeks felt like a rollercoaster. We were so close and eventually it was one point that made the difference. PENTA finished Season 11 of the Challenger League in third place with 24 points. One point is nothing and still means so much but this is the exciting part about esports. All other teams in Challenger League were really good and some were surprisingly strong. Eventually the most consistent teams made it to European League and they definitely deserved it. For PENTA, that means another few months in the national leagues and Challenger League but we are very excited about it since we chose a different approach, kept the whole roster and will prove, that we picked the right players who are definitely European League material!
Many would have expected you to sign another team in one of the top-flight leagues around the globe. What was the factor that made you stick with your current Challenger League roster?
As mentioned before, we believe in those players. We kept our core with Enemy and RevaN and added great talent around the upcoming star player BlaZ. I think the last Challenger League season didn’t really show what this team is capable of, but we know that this group of talent will make it to European League. Of course, it is easier to buy a European League roster but at PENTA we have never bought top teams but always scouted players, built teams and fought our way to the top. We always believed in our players, such as our former 2017 roster around Pengu and we believe in our current team.
RevaN at the 6 French League 2019 Finals.
With the recently announced changes to the European scene, what does the future of Rainbow Six look like to you?
The new Rainbow Six Siege ecosystem is also an important factor why we kept the roster. We want to fight our way back into European League and with the new system Ubisoft introduced we can write a very cool story which is also kind of unique in esports. Also, the new system allows us to prepare for European League with the fantastic players we have, it allows us to be part of European League for at least one year instead of buying a roster, that potentially drops out of European League end of this year and we believe that our approach is the right one. It seems like Ubisoft wants stability in the scene and by not changing our roster we follow the same approach. I also believe that the future of Rainbow Six Siege will be a great one. Ubisoft introduced an amazing system and also involved teams to improve it. I believe the final result is close to perfect and I know that Ubisoft is working on even further improving the system.
The structure of the new Challenger League. PENTA and DefuseKids will join the ten teams as per the image.
What does the future of your team look like to you? How will they better gear up to secure promotion this time?
We believe in our team and it will shine bright! We will make it back to European League and we will go there to stay. If we wouldn’t believe in our players, we would have made changes, so our current actions should emphasize what we think about our guys and that we trust them for the future. We will focus on the development of our players on the media-side, time-management and to build a strong and unique unit out of all five personalities. The players have more time to prepare, they know the devastating feeling of not making it to European League and we know that they will do everything possible to make it back to the top league again.
The French-majority PENTA roster will thus be gearing up for its second attempt at securing promotion when the new FACEIT Challenger League starts up which they have currently qualified for alongside Defusekids and the new forZe roster. Before then, the team will presumably be first seen in the upcoming Season 2 of the 6 French League which they enter as the most recent French champions after winning the 6 Open Cup event with the following lineup:
Julian "ENEMY" Blin Jean "RevaN" Prudenti Alexandre "BlaZ" Thomas Medhi "Kaktus" Marty Nathan "Alive" Donday Janis "Janixs" Linins (substitute) Arnaud "BiOs" Billaudel (coach)
