"I can focus more towards my aim": PRX f0rsakeN on playing Killjoy in VCT 2023: Pacific League

VCT 2023 Pacific League started on March 25, 2023. The tournament involves ten franchised teams from the Asia-Pacific region. It follows a rigorous eight-week-long schedule where fans see all the teams face off against each other to prove themselves the best in the continent. It is the first international tournament of this magnitude in the region because while these teams have played (and often dominated their regional Challengers Leagues in previous iterations of the VCT), they have hardly ever played the top teams from their neighboring regions.

Coming into this tournament, some players and teams had a lot of expectations riding on their backs, considering their regional and international performances. Jason "f0rsakeN" Susanto from the Singaporean team, Paper Rex, is one such player.

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f0rsakeN's 'battle-Killjoy' turned quite a few heads in VCT 2023: Pacific League match against T1

After a relatively quiet start in Week 1 and Week 2, f0rsakeN showed up to Paper Rex's Week 3 game in a way that no one ever expected from him. Player fans are used to seeing rocking Jett and other Duelist picks, who shifted to Chamber when he used to be good, had locked Killjoy for the game against T1 on Pearl.

Putting a reliable aimer like f0rsakeN on Sentinel duty at the outset might have seemed like a waste. But having a cracked aimer like him in the role isn't a bad idea if you think about it. The man can lock down sites on his own on defense, and Ayaz "nAts" Akhmetshin, while on Gambit/M3C in the previous VCT seasons, has shown the world how disruptive a strong lurker can be to the opposing team's gameplan.

When Sportskeeda Esports asked f0rsakeN to comment on his experience playing Killjoy in an official match for the first time, here's what he had to say:

I don't think it (a role change) affects me much at all. I have always been on a flexible role. Being on a Sentinel role now, as Killjoy, I can focus more towards my aim.

No evidence from the VCT Pacific League game itself suggests otherwise. If anything, freeing him from the responsibility of entry-frag looks to have only improved his performance. f0rsakeN played Killjoy like very few people, keeping up with his team's signature #WGaming style. He got two Aces in the first half alone and a knife kill.

Khalish "d4v41" Rusyaidee, when asked about f0rsakeN's Killjoy, said:

f0rsakeN is a one-of-a-kind player. He can play pretty much all Agents . . . you could just ask, “Hey, can you play this?” and he will just say “Yes, of course!”. He is someone you can always count on if you need him to fill the shoes.

For a first showing, f0rsakeN's Killjoy was quite spectacular. It will be interesting to see what other roles fans might see the superstar player fill in VCT Pacific 2023 as Ilya "something" Petrov becomes more naturalized into the team.