Zaptius Joins Paris Legion

Can Zaptius be the jolt that Legion need to turn around their season?

Today, the organization announced the addition of former London Royal Ravens player Zaptius as the 4th starter. He will join the embattled trio of Temp, Skrapz, and AquA on Paris Legion. The French-branded team has struggled to find consistent success this season. The move to pick up Temp and release Fire has only seemingly made them worse. With Classic now gone from the team, the Legion are turning to Zaptius to try and help turn the season around.

Why Zaptius?

Looking at where Paris struggled, the move for Zaptius can bring strength in Paris’s problem game modes—SnD and Control. The Legion struggled badly in Control and SnD where they went 1-5 in both game modes. Control was Zaptius’s best game mode, and he helped turn London Royal Raven’s Control around from 5-7 the first two stages, to 6-2 in Stage 3. In SnD, Zaptius had a respectable 14% 1st blood rate and, more importantly, has been known throughout his career as a reliable SnD playmaker. However, Zaptius’s statistical production from Stage 3, as seen above, was not particularly standout .

No Love for the SMG

Looking at the stats from Stage 3, Classic had his worst performance on Legion, putting up a 0.77 Overall K/D. The Paris Legion released Fire for putting up similar production in Stage 2. There may be underlying issues with how the Legion play the game if they consistently have one SMG struggling.

One explanation, which was covered in Breaking Point’s May 2021 CDL Power Rankings, is that the core of the team has three players (Temp, Skrapz, AquA) who prefer to run an AR over an SMG. In many close quarters respawn maps, like Apocalypse and Garrison, top teams are running 3 SMG’s. This leaves Paris ins a tricky situation. The lack of a role fit is a consistent theme across all the iterations of Legion this season.

Bottom Line

The move for Zaptius may help fix the Legion’s issues in Control and SnD, but does not address role issues on the team. Is Zaptius a clear upgrade? Does it raise the ceiling of the Legion team? Unless the team can figure out how to fit into the meta, they can only go so far. Earlier this season, Paris had serious upset potential, but have yet to notch a quality win against a top 6 team all season. For Legion fans, the addition of Zaptius can make them dangerous, and hopefully, a threat to upset top teams in the League in a 2-3-5 or 1-2-5 fashion.