Zen: 'We are not defending the World Championship, We are fighting for it'

"I don't feel pressure." These were the first words that Alexis "zen" Bernier said to me. This wasn't tongue-in-cheek, either. It wasn't a cocksure comment with a smirk, it was straightforward, assured, and actual.

The question was posed to see how the then-16-year-old felt as the world waited with bated breath to judge him. Just as when any prodigy comes along, there is one camp that cannot wait to be stunned and over-excited by every flip reset, but another that is preying on their potential downfall.

And for zen, whose debut was three years in the making, the expectations had never been higher. Now, though, the defence of the championship has been rubbished by Zen, who sat down with GGRecon to discuss how they will attack a back-to-back title rather than cling to the last one with dear life.

The Breakthrough

"I don't feel pressure. I stay with my teammates, my staff, and my coach, and we just focus on us game by game, tournament by tournament," says zen

Of course, Rocket League has had some wonderkids in years gone by and some who had similar paths to zen, in which they were forced to wait until an eligible age despite being widely recognised as top players through ranked and smaller unlicensed competitions.

Daniel "Daniel" Piecenski and Amine "itachi" Benayachi come as the most recent players in the same arc, but neither broke onto the scene with immediate success.

zen did. 

There was a smile this time, as we continued to talk about that debut Regional and how the Split went. The personality began to shine and his typical teenage confidence was matched with pride.

"Could you ever have imagined that your breakout season could have gone as well as it did?" I asked.

"No," said the smile. "For my first tournament, I wanted to finish top eight and we did a top one. So it was amazing.

"We won three regionals, after, that a Major, and then Worlds. For me, it was incredible because no one had ever done that. So it was really cool for me."

Vitality's perfect split was history in the making and will likely never be matched, considering the extent of the European super teams now.

The Beehive

Despite being unfathomable, a repeat wasn't a fluke either, as zen was studying alongside the roster for months ahead of making his debut. Vitality was performing at a high level in RLCS with Saizen, while Zen was practising week in and week out with Alpha and Radosin, getting up to speed and starting on the front foot.

"It helped a bit because I was in the team and felt comfortable. I saw how it works to be in a professional team," zen told me. 

He's also very at ease in an organisation that places so much trust in the young man, as seen by his lengthy contract.

"I feel comfortable. Neo and my parents talk every week, maybe twice a week, so, yeah, it's good to have a relationship between the CEO and player."

Back in 2023, Neo told us at GGRecon just how much this relationship means to him and the entire organisation, likening him to the thirteen-time CS:GO Champion Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut, who joined the Vitality as a prodigy in 2018 and went on to become one of the greatest players of all time.

It is especially hard for the young Rocket League community to harbour such relationships and stay up to date with the demands of being the best of the best. Previously, Jack "ApparentlyJack" Benton spoke out about how hard it is to balance studying at school and college and being a breakout star in the scene.

This is something else Neo echoed in our previous interview about his devotion to making sure zen is succeeding on and off Champions Field. It's easy for these near-adults to get swallowed up in fame, but it does seem that zen has his feet firmly on the ground, as seen by the eye roll and smirk he gave when I brought up the subject.

It was a grimace of "oh bloody heck, not school," but we all went through that. 

"It's hard because I'm tired all the time - maybe not all the time, but a lot - because I work all night and I wake up at 7 am to get ready for practice. So, I'm really tired," he said.

I felt like I'd just asked his teacher where his homework was, grassing him up in front of the org, but he quickly laughed it off, showing maturity beyond his years.

There is a hunger to become a mental giant in zen, and Vitality might just be harbouring the right philosophies in zen's home to birth Frankenstein's monstercat.

"I want to be a professional, so I need to be professional and do both school and Rocket League," he continued.

Of course, there is the World Championships to be looking at, rather than math, and back with four wheels on the floor again, we also looked at the rest of the team around him, specifically his old friend Victor "Fairy Peak!" Locquet.

"I'm close friends with him," zen told me. "He's really a good guy." It was nice. Fairy and zen were first introduced to each other when the former Vitality player-turned-coach first left the organisation.

Fairy's departing gift to Vitality was telling Neo to keep an eye on zen and sign him when the time is right, given that he had been moulding the then-13-year-old Ranked demon.

"He's helped me a lot in the game. Three years ago, I was playing with him and now he's my coach. So it's very funny. He coached me a little bit when I was a bubble player, so I take his advice and know that it works," added zen.

"When he gives advice, I'm still taking it."

All of this leads us on to the World Championship. zen, flanked by Alpha54 and Radosin, backed by old friend Fairy Peak! and Neo waving a math book at the back of his head, is out there fighting to become the first back-to-back RLCS champion, and there's no resting now.

The Defence

The hardest part about being champions isn't the road to being there, it's the journey afterwards as everyone places a target on your back to take down the top dogs. As the saying goes, you have to beat the best to be the best, and Rocket League has no shortage of contenders who would love nothing more than to fulfil their own destinies this year.

BDS' Evan "M0nkey M00n" Rogez is looking to crown himself as a multi-time World Champion and put his name above the likes of Alexandre "Kaydop" Courant and Pierre "Turbopolsa" Silfver. Mohammed "trk511" Alotaibi is fighting to overcome his second-place syndrome. NA's zen-equivalent in Daniel "Daniel" Piecenski is in fifth gear in his race to finally get the elusive RLCS Worlds trophy after netting Majors.

They're queuing up to see Vitality fall. But zen isn't giving up the top spot easily and sparked into life when I asked about how they will "defend" against teams who are now (and have found success this season) wanting to shut them down after learning Vitality's playstyle.

"We are not defending the World Championship," he insisted. "We are fighting for it. We are like everyone else and we are here to fight."

Vitality hasn't quite been the dynamos they would have liked to have been this season though, leaving them as a sort of underdog when it comes to the odds for the title. Still, zen believes that a third star on Vitality's bonnet is on the way.

"I'm confident because, when we were in London, Radosin was sick and it was really annoying that we couldn't show our level. Now, we want to fight in this tournament.

"I don't feel any pressure. We just take it tournament by tournament and we will see what happens. But, we are here to fight."

There it was again, in a closing remark. "I don't feel pressure."

This time, the brows closed and the smile sat flat. If one thing is for sure, the breakout, the home feeling, and the defence are all combining into an arc that could put zen up there as a legend in just a mere 18-month career.