SP9RK1E addresses potential Genji nerfs ahead of future Overwatch patch

[jwplayer nRNmFBgY]The Paris Eternal stunned the Overwatch League by dethroning the San Francisco Shock and defeating the Philadelphia Fusion to win the Summer Showdown, largely in part to Yeong-han ‘SP9RK1E’ Kim’s Genji. But will his success on the hero result in future nerfs?

The Eternal rookie had a dominant performance with the cyborg ninja during July 5’s semi-finals and finals, taking full advantage of recent Genji buffs and a pre-nerfed Brigitte.

With the help of Brigitte’s Repair Pack, the self-proclaimed Genji God was able to play aggressively and build up his Dragon Blades with ease. Once online, the star would follow up with Orisa Halts and Super Chargers to inflict maximum damage on his adversaries.

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After the match, the 18-year-old prodigy spoke to Dexerto on the possibility of Genji getting nerfed and how the now-live Brigitte changes will impact his team.

Overwatch League

SP9RK1E dominated on Genji in the Summer Showdown.

Will the Brigitte nerfs impact Genji?

“One of the good sides of Brigitte is that her ‘E,’ the armor, allows the other heroes she gives the armor to, to sustain and do aggressive plays,” he explained.

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Now, with the extra armor off the table, he doesn’t think Brigitte will be used as much.

This could be both good and detrimental to Genji. Brigitte has some of the best tools to shut the high-skill hero down with Shield Bash and Whipshot while still enabling ally Genjis to play aggro and build up Blades. To say they have a love-hate relationship would be an understatement.

Paris coach Hee-won ‘RUSH’ Yun further added that Brigitte is the secret to Genji’s success.

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“Everyone says Genji is the meta, but what people don’t know is what makes Genji meta is Brig, because Brig is so important to making that aggressive playstyle [work].”

That said, RUSH did note that he hasn’t focused that much on the Brigitte nerfs. He said his attention was primarily on the Summer Showdown, which was run on the previous patch.

Blizzard Entertainment

Could the Brigitte changes hurt Genji more than help him?

SP9RK1E on possible Genji nerfs

SP9RK1E also addressed concerns that his play in the Summer Showdown will be responsible for Blizzard potentially nerfing his hero.

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“Even though he’s a God at Genji, he sometimes fails at it. He’s a human too, he makes mistakes,” Assistant General Manager Kyoung Ey ‘AVALLA’ Kim translated for SP9RK1E.

According to SP9RK1E, Blizzard should patch the hero “very fairly” and not on his performance.

Notably, some Overwatch League fans credit 2018 MVP Sung-hyeon ‘JJoNak’ Bang as being a key reason why the damage support Zenyatta had his alternate fire nerfed.

Only time will tell how Blizzard decides to balance going forward and if Genji’s success will be hindered immensely by the Repair Pack changes.

We may need to wait to see if that’s the case. As such, Genji and SP9RK1E could be safe from Blizzard’s balance for now.