PGL Regional Minor Championship Europe - ELEAGUE Major 2017

suNny: "Aleksib had great calls"

4-11-2016 16:09

Following their 16-8 loss to Epsilon, we caught up with ENCE's suNny to find out what happened with his team between IeSF 2016 and the current EU Minor.

After their win over TYLOO at IeSF, the Finnish roster qualified for the Minor in their first try and decided to attend ESWC 2016 last week - looking good overall.

Unfortunately, after a group exit to fnatic Academy the team found themselves losing Juho "⁠juho⁠" Lampinen, forcing them to find a last minute replacement.

With Roope "⁠tomsku⁠" Simpanen in the roster, ENCE managed to defeat HellRaisers in their first match at the Minor, but lost in the winners match against Epsilon. With this in mind, we talked to their team captain, Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi.

ESWC didn’t go so well for you, and after the event juho left. So talk me through what you thought about the event and how the roster shuffle happened.

The roster shuffle started in August when Allu left the roster and everyone was thinking we need more changes, fresh blood for many reasons. So we brought in Aleksi and arvid. We had three weeks to practice before our first event IeSF in Indonesia where we beat Tyloo and everything looked fine. We had a long bootcamp etc., but after that came some internal issues with players. We got maximum of two practice matches per day before ESWC and that cause the bad result there. We had two close matches against fnatic Academy but they closed it out. It was all about internal issues, and after that juho decided to leave himself because he didn’t feel comfortable with us and playing with the AWP and we didn’t have anyone else who could AWP in the team.

Talking about your preparation, what did you actually do before coming here since you only had a couple of days with tomsku before coming here?

An hour after we arrived in Finland after ESWC juho told us he doesn’t want to come here, so we had five or six hours to decide who we want to play with. It was obvious we needed an AWPer, every team needs a good AWPer, and we couldn’t have any players that played in the Minor qualifier online so it was only tomsku and stonde left. stonde could’nt come so it was a pretty easy decision and tomsku is pretty talented but he hasn't had much experience.

Can you tell me more about him? He is not very well known at the moment, how long has he been around?

He played a lot of CS1.6 back then and he was a pretty good aimer and in the end of the 1.6 era he played in the best team in Finland, going to some international LANs. He could’nt do much more as the game died. I think he had a year and a half break before going back to CS:GO and he has now been playing for two years. He has only 1800 hours so he is doing pretty fine and is an upcoming talent, but he needs a lot of time and a lot of hours and experience.

You beat HellRaisers in the first match, which was an upset especially considering the pick-up we just talked about. Can you tell me about the match a bit?

I think we knew their veto and were ready for Cache. In the first half, Aleksib, who is our in-game leader, had some great calls that helped me take map control etc. It went pretty well since we knew how they like to play the map and that’s how we closed it.

In the second match you played against Epsilon and they beat you pretty easily. Comparing it to HellRaisers, was it just that you were not that prepared since they had a new player in the roster?

We started Mirage as CT and got only 5 rounds. We lost two force buy and every clutch round, three-on-three and stuff like that. I think we choked a bit there but they played well and draken had some great impact and clutch kills. It felt like we weren’t even in the server in many rounds. I also lost many rounds for my team due to my mistakes.

So you have the BO3 decider match ahead of you and two teams are now playing to decide who is going to face you. Who do you expect and who do you want to play?

I think we would like to face HellRaisers as they are a less experienced team as individuals, Heroic have a lot of good 1.6 players. I think we match well against HellRaisers as our game plan is kinda same in many situations so I think. If I need to pick, I think it’s 51% in favor of HellRaisers, but it’s not like we are afraid of anyone.

ESWC didn’t go so well for you, and after the event juho left. So talk me through what you thought about the event and how the roster shuffle happened.

The roster shuffle started in August when Allu left the roster and everyone was thinking we need more changes, fresh blood, for many reasons. So we brought in Aleksib and arvid. We had three weeks to practice before our first event - IeSF in Indonesia where we beat Tyloo and everything looked fine. We had a long bootcamp etc., but after that came some internal issues with players. We got a maximum of two practice matches per day before ESWC and that caused the bad result there. We had two close matches against fnatic Academy but they closed it out.

It was all about internal issues, and after that juho decided to leave because he didn’t feel comfortable with us and playing with the AWP - and we didn’t have anyone else who could AWP in the team.

Talking about your preparation, what did you actually do before coming here since you only had a couple of days with tomsku before coming here?

An hour after we arrived in Finland after ESWC juho told us he doesn’t want to come here, so we had five or six hours to decide who we want to play with. It was obvious we needed an AWPer, every team needs a good AWPer, and we couldn’t have any players that played in the Minor qualifier online - so it was only tomsku and stonde left. stonde couldn't come so it was a pretty easy decision, and he is pretty talented but hasn't had much experience.

Can you tell me more about him? He is not very well known at the moment, how long has he been around?

He played a lot of CS1.6 back then and he was a pretty good aimer and in the end of the 1.6 era he played in the best team in Finland, going to some international LANs. He couldn't do much more as the game died. I think he had a year and a half break before going back to CS:GO and he has now been playing for two years. He has only 1800 hours so he is doing pretty fine and is an upcoming talent, but he needs a lot of time and a lot of hours and experience.

suNny dropped 34 kills against HellRaisers

You beat HellRaisers in the first match, which was an upset especially considering the pick-up we just talked about. Can you tell me about the match a bit?

I think we knew their veto and were ready for Cache. In the first half, Aleksib, who is our in-game leader, had some great calls that helped me take map control etc. It went pretty well since we knew how they like to play the map and that’s how we closed it.

In the second match you played against Epsilon and they beat you pretty easily. Comparing it to HellRaisers, was it just that you were not that prepared since they had a new player in the roster?

We started Mirage as CT and got only 5 rounds. We lost two force buys and every clutch round, three-on-three and stuff like that. I think we choked a bit there but they played well and draken had some great impact and clutch kills. It felt like we weren’t even in the server in many rounds. I also lost many rounds for my team due to my own mistakes.

So you have the BO3 decider match ahead of you and two teams are now playing to decide who is going to face you. Who do you expect and who do you want to play?

I think we would like to face HellRaisers as they are a less experienced team as individuals, Heroic have a lot of good 1.6 players. I think we match well against HellRaisers as our game plan is kinda same in many situations. If I need to pick, I think the current match is 51% in favor of HellRaisers, but it’s not like we are afraid of anyone.

Professeur writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.