neptune: "We have built a family here"

Jason "⁠neptune⁠" Tran's Bee's Money Crew made a rapid ascent into the upper echelons of North American Counter-Strike during the first half of the year, qualifying for both ECS and ESL Pro League.

Before his team's first match on Saturday, we talked to the 15-year-old about roster stability, Joshua "⁠steel⁠" Nissan's contribution and his expectations about the Pro League.

You are a Fragadelphia veteran at this point, and have played at quite a few other local North American LANs. What draws you to this type of events?

LAN just feels better for me, as far as the team environment goes. Our chemistry is better than online.

You’ve been with the same core of players for a while, despite the fact that young rising players like yourself and Wardell are prime targets to be poached. How has that happened?

We have built a family here. Matthew "⁠WARDELL⁠" Yu has had plenty of offers, but he doesn’t want to leave, because he wants to build a really good team here.

Since qualifying for Pro League, there has been quite a bit of roster turmoil for you, playing with Dallas and ryx, and now with steel here at Fragadelphia. How frustrating is that for you?

Yeah, it hasn’t really given us time to practice. After this LAN we’re going to get all the roster changes down heading into the next season of Pro League.

You’re playing here with steel, and obviously swag is here as well. What do you think of ESL unbanning them and other players?

I feel like it’s good, but if they don’t get unbanned from the Majors and other events, teams won’t really want to pick them up besides maybe mid-tier Pro teams — but obviously they have high standards, too.

How has it been working with steel over the last week or so to prepare for this event?

I think steel is going to really improve us for this LAN, he’ll work out our mistakes and make sure we play real Counter-Strike, not puggy or scrimmy. He has really helped us to be more disciplined.

neptune will have to sit out the first weeks of his freshman Pro League season

There are three new teams in Pro League this season, yourselves, Splyce and Rogue. Of those three who do you think will perform the best?

Rogue on paper look really good, but I don’t know, it’s [up] in the air really. I think with work, with steel helping us out, with Matthew "⁠mCe⁠" Elmore as a coach, and by practicing a lot more, I think we’ll be a pretty decent team this season. Splyce, they have three players right now.

You mentioned you think Rogue look good on paper, currently only four of their players are known. What do you think of the rumor they will be adding CeRq as their final piece?

I don’t even know who he is, really, Connor "⁠CONNOR93⁠" Glover told me that he is nuts in his region, so with work he would probably be pretty good here as well. I think he is also young, maybe 16 or 17.

You and wrath of Rogue are both 15 and won’t be able to play in ESL Pro League Season 6 until your birthdays, do you two have any sort of rapport with each other?

I talk to him a little bit, we’re cool. The 15-year-old bond kind of brings us together.

Who are you looking out for at this event?

Obviously there is compLexity, but I think we have this in the bag, but I can’t be too over-confident.

After losing to ownage in the Upper Bracket semi-finals, neptune & co find themselves in the Fragadelphia Lower Bracket, with their next match pitting them against CLG Academy, at 23:45 .