Following ORG LESS’ successful qualifier run with a victory over Broken Esports from Thailand, we caught up with Aditya “voogy” Leonard to find out about their matches so far, and the current state of the Indonesian scene, the team’s situation and his goals going into 2021.
It’s been a while since we last heard news about any Indonesian team that have been able to keep pace with the the top teams in the Asian region. ORG LESS is trying to prove that the country is able to put up some fight without the help of BnTeT and xccurate. The team fields other prominent names in Indonesia such as Aditya “voogy” Leonard and Vega “soifong” Tanaka. The team enjoyed success at the open qualifier and powered them to qualify for the playoffs alongside some top Southeast Asia teams namely ZIGMA, HZ, and more.
The 29-year-old opens up about the team, expands on the current state of the Indonesian CS:GO scene, and his dream to bring Indonesia to the international stage once more.
CSGO2ASIA: Could you talk us through your career in 2020? What have you been up to? And how did you end up in ORG LESS with a bunch of other ex-TEAMnxl> players?
voogy: Personally, I would say 2020 had some positive and negative sides to it. With COVID-19, I personally had many self-reflections and a bunch of other things. For my career in 2020, I would start this one by saying that this team have been formed months prior to the eXTREMESLAND announcement under the name of Somnium Esports. However, the organization decided to drop the CS:GO roster and replace it with a VALORANT squad considering there’s less CS tournament availabile in the region. The roster decided to stick together except for one player that just got fell in love and decided to stop playing CS. We stopped playing for a while because we had no organisation to support us. Our mindset is to seek an organization that can support us so we can fully focus on the game. So for now, we’ll just participate in every tournament possible and rely on the communication we’ve built for quite a long time.
CSGO2ASIA: How is the journey in the open qualifier? How is the opposition on your way to the finals? Did your team encounter any troubles along the way or was it just a smooth ride?
voogy: To be honest, the difficulties didn’t come from our opponents. Considering that we’re still in these unprecedented times, our players decided to play separately at their own home. With Vega “Soifong” Tanaka who just left TEAMnxl>, he doesn’t have a PC that meets the requirement to play smoothly. For now, he’s using a low-end PC that actually affected his performance. So it’s more of technical issue that we encountered along the way. For the opponents, so far it’s been good. We won the matches that we expect to win. There has been some close matches, but we are able to close out the game at the end.
CSGO2ASIA: Could you elaborate more on the state of the Indonesian CS:GO scene? The last time we saw Indonesian teams was at OMEN Challenger Series 2019 where teams such as Syntax Gaming and BTRG took part in.
voogy: All I can say is that many Indonesian players don’t have a true passion for CS:GO. Apart from that, there is no big organization that put interests in the game. Many esports organizations in Indonesia tend to like the mobile games market more such as Mobile Legends and PUBG Mobile because there is a lot of money going around there and CS:GO itself is a risky move for them financially. Other than that, many of our CS:GO players switched to VALORANT. The reason is that I think in reality, many of them live for the game, so without a game to compete, they don’t have any income. They are being forced to switch to another title because there is not a single CS:GO tournament available in Indonesia that gives decent prize money to survive. Some of them switched over to VALORANT only for the money.
CSGO2ASIA: Does the formation of ORG LESS give us hope of witnessing another Indonesian team competing back at the Southeast Asian level?
voogy: It’s been always our goal to compete in Southeast Asia rather than only in Indonesia. We have more hope that we can do it because there are many big teams that have already switched over to VALORANT, including some teams from Singapore and Malaysia. With that being said, our chance to compete in Asia is bigger than ever. We’re thrilled to attend and play every tournament possible in 2021.
CSGO2ASIA: What happened with Soifong? Did he and TEAMnxl> part ways?
voogy: Soifong has parted ways with TEAMnxl> because the organization wanted to focus more on their VALORANT roster. They can’t gamble on keeping the CS:GO anymore because there are very few tournaments they can attend throughout the year while paying the salaries simultaneously. Moreover, there’s not a single event organizer that wants to hold regular CS:GO tournaments and leagues. So regarding Soifong’s and TEAMnxl>’s situation, it’s more like their work cooperation being terminated.
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CSGO2ASIA: You are scheduled to face another 7 big teams from across Southeast Asia. Who do you think is your toughest opponent, and how is your preparation going into the playoffs?
voogy: I think all of the seven teams are considered tough opponents for us. Furthermore, most of them have an organization to back them up so they’re clearly more prepared than us. I think our advantage is the good communication we’ve established throughout our journey together. Since the scene is still in the holiday season, we can only do some mediocre practices along the way.
CSGO2ASIA: Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
voogy: If you want to play, you need to play based on your passion and not be concerned about money. Our mindset needs to strongly remember that passion makes the money, not the other way around. Don’t think that from money, there will be passion. Passion needs to be on the game, not on the career.
Currently playing under the name of ‘ORG LESS’, the ex-TEAMnxl> players expressed that they are open to offers. The team is currently the only Indonesian team competing in the Southeast Asia region, and has successfully qualified for the playoffs of eXTREMESLAND CS:GO Festival 2020 – Southeast Asia. The team is linked with several big Indonesian names such as ex-BOOM ID member Dwi “gruvee” Prasetyo, and TEAMnxl> veteran, Vega “soifong” Tanaka.
In a statement to CSGO2ASIA.com, voogy stressed that “everyone on the team is hungry for wins” before further elaborating that they wanted to see another Indonesian team lifts a trophy in the international scene once again.
“We are open to offers from any region. I personally wanted to see another Indonesian team lifting a trophy at the top Asian level, like our predecessors Recca Esports, who did it at the ESL Zen League Season 1. The team can be reached via email [email protected]“
CSGO2ASIA is an official Global Media Partner for the ZOWIE eXTREMESLAND CS:GO Festival 2020.
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Cover photo courtesy of KINCIR.com
