kreox: “P1noy is easier to work with”

In an interview with Esports.Mail.ru, Ilya “kreox” Grom talked about how the reshuffles in his roster affected the climate inside the team, and what his dreams are.

What do you do in your free time?

I usually hang out with my friends; I also love horror-themed reality quests, they always give you a lot of emotions.

You once said you’d been a football player for a long time until you decided to go for a change of environment and dedicate more time to your computer. How did it happen?

I got into football when I was really small, around seven. Then I saw World of Warcraft and liked that game a lot. You could run around, farm and have fun with your friends. But I also continued my football training. Then I got hooked on the game even more, but I grew bored of how repetitive it was; farming dungeons over and over again wasn’t interesting anymore.

Then, on the Prestige Gaming portal, I saw a guy streaming League of Legends, playing Urgot. I liked that champ a lot, but later, when I bought it, it was a disappointment. I did get drawn into the game, though. That was back when the Moscow Five were still active. I was a big fan of theirs, as they were the only ones who ever won against Koreans.

And that was how I started dreaming of being an esports player. I was really enthusiastic about it. I thought, “Damn, here they are, traveling the world, making a living doing this, it’s so cool!” It really motivated me, so I decided to try very hard and keep playing.

How were you invited to Virtus.pro?

By the time I turned 17, I’d already been invited on several rosters, including Gambit, before Diamond came back, as well as Na’Vi. With Virtus.pro, whether they’d branch out into League at all was still an open question. I was deciding between Vaevictis and Na’Vi, and eventually played tryouts with Na’Vi, and found it really bad: no mid-laner, a dodgy top lane. I liked those guys, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. Then I played with Vaevictis eSports in the Open Cup, and that was when Virtus.pro entered the picture. After the Open Cup, [former Virtus.pro manager] Anton called me and said, “Hey, come and join us, we need a jungler”. I was told they trusted in me, and was even accepted without scrims. We got practicing right away, they mailed me my contract, I signed it, and there I was, a Virtus.pro player.

Tell me how P1noy (Christoffer Pedersen) joined the team. How is he different from Blasting (Daniel Kudrin)?

Outside of the game, Blasting is a great dude with whom you can have a conversation on any topic. He, Moo and I would stay up until five in the morning cracking jokes. He’s very smart game-wise, but demands 200% performance from his teammates while he himself only does 100%. In other words, he likes others doing things for him. That’s what his problem was, and he often blamed us for some in-game shortcomings while not always admitting his own mistakes.

P1noy, on the other hand, is easier to work with. He’s open-minded, he doesn’t tilt, he always has a positive vibe. If we made a mistake during the game, he didn’t dwell on it, while Blasting could tell you to go AFK during the actual game. Things like that really take a toll on team morale. Everyone gets these problems, even me; I may occasionally say, “You should’ve flashed here”, even though it’s not something you’re supposed to say, since it can tilt an ally. That’s why P1noy is that much easier to play with. And he communicates a lot more during the game than Blasting did; that’s another plus.

What are your impressions of these first two weeks? Has there been a team that surprised you?

I expected Na’Vi to be much stronger. I was unpleasantly surprised that they played so badly. They beat us during the first week, but at that point, any team could. I thought that, with DoubleAim (Aleksa Stanković) joining the roster, they’d start playing more aggressively, I thought he was going to teach them something new. And now they have something crazy going on. I don’t know how they managed to defeat M19, though of course both teams did a fair bit of trolling. I thought Vitya (Piter Pokir) would bring in something new. I used to coach him at Vaevictis, he had good mechanics and damage output if he has the space. He has a style of his own.

So there. As for surprises — there haven’t really been any, I guess. Except for how bad we played. Gambit won games smoothly and calmly. We did well against them too, but I made a really bad play, basically throwing the game when I let them have Nashor.

Do you have a goal? What do you want to achieve?

For the next five years, my goal is to get to the world championship and do well in it. Everyone wants to win it, obviously [laughs], but I want to perform well, too.

I want to keep playing and keep enjoying it. The important thing is not to lose your love of the game. ‘Cause you won’t last long playing just for the money. I like this drive and I want to experience it again and again. In Brazil, after we won and took off our headsets, everyone was chanting, “Virtus.pro!”, and it was awesome! And I’d like to keep getting the same emotion, this incredible adrenaline rush. Those are moments when your heart is pounding wildly.