Interview with OG LDN UTD player Michał "MOLSI" Łącki

Carriço: The first question would be how did you get into esports?

 

MOLSI: I started a very long time ago in 2005 or 2006. There was a new guy in our city that I met. He had a PC, and I didn't have a PC at that time. He showed me Counter-Strike Anthology and Counter-Strike condition zero, which you can play offline without internet, and one day I brought home a PC, I borrowed it from him and started to play Counter-Strike. 

 

After three years I got the Internet, I spent three years just playing against bots. In 2009 I started to play ESL and from there I was playing Counter-Strike, and then League of Legends for like two years, and then Counter-Strike Global Offensive so you know that’s the story. 

 

Carriço: Why did you choose to become a professional player? 

 

MOLSI: I noticed a long time ago that I was always a hard player. When I was in Counter-Strike 1.6 when I wasn't playing professionally it was just playing with teams and ladders, I noticed that I was playing more time than other players. I was playing deathmatch, team practices in clan wars.

 

So yeah I noticed that I'm always trying to be the best. Going back to 2015 when I came back to CS:GO, because I had a break after Counter-Strike 1.6 and League of Legends. I decided to come back to CS:GO, because I went to a random LAN. Some friends from the last 1.6 years invited me to a LAN that we would attend almost every year, and I decided to go with them. 

 

On this LAN I meet other players, and they just told me “okay MOLSI come back to CSGO we are going to make a team, you are still in good shape”  

 

So I think I decided to be a professional player in 2016 when I saw that even after coming back after a few years, I still could compete with the best players in Poland, so that was the main reason why I came back to the game.  

Carriço: You already had a successful career on CS:GO why did you decide to make the switch to Valorant?

 

MOLSI: The main reason was that, after the AVEZ story, we went to the United States for the closed qualifier for Flashpoint, then we came back and played for like one month, and then I got sick. I got really sick, so I went to the hospital and stayed there for two weeks. 

 

Then I came back, and after I came back from the hospital, I played one official on the same day I came back from the hospital, and after two days they dais “ok MOLSI no more playing together”. This was like one week before Valorant release. 

At this time, even before the Valorant release, I got an offer to make a team with patitek and niecks in the ENTROPIQ organization. Before Valorant got released I talked with Bialy from CS:GO, and other Polish players that I thought I was going to switch if the game got released. 

 

So I already had it on my mind, even though 202 was my best year as a player in CS:GO, but I was still missing something. So yeah I decided to do it because I had offers first of all, and second of all, I was thinking even before the beta when the rumors were around in CSGO that a new game was coming.

 

 

Carriço: Can you talk a little bit about your path in VALORANT before joining OG LDNUTD/? 

 

MOLSI: So basically at the beginning I played in Entropiq with a Polish roster. The next team was Team Finest, we played for three months together but then after normal results, I got an offer from Giants to join them in May so I decided to take it because when I was in ENTROPIQ I rejected an offer from Vitality and NIP, because I believed in the project, but this time I said no more rejection offers is time to find myself in the highest tier. 

 

It was only two months in Giants I think, it wasn't a good time for me. I think I didn't find myself in the team because I was playing Breach which I don't like. So after two months, I was kicked and boo also, so that's kinda funny because we are still on the same team, who would expect that?

 

Because we didn't talk during the full time until the LDN UTD tryouts. So next after Giants, it was LDN UTD and here I am now. 

 

Carriço: What does your daily routine look like?

 

MOLSI: I can tell you that I’m not the guy who is playing a lot of deathmatches, AimLab, or Kovacs, it depends on the person because for me I don't like when my hands are really thought you know? I prefer it when it's soft and easy to move, and after those Kovacs, and AimLab routines I don't feel so good.

 

I can tell you that today was the first day that I spent more than one hour practicing on deathmatch so it's not something I do often. I prefer to warm up myself on ranked. So for example I have practice at 13:00 so I just wake up at 9:00 or 10:00 AM and play some ranked matches.

Carriço: You play as a flex player. What are some things that make a good flex player at the pro level?

 

MOLSI: I think back at CS:GO I liked to support you know? I really liked to support my team, I was playing a support role, so I had every lineup for smokes, every lineup for the flashes, even now you can compare it, Sova needs to have lineups, if you think about KAYO you need to have some lineups 

 

I like to support people and I really like to play my role, because, for example, flex is not typical support, of course, on one map you can play Sova, and on the other one you play Raze, but I like to support people and that is what makes me so good in the role.  

Carriço: How do you prepare for opponents in general? What is your preparation method?

 

MOLSI: I don't think we use any specific method. Every team would say that we review the demos from other games, but you don't have that many demos as you have on CS;GO, so you just need to watch the replays from the streams, and it's not always showing everything, but I think we just adapt to the enemies, that's how we prepare. But also watching some demos, but every team is doing this so I am not going to be telling you anything new. 

Carriço: And how is it to work with Tommaso?

 

MOLSI: Tommaso is a different person than me for sure because he is Italian and I am Polish. We have more Eastern characters than Western. SO we can see the differences between the cultures, but yeah I like Tommaso. 

 

I always had problems with coaches, because there are a lot of people that try to be a coach but I feel like Tommaso is a real coach, and we really like to work with him. He is also a cool guy and a good chief, he can make some good food for you at bootcamp. 

Carriço: How is it to work with these groups of players at OG LDN UTD?

 

MOLSI: I can tell you that we have been working together for at least six months or even more, hype is pretty new to the team, but we know each other, and we know what we can expect from each other. We are close to each other because they are Lithuanians and I am from Poland, we have almost the same character. We know a lot about ourselves, and yeah it is very nice to work with them.

 

Carriço: What are some of the things/intangibles each player brings that are very important to the team's success?

 

MOLSI: I would say feweq is very confident and helped me to play with more confidence in the game. Because I can see he is confident and it helps me. I would say that Destrian is a really good support Breach player, he is the best Breach that I played with.

 

Overall there is no toxic player in the team and that is very nice, and that's what you need in the team. You need confidence and feweq brings it, and what makes us a good team is that we have very good chemistry. 

Carriço: How important is it to have a great team environment, do you think in order to find success a good team environment outside the game is necessary?

 

MOLSI: I think yes because there are a lot of teams that play together but they don't even like each other, they just play together because they have to, and I think we are not like this. Also having help from the rest of the staff, analysts,s or even the psychologist, which we didn't use yet but I think it can help a lot for other teams that struggle with some stuff inside the game. 

Carriço: How would you evaluate your campaign in the first split of VCT?

 

MOLSI: I think that for me the biggest loss was against NAVI, because for me they were the easiest team in the group, so I was maybe not sad but not satisfied with this result. I thought we were going to 2-0 them easily, but maybe my teammates didn't think the same, and we also were on Bootcamp you know, so it was like the first official on Bootcamp, maybe we also choked because of this. 

 

So I think we did the minimum we had to do to keep our slot in the League but I think the playoffs were very close for us. Because we didn't know about the fact we could still make the playoffs after the game with Gambit, we thought we were already out, and I hear that if we win some more rounds in both maps we could make it to the playoffs. 

 

I should say I'm happy but I think that we could have done better, one more win and we would have been in the playoffs.

 

Carriço: What are some of the things you think you guys as a team need to fix or improve in order to achieve the playoffs and have a deep playoff run?

 

MOLSI: I think what we could improve is only small things like having more discipline in the officials, and always being in a good mood. Because I think if you are always in a good mood in the game it helps a lot. 

Carriço: How would you describe the playstyle of OG LDN UTD ?

 

MOLSI: As I told you before we like to adapt to the enemy, that’s how we play the game. There isn't much I can tell you because I don't want to spoil it a lot. But we play more on the fly and we adapt. 

Carriço: Is it harder for you to play against more structured teams or teams that adapt more on the fly?

 

MOLSI: I think I prefer to play more on the fly, I like it more. Because I know from the past that structure doesn't always help a team. I would say that between, not a full structured team or adapting on the fly, you need to have a mix of both. 

Carriço: You guys are in Group A with G2 Esports, FPX, Fnatic, Acend, and Fokus, do you think you have a good chance of reaching the playoffs?

 

MOLSI:  I would say that we have more changes than in the last season. We wanted to go to Group A until some of the other teams were revealed. Overall I think that Valorant is still a fresh game and everyone can beat everyone so I don't think we should be scared of anyone.

 

Everything is going to happen during the game and if you focus enough you can win against anyone, if we don't play as we should we can lose to everyone so that’s how the game works for now. 

 

Carriço: Is there a team you are really looking forward to facing off against in the next season of the VCT?

 

MOLSI: I would like to play against FOKUS, they are a very good team. I know they said they didn't want us in their group in the VCT videos so yeah I would like to play against FOKUS. I also never played an official against G2 Esports so it’s going to be nice to face them. FPX we had them in the previous group. So I think FOKUS and GE Esports would be nice to play against. FOKUS is a good team and G2 Esports they are good but not always let's put it like this. 

Carriço: What are the main goals for OG LDN UTD  for the remainder of this year?

 

MOLSI: I think there isn't anything to hide, we want to go to Masters, and after that, we want to go to Champions. This is a game and everything can happen but our main goal is, of course, going to Masters. 

Carriço: For you as a player what are your main goals?

 

MOLSI: I would say the same. I want to stick with this team and be together on Masters and be together on Champions. Because I think we have a lot of potential but we need to make it real, play our game, and don't troll in the officials, don't have bad habits in the officials and I'm pretty sure we are going to make it if we play our game. 

Carriço: Is there anything else you want to say to the OG LDN UTD fans?

 

MOLSI: Yeah just follow us, follow OG LDN UTD, cheer for us, and we are going to show some good games in the upcoming VCT Season. 

 

Carriço: MOLSI thank you a lot for agreeing to do the interview, I wish you the best of luck in this VCT season and I hope I can interview you next time.