We interview Arctic Storm manager Ashley “Slip” Haynes after the organisation brought on board some of the former XENEX League of Legends players, entered the UK Masters qualifiers – and made some bold claims.
Introducing @arcticstormgg UK Masters roster! Featuring @Artorias_lol @Prosfair @sancuslol @ARC_VoN @hejsansvenne see you all at #UKMasters pic.twitter.com/N0kfOop1wD
— ACS Slip (@ArcticSlip) May 11, 2017
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
My full name is Ashley Haynes, and I literally am a no name random myself with no background.
This is my first experience in this scene and i have set out to make it a memorable one.
When were Arctic Storm set up and what sets you apart?
The org to my knowledge is pretty new, me and my partner Scholar kinda set out together from the get go and have always found things a lot more comfortable working together.
I ended up getting followed by Arctic Storm and they expressed their interest in us. They had a good offer for us and provided exactly what we needed to get the right team together for this split.
Tell is about the roster, why did you get these specific players on board?
In the past I’d constantly been trialling the Willis twins (Prosfair and Artorias) and they are both very talented young players. Also they’re in the UK which kind of amplifies their value in this scene, so coming into this org it was a no brainer to go for them.
Prosfair also brought along his partner from XeneX (Sancus) who in my opinion is currently the best jungler in the UK. And again is from the UK which in turn also amplifies his value.
We have three top tier UK players which lays the foundation to also approach a lot of good roles in the mid and ADC role respectively. So we spoke to an ADC I’ve known for a little while called Hejsan Svenne, a lot of the time in scrims a few of my friends have players have said and I quote “is f*cking smurfing”. And he definitely earns the praise he gets in my opinion.
He was a very good pickup for us as I don’t really see any other ADC matching against him, except maybe Toaster.
Moving on to the mid lane we picked up von, who we saw a lot in solo queue and heard a lot of feedback from other players saying he’s a really talented mid laner. And i think his flair and new blood is pretty needed in the pro scene to mix things up. He has definitely performed well in scrims and previously, it’s just a case of transitioning him into the right player for the team from a solo queue player.
“We are going to hard stomp this prelim and we are gonna convincingly win UK Masters this split. We also want to win the ESL UK Prem afterwards for the CSQ spot.”
What are your aims and ambitions?
We are going to hard stomp this prelim and we are gonna convincingly win UK Masters this split.
Think of XENEX in a regular split with the LAN [strength] of MnM.
Our aims from the get go have always been to go to the ESL UK Premiership. Four months ago my partner and I started out on this with a random D5 team and we already had Aux and Artorias as contacts.
From there it kinda just snowballed into what we have now, and it’s honestly humbling to look back on how far we’ve come because we never expected to get here this fast.
Our aims as such are at this point to win UK Masters and to also go on and win ESL UK afterwards for the CSQ spot.
Now by no means do i think it’s gonna be “free money” but I do fancy our chances to go forward and definitely be top two.
What do you think of the other teams in the UK Masters qualifiers, how much of a threat do other teams pose to you?
We are excited to face the rest of the teams.
In my honest opinion, I think there are literally a handful of teams that we ourselves look out for, such as xL and then also teams that maybe Toaster or Caedrel could build. And then there’s maybe a couple of others I might not have seen yet.
But in terms of my “fear” for them, I trust in my players and the team I built to let their plays do the talking.
Last night’s smack talk was pretty fun to watch, I think stuff like this is fun and pretty nice in the scene because it gets everybody hyped up, and it’s even more fun when it’s a no name guy who mains Kayle and Panth. So watching him crash and burn after the way he spoke is definitely going to be an interesting aftermath.
On the other hand there is a player I have a good relationship with on Lotus so I also wish him all the best in this split too.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He has almost two decades of experience in journalism, and left Esports News UK in June 2025.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He also previously worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation.
