Danish League of Legends bot-laner Nikolaj ‘DenVoksne’ Meilby has had a big impact in UK/Ireland/Nordics League of Legends in recent years.
He’s played with the likes of Barrage, London Esports (where he was part of a thrilling UKLC final versus Resolve) and others, including Tricked, who he helped become the first non-academy team to win the NLC.
After a sting with Mad Lions Madrid in the Spanish Superliga, DenVoksne is back with Dusty for their 2022 NLC roster, who are currently 4-4 in the 2022 Summer NLC. Lee Jones sits down with DenVoksne in this video interview to discuss their form, his background and lots more.
On Dusty’s current form in the 2022 Summer NLC
“I think I’ve underperformed quite a bit, honestly. But also, I think as a team we lost some games that maybe we shouldn’t have lost. We made some stupid mistakes in some in the games we lost. And I think we learned from them, so hopefully that doesn’t happen next time.
“I think we deserve to be kinda in the middle [of the NLC league table] at the moment, but I think we’ll scale well into the season, I think we will pick up a lot more wins, I think we will for sure make playoffs.”
On going to esports college in Denmark
“It’s something called Campus Vejle, which is like a normal school and it has a sport college side of it. And five years ago they added an esports part to it, which was quite successful, with CSGO and League of Legends.
“So I decided to come here, and it was really nice, there was a bunch of people from the Danish scene: good players between Challenger and Master. There was people to talk to you, you can make food together, practice good habits and improve a lot through talking to each other and watching each other’s games. It was just a very good environment.
“They had a mental coach who introduced me to meditation and went through the benefits of exercising. We could do gymnastics and play football and hockey and go to the gym. It wasn’t like high extremely high level coaching or anything, but it was good.”
On Denmark’s esports talent pool compared to the UK’s
“Denmark is one of the richest countries in the world per capita. So having access to a PC from a young age is really normal.
“Secondly, it’s my guess, but free education. When I went to school, I got paid. So I didn’t have to do anything other than go to school and play. Like if I paid my rent through the money I got from the government by going to school, and I paid for all the food I ate, I could do what I wanted with my free time.
“If this was in theory in the UK, I would have to move out, move away from home and I would have to pay rent. So I would have to get a job and I wouldn’t be able to spend as much time playing League. So I think that’s in general, just a big thing.”
“I feel like in the NLC you don’t need imports [as much as other regions]. We have so many strong players on every team.”
DenVoksne, Dusty
On the NLC compared to the Spanish Superliga
“Look at some of the strengths and weaknesses of both regions. I feel like one thing NLC has always had is you really don’t need imports [as much as other regions]. We just have so many players, so many strong players on every team.
“And in every region, there’s just always Nordic residency people. So building a team in the NLC, even though maybe we don’t have the money to import a lot of players, you don’t really need to.
“I feel like a lot of the other regions, like not necessarily Spain, though there are a lot of Spanish players, but there aren’t really enough to fill the whole league with like extremely strong players. This, I think, in general makes a lot of teams stronger.
“LVP is just a lot bigger, so they have a lot more money, they can spend a lot more money on better players in general and stuff. But I feel like you always have good teams [in the NLC] just because there are so many players.”
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