Astralis Talent have revitalised their year after a disappointing Spring split and now sit a respectable third in the NLC Summer 2022 table.
Lee Jones speaks to jungler Christian ‘Taxer’ Jensen from the all-Danish League of Legends roster on their change in fortunes, his thoughts on their new coach Jonas ‘Vandett0’ Jensen as well as insights into his lengthy stint with Excel Esports.
You spent the better part of about three and a half years on Excel, which is pretty unprecedented at ERL level. Who was the best player you played with in that time? Did you play with all players?
That’s a crazy question. I mean, we worked with the main team as well. So it’s kind of cheating, because I didn’t play on a team with them. But I’m not sure, there’s so many different players. I think it’s like some people were like, their human skills were better. You know, there’s some that stands out. And we’re like, nice people. And then there were some people that were like crazy good at the game. I’m not really sure who I should choose.
I think like, one of the, I think I had to say, Patrik, even though with like, I didn’t play out with him. But he’s on the main team. And I looked at him a lot. And he was just crazy good with and like insanely talented. Yeah, fair enough.
You were on there even when Aux was playing with Excel back in the day.
I mean, he was such a nice guy. Like he was a good teammate. He was one of the, like, the good personal level guys, like his skill level was not insane. But he was such a good teammate. So I appreciated playing with him.
What led to you actually being on one team for literally like three and a half years? Because that isn’t usually seen at this kind of level.
I mean, at the start, when I signed with Excel, I didn’t really know much about esports, I just kind of came from solo queue. And I quickly started liking everyone involved in the organization like Ryan and Furndog back in the day, and Keiran and Joel. And some of the guys like, I really enjoyed being with them. And every time my contract was running out, they saw potential in me, and they wanted to keep me.
And I just thought, like, I knew this place was good to be, I didn’t want to kind of flip it and go to another organisation where I didn’t know if I was gonna like it. So I just wanted to stay. And if I could keep improving, and I liked how they ran things, then I just did, yeah.
“I’m really sure we will do a lot better this split than last split. And I think our game against Bifrost was a good showcase of how good we are. And I think we will be even better in a couple of weeks.”
Would you recommend more players do that?
I mean, I think it can be good to stay one place for a long time, because you learn a lot that way. But it’s also really nice to like, try to jump on to a new team, in the time I was next, a lot of players would maybe play for like six or seven different teams, and I’ve just been one place.
So I think it’s good and bad. I think maybe two years at the place is probably good. As long as you still feel challenged and you feel like you can improve then you might as well stay there if they want to keep you.
Looking at more present day. You’ve joined Astralis for this season. And then in spring, I think it’s fair to say kind of didn’t go to plan. What do you think was was maybe the issue with that?
So I’d been on Excel for a long time, and I was kind of used to doing pretty well and being at the top of the standings. We didn’t really lose that much. We lost a bit, right? And I still learn from that. But with Astralis [in the spring 2022 split] we just kept losing. And I’m the kind of guy where if I lose, I want to work harder and I want to fix it. And I think that it was a mixture of a lot of things.
I think we were hit by pressure a lot and people were really nervous because we had high expectations, all of us, and it went really bad, I think that influenced a lot. I think I tried to overcompensate for my teammates. And then I forgot to focus on myself because I was looking at the games and I saw the mistakes we made, and I wanted to prevent them the next game. And then I would try to fix mistakes, that were probably not my mistakes to fix. And therefore, I played worse myself.
So that’s for me, at least, for every player it was obviously different. But in general, it was pressure and we were nervous. And it was just really weird. I never expected it to be like that, I was expecting us to just stomp the NLC.
“I see our coach Vendett0 as a guy that will keep working until he reaches LEC like myself and it’s just a matter of time until we both get there.”
I’d like to talk about Vandett0, your coach. Obviously you’ve worked with him on Tricked before. How do you rate him?
I mean, personally, I like Vandett0 a lot. He’s one of the best coaches I’ve worked with. He’s really hard working. And I think one of the skills he has that you don’t see in a lot of coaches is that he’s really good at like talking to people and understanding people.
I don’t know if it’s like kind of a psychologist’s way but he’s really smart at the personal stuff. And I think that’s important in esports. I don’t think it should be a coach’s job, but it kind of needs to be in a lot of scenarios. And he’s really good at that. Yeah, I mean, I think he’s just a phenomenal coach.
I see him as a guy that will keep working until he reaches LEC like myself and it’s just a matter of time until we both get there.
One of the things I wanted to talk about is your whole team is Danish. Does that create a more comfortable atmosphere for you all?
I think we mesh well together and when you’re all from the same country, there’s a lot of jokes and stuff that goes around that would not happen if it was not Danish people but, overall I don’t think it makes a massive difference.
I think maybe you will be better friends because you’re from the same country, but that doesn’t have to be the case. In this case, we’re really good friends, all of us, and our vibe is really good.
You beat Bifrost and Singularity this week. Looking ahead a little bit towards playoffs, where do you think your strongest level is right now? Would you be comfortable against the likes of Riddle and Excel?
I think that if we keep improving at the rate we’re improving right now then we will be an EU Masters team at the end of the split. I’m really sure we will do a lot better this split than last split. And I think our game against Bifrost was kind of a good showcase of how good we are. And we will be even better I think, in a couple of weeks.
You can follow Taxer on Twitter and Astralis LoL on Twitter here
