Earlier this month, X7 signed former Izi Dream and Dusty jungler Anton ‘Viking’ ‘Taxer’ Andersson after a string of mixed results saw them sitting mid-table in the Summer 2022 League of Legends NLC, with six wins and six losses. Since adding Viking to the roster, X7 won both of their games last week, against Vanir and Riddle.
Lee Jones speaks to the Swedish LoL jungler Viking about settling in with his new team, the quality of Swedish League of Legends talent and more.
What was it like playing in a Sweden vs South Korea friendly exhibition match a few years ago in front of the King of Sweden and the president of South Korea?
It was a bit fun, it was a Swedish team I made and it was a fun game, my team trolled it! It was not that serious. If you won the qualifying tournament you’d play on stage, it was fun to do.
How do you rate the competitive level of the NLC now that you’re back in it?
I think in terms of the competitiveness of the players, I think the Prime League is not that competitive. I think NLC is better than Prime League for sure. But maybe not all teams.
Team building is very important, carrys on every role can work, but it’s maybe not consistent, and imagine if everyone has an ego. Ego can be a good thing if you play in a confident way, but team building and personalities are important too.
We have some good Danish and Swedish talent in League of Legends.
Yeah, we have some very big players [from Sweden]. Larssen, Smiley in France, Rekkles… then from Denmark you have Caps and Jensen so on.
There’s a very good playerbase. I think the NLC hasn’t built its fanbase and structures like the LFL and Superliga, but I see some pros to it here. If the salaries and audience were similar, the NLC could become a very strong league. I got offers from many teams in NLC and could’ve stayed with Dusty, but when bot lane left I didn’t want to stay cos they wanted to play with me, but we couldn’t find a [new] place together in a team/organisation that we liked.
But now I found X7, with very strong solo laners and good bot laners. I’m loving it in scrims, with good results.
“I saw Chasy being 18.7cs above his lane opponents in a scrim, his stats were mindblowing. In my first scrim, Chasy and Tempt always had prio and were always stomping. I was like, holy fuck, it’s easy to play with these laners, they’re the best laners I’ve played with.”
Were you following X7 closely and seeing their mixed results, and what did they say to you?
I thought there was a chance of me joining in the last two weeks of them playing, but I had no contact with them.
They came in and said, ‘we think you’re the perfect fit for our team, we know what you can do,’ and I agreed. My expectations of the solo laners were high and I thought they would talk less, but they talk more than I thought. I really, really like everyone in the team, we have good scrim results.
In my first scrim, my laners also had prio and were always stomping, and bot lane is doing really good too. Attila is one of the craziest players on the team, but good crazy, he likes to clutch a lot and he knows what he wants. This is probably the best team I’ve played with. And the German team [was very good too with communication and more]. From what I’ve seen so far, I’d be surprised if we don’t go to EU Masters.
Did you think it might be hard to build up synergy and have that pressure of needing to get results straight away?
I think I talk a lot and I say what I want, and if I don’t know what I want, I usually ask my laners questions, like if they want to dive bot or what are they thinking.
If I feel like my teammates are disconnected, you can ask them what they want to do. I got told when I joined this team, ‘just say what you want to do, the Koreans will do it’. And it’s been like this. I haven’t had a single time where I got the wrong info from the laners.
With less experienced players they don’t always know the matchups, but my teammates always do. It’s really pleasant to play in this team.
“In my first game with X7, our top-laner Chasy almost died to a gank after I warned of an incoming gank. I had to flash away too. Apparently our top-laner slept bad that day because he had a nightmare. As long as people don’t have nightmares and we have good drafts, I think we’ll be the number one team.”
How much of a statement was it beating Riddle last week?
Riddle were 10-3, but I didn’t think anything of them really, I think they have some okay players but we have two Korean solo laners who are really good. So if we’d have lost that game, I’d have been mind-blown.
And it’s about how people are feeling on the day. For example, in the first game I played [with X7, against Vanir], our top-laner [Chasy] almost died to a gank [by Kreox] after I warned of an incoming gank. I had to flash away too. Apparently our top-laner slept bad that day because he had a nightmare, I heard the casters said he didn’t play so good, but as long as people don’t have nightmares and we have good drafts, I think we’ll be the number one team.
Are you confident of beating Excel, in a potential Bo5 in playoffs?
Yeah I have respect for them, their players are good, but I think we have good laners too, so it’ll be a good best-of-five if that happens. Anything can happen, we could lose, Excel could lose.
Thanks for the interview Viking and good luck with X7.
You can follow Viking on Twitter and X7 Esports on Twitter here
