Visa issues and hunger: Broxah talks finding new fire on CLG

Like many people the world over, 2020 was a tough year for CLG's Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen.

Signing on with Team Liquid as their jungler, he was expected to help lead the team to another regional championship. Instead, his arrival to the US got sidetracked by visa issues which not only delayed his arrival until near the end of the split but exacerbated a collapse in the team’s morale.

In the following split, Broxah had to catch up to players that had been practicing professionally and steadily for a split. The process was not always pretty and the community was quick to lay blame on Broxah for the issues the team had.

Despite Team Liquid achieving the best regular season record in its history, Broxah may have been the most flamed Team Liquid member had been since Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett.

Now, Broxah looks toward a new team, a new split, and some familiar problems. He joins a roster and an organization that knows the flame he’s endured - and that’s found their own fire in response.

SK: How is the VISA stuff going? I know you’re still in Denmark.

Broxah: Right now my visa situation is looking a bit similar as to what it did last year in the sense that we are in January and I’m still kinda waiting. It’s still a bit unclear when exactly I will be able to go. This time mostly due to some of the corona regulations in Denmark.

I’m trying to use some of the experience I got from being in this situation last year - I try to use that to my advantage to get through it as well as I can this time around.

I was pleasantly surprised that you stayed in NA. When we talked I felt you were very homesick and so I thought you might return to EU. What convinced you to go to CLG and stay in NA?

This past year I came to LA obviously expecting to mostly play League of Legends - I spent by far the most of my time in front of the PC. But I also thought I would be able to experience a bit of the city and really just get a proper feeling of what it is to play in the LCS. Due to everything that happened in the year, I never really felt I got that feeling.

In the first month before we went into lockdown, I was just playing League 24/7 because I arrived so late and I had so much catching up to do. And then when I felt like I had finally caught up, we were in lockdown, right? So for that reason I was really interested and I could see a world where I could stay.

So I started talking to CLG, especially after talking to Galen [formerly Moon], our head coach, I got really tempted to stick around in NA for at least another year.

CLG’s roster is very interesting to me because it’s subtly pretty strong but also a little strange. What do you think are some of the strengths of the roster? What makes you excited to play with CLG?

So when I agreed with the CLG management to join the team, I actually only knew very few parts of the roster because the roster was by no means finalized. What’s the most intriguing to me was the entire philosophy and gameplan that the management and Galen had for this team.

I was very very happy with how the roster turned out in the ending. I think we have a really really strong roster.

In a way, I feel like what makes this team the most interesting is that every single player and even the organization itself has something to prove. [...] A lot of players on the team were not considered as valuable as perhaps they should have been on their previous team. Or they were the ones taking one for the team and being sacked to a certain extent - either when it comes to play or draft.

I think that eagerness to really show up and prove to everyone what we are all made of is really exciting For CLG, the organization itself, it’s the same. [...] I’ve already been able to see both with the roster and things happening behind the scenes that CLG wanting to get back to the top is not just words.

This is coming at a time where NA is pretty stacked it feels like. So to you, how does CLG get there? What are some of the important steps for the org to take?

Every single year there’s one or two teams in every league that people don’t expect to be good coming into the season. That people expect to be at the bottom of the standings or best case in the middle and that actually makes a big difference and turns out to be really good.

This year I want us to be that team. [...] It’s hard to say what exactly we need to do in order to make that happen. I think there’s a couple of things that need to align in order for us to reach top 3, but it's very realistic from where I stand. [...]

For us, the first step is handling the situation with the visa delays for both me and for Finn and making sure that we deal with those as well as we can. And then getting us both integrated into the team quickly once we make it into LA. That's the first hurdle to overcome and that’s what we need to focus on.

Once we arrive we need to see what the next is going to be.

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Broxah talks CLG roster and coach ahead of LCS 2021 season

Speaking about Galen, what exactly did he communicate to you that made you feel bought into the org?

Right from the start, it was really clear to me that this guy has a very, very good understanding of the jungle role. He has a very clear vision of how he wants his team to play, how he wants his jungler to play, and we were just really, really aligned in that regard.

Coming into 2021 the biggest focus point for me was to end up on a team where I can get to play the way that I want to play, where we can be fully aligned as a team in terms of strategy.

Just hearing Galen talk about the game and hearing how similar his thought process was to mine - hearing how jungle-focused his way of looking at the game is - for me as a jungler was really, really interesting.

I think having a coach with his look on the game, with his experience, is gonna be really beneficial for the team and especially for me as the jungler. [...]

Does Galen feel similar to any of the coaches you’ve had in the past?

Just like every player brings something different to the game, it’s the same case for every coach. Regardless of it’s about how the game should be played or structure and things outside the game. I’m gonna need to know Galen a bit better to figure out 100 percent where he lies with all that compared to my previous coaches.

I’ve had so many coaches with so many different views. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve had a lot of good coaches and with Galen, I don’t know, I can just feel his hunger.

Like he feels so hungry and he has a very interesting perspective partly because he comes from the academy team as well. I guess that’s one of the biggest differences between him and some of my previous coaches - the background. He just had a really successful year with the CLG academy team and now he’s coming with that in mind.

Do you think that’s like the running current in this CLG team, this hunger?

That is how I see CLG, generally speaking. This team is full of players who want to and will need to prove themselves this year. And I think a team like that, that is by many being considered an underdog on paper is really scary.

Like usually, the teams I was the most afraid of in the past were some of the teams that were not considered that highly and that came in with so much hunger. Who felt like they had so much to prove and almost nothing to lose. I would be really afraid of going up against this version of CLG too, that’s for sure.

Finn was a kind of potent, kind of volatile, presence on Rogue. Statistically, he was really right up there with the best of EU during Summer. What do you think of Finn as a player? Have you communicated with him or worked with him much yet?

I think when it comes to the community’s views on players it can often be really flawed. If we look at Finn’s case for example, a lot of people have been criticizing Finn mostly due to his performance at Worlds. What people aren’t keeping in mind is that two of the teams Rogue played against had two of the best top laners in the world. [...]

The level is very, very different. Especially when coming into Worlds as a rookie, it can be really hard to keep up with some of those players. Regardless of what role you’re playing, some of those Asian players are just on another level. [...] It’s kind of a shame that people seemingly forgot about how good Finn was in the LEC. I think he was really stable and an important part of Rogue.

I think having Finn come in is quite huge for us especially because of that Worlds experience. I think playing at Worlds is what you learn the most from as a player. For me, so far my best year with the most achievements, that was my second year as a pro player. And for Finn now this is gonna be his second year as well.

A big reason as to why both Caps and I improved so much in 2018 is because we had that Worlds experience in our rookie year. [...] I think Finn will be the same.

I learned that you worked directly with Kold during Worlds for positional coaching. I was curious about that process, some of those things that you might’ve taken from it, and if it’s anything that you can carry forward to CLG?

The reason Kold joined us at Worlds is that I felt like I could use someone by my hand to just spam me with criticism, feedback - someone I could trust who could really work with me on becoming as good as possible. I had a really positive experience working with Kold.

As a player getting constant feedback, having someone to discuss scenarios and things with is so valuable. For me, Kold ended up being the person that I could discuss everything with. He always had time to discuss, he worked his entire schedule and everything around me. That ended up being super beneficial for me.

Part of what made Galen seem so tempting to me is that after reviewing some games with him and hearing his perspective on the game and things in general, I had the feeling that he could be somewhat of a similar help - someone who can really help me grow.

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Broxah and League of Legends (and lasagna)

Aside from winning, what gives you the greatest feeling playing League of Legends?

Being in a team setting and working with a bunch of other people towards a goal and that drive and passion that everyone shares. Working towards that goal together is really… it really is something special.

And obviously when you win and you achieve your goal that’s great but I think that entire process is very interesting and exciting too.

In general, I’m just a very competitive person so - again, winning is important and all - but just being in this competitive environment I feel like fits me in a way. This way I get to compete literally every day whether it’s playing in tournaments or practicing against other teams in scrims or even solo queue is competition to a certain extent.

I think about solo queue a ton with League because of how bizarre it is that it’s like one of the main forms of practice. It’s kind of like - like I always compare it in my mind if Lebron James and Kobe and all these basketball players would play a bunch of pick-up games everyday with a handful of NBA players and G-League players.

I've always felt that solo queue can both be one of the best and worst parts of practicing as a pro player, since there's so many uncertainties and things out of your control. As you’re saying, in traditional sports teams are kinda isolated in a way and practice works very differently, in a more controlled setting.

When you’re a pro player and you queue up for a solo queue game you play up against all sorts of people. It’s a hundred - sometimes it can even be a thousand - different people, right? Everyone’s playing in very different skill levels, different goals, different backgrounds and missions and sometimes the games get really, really crazy because of that.

I think that can be very cool and it can be a part of what makes League so special but it can also be a negative sometimes. It can be a bit up and down.

Have you told CLG to bring out their best lasagna game yet?

[Chuckles] It’s actually kinda funny how the lasagna thing evolved throughout my time in TL because on Fnatic all my teammates and coaches always knew that I loved lasagna and our chef knew as well. I made to sure to let him know.

While being in TL it became such a bigger, public thing. Like even before talking to me, I’m pretty sure that the CLG managers already knew about the lasagna.