Welcome
to the Jungle
Getting
to know Lucas “Santorin” Larsen
by Sandie "moondove" Gade
This season, TSM acquired another Danish guy to come and play for them. After
Amazing left to go back to EU there was a lot of chatter about who the new jungler would be, and when the announcement came that it would be Santorin, a
lot of people were saying “who is this guy anyway?” Well, we've gotten to see him play and heard from him on the analyst
desk after a TSM win, but I thought it would be nice to dig a little deeper and
get to know him better.
First, let me say that apart from being a damn good jungler, he is also a
really nice guy and he was more than happy to share his thoughts with me no
matter how trivial the questions. Stuff like his favorite color (black; he must
be happy rocking that TSM jacket), his favorite dish (his parent’s homemade
lasagna) and his favorite type of music (rock). He answered it all without
hesitation and was very kind about it.
I also found out that while he doesn't have a whole lot of time for hobbies (no
big surprise), one of his favorite shows at the moment is The Blacklist, and he is REALLY into fitness and has a special diet and work-out
routine that he follows.
So what else is there to
know about this young blond jungle god? Well, a lot really, and since we are all
fans of this wonderful game we call League of Legends, I thought it might be
nice to also ask him about that. If you want to get to know Lucas
“Santorin” Larsen better and find out what goes on in that pretty
little head of his, here is your chance.
Your full name is Lucas Tao Kilmer Larsen.
That doesn’t sound fully Danish. Can you tell me about the background there?
My name is not 100% Danish, you
are quite right! In Latin, Lucas
means "The luminous one"
and Tao means
"the path," and put together it means “the
luminous path,” and
therefore my parents chose to give me the middle name Tao.
Tell me a little about your path to pro.
The road to where I am today started
with me just playing League of Legends for fun, 3v3
normals mostly. When
I hit level 30 I began playing
the 5v5 map, because I had to play ranked now.
During the first two months I went from unranked
to #1 on EUNE and
that was when I slowly started to realize that I had a talent for this game. The season after, I moved
to EUW seeing as this was where all the famous players and great talents
played.
I quickly found a fully Danish team to play with and played LAN tournaments like DreamHack and the 2013
IESF World Championships. From
thereon, I got a lot of offers and when I turned 17,
I decided to take the offer from Coast and move to
America. I chose
to move to America because I
wanted to experience something new, and if I didn't manage to go pro in this game, then at
least I would have had a good
experience. I took a year's leave from my high school, that way I knew I could just go back to school if it all
failed. It was hard
to say goodbye to
my family and friends, so it was probably
the biggest decision I've made in my life.
What teams did you play for before TSM?
Before TSM, I played for Intellectual Playground (fully Danish team), The Fox Sound
(European team who
tried to get into Coke Zero, but failed), and a
lot of other teams including
full Russian and Polish
teams where I was the only one
from another country.
What was your initial reaction when TSM
first contacted you about replacing Amazing?
I was incredibly surprised. I had obviously heard rumors that he was planning to return to Europe, but I had not thought of
the possibility that they would ask
me. Of course I was surprised but also
very happy. It felt a little surreal, but after
I talked with them, I slowly
realized that this was in fact "real
life."
Describe a typical day in the TSM house for you?
My day usually starts with me getting up at 8am, I take a shower
and then I start playing soloQ.
We scrim from noon until 3pm. Then
we have a two-hour break
where we can do what we want; usually we eat and
play soloQ. Then
we have scrims from 5-8 pm and
after that it’s back to soloQ again. Sometimes we also have sponsor
things to do and we do those at the times where we would have
normally played soloQ.
Were you a natural at
the game from the beginning or did it take a while before you starting thinking
of yourself as good?
I felt, as I
said before, that I had a "natural talent" for League of Legends.
Like I mentioned earlier, I was #1 on EUNE within two months. But it’s not just League of
Legends I was good at from the start, I've always felt like I was good at computer games in general, World Of Warcraft and Counter
Strike to name a few.
Of course, even if you have "natural talent," you
should still put a
lot of hours into the game
to get really good
at it. So I played at
least 2-4 hours a day when I started out.
What is your favorite role after
jungle and what do you like about it?
When I'm
not playing jungle I usually play support. I
think it's fun to play support
because in a lot of ways it’s like jungle. You ward, roam/gank,
but the obvious difference is that
you are in the botlane
and play 2v2
at the start of the game. But I just really like
to roam around the
map and make "plays" here and there.
What is your least favorite role and why?
The role
I probably like least
is ADC. I like to
start the fight and be frontline/tank, so when I play ADC I usually go
to the frontline, die immediately and
lose the game for my team. I’m not very good at
playing the lanes, since I don’t normally "outplay" someone when I play
jungle; I just
kill monsters and gank here and there.
What is your favorite jungle champ?
My favorite champion
is without a doubt Lee Sin. I've played him since
he was released and he has always
been a meta pick. If I have to choose a champion
that I can carry best with, then it would be him. People say that a dog is man's best friend, but in my case it’s
Lee Sin.
What is your favorite non-jungle champ and
what do you like about it?
My favorite
non-jungle champion is actually Annie Support.
I love to roam around
with her and gank the other lanes.
She has incredible damage and a really nice stun.
And the further into the game you
get, the more damage she gets and eventually you reach the point where you can solo kill
your opponent even though you’re a support, just because she deals so much damage.
What do you think about the new jungle changes?
I think the jungle changes are a little
annoying to be honest. I don’t like having to recall so early because I have no
hp left. But I'm happy about the new patch where you get more gold from each
camp, because previously you only had as much gold as a support. I think I
adapted fairly quickly since the top jungle champions at the moment are Jarvan,
Rek'sai and Lee Sin. Seeing as I already played a lot of Lee Sin and Jarvan
since I started playing a couple of years ago, it was not hard to play these
champions again. And while Rek'sai is wildly strong right now, her kit is not
too difficult to learn, so I feel that it’s no problem to play in this jungle
patch.
But I was a little disappointed by the new jungle because in the beginning I
thought that I would be able to play all jungle champs and that my champion
pool could be larger. I don’t like playing only a few champions, but
unfortunately it did not last long. There were a few weeks where you could play
anything from Jarvan, Warwick and Xin Zhao, but then they quickly nerfed some
items and made some changes and now we are back to a few champions in the
jungle again unfortunately.
What is your reaction
when people on your stream chat say that you are hot or want you to stream
shirtless or something like that?
When people
write on my stream that I’m hot, or
that they want me to do shirtless stream
I am both flattered but I also think it's funny. Firstly, I think that it's
funny, because we all know that it’s
not allowed to do shirtless streams
on Twitch, you get banned if you do. But I am also flattered because I obviously think
it's nice that there are people
who like me.
How does flaming affect you? Does it make it different
or more personal when you are in the public eye?
Everyone gets flamed in League of Legends
once in a while, but if you get flamed on twitter or stream it obviously
becomes more personal because they know who you are and do it on purpose to get
you to feel bad. But I don’t take hate seriously, so it just kind of bounces off me. With fans come haters and you just need to be sure that you can separate
haters from the sweet fans. Haters just try to make your life worse, so just
shut them out. Sometimes it seems impossible to shut them out and ignore them,
as we have seen in cases where people start to believe the haters and therefore begin to feel insecure about themselves and think that they play bad. This
kind of thing should never be allowed to happen, because in the worst case
scenario they may stop playing because they simply can’t cope with being hated
on anymore.
Let’s move on to the competitive scene. So far
you’ve played IEM and you’ve started the LCS. How have these experiences been
for you and are you satisfied with your own performance?
IEM was the first tournament I played in
America and it was a great experience for me as it was also the first
tournament with TSM. Unfortunately, we lost our first two matches and were out
of the tournament very fast due to the fact that we hadn’t had enough time to
practice together. But it was a great experience and I was surprised at how
many fans cheered on TSM.
LCS is going very well for us, so far. I feel like I’ve performed very well,
but at IEM we didn’t really have the synergy down yet, so I don’t feel like I
contributed much there. However, I feel that we're going to be #1 in NA
at the end of this split, since our performance is really good at the moment
and we are doing well as a team, both in the game and outside of the game.
What team has surprised you the most in the LCS so far and who do you feel your
biggest competitor will be?
At the moment I’m very surprised by Gravity.
They were one of the last teams who entered the LCS through the challenger
series, and they were labeled as big underdogs along with Coast and Team8, but after
Week 2 they shared first place with us (TSM) and CLG, which is nicely done by
them.
As things are now I feel that our main competitor is CLG. We scrimmed them and
they played very well and they also have a good performance in the LCS, so I am
looking forward to playing against them there.
What AD-carries do you see
dominating the LCS in the spring split? Both EU and NA.
In the spring split, I feel that the most
dominant adc's from NA will be Wildturtle, Sneaky and DoubleLift, and in EU, I
think it will be Forg1ven and Rekkles.
What are your views on support staff? Do you feel coaches and
analysts move the scene forward?
I feel that coaches/analysts are a BIG part of the pro-scene. They
help us to be better; they help us find the strong picks and teach us how to
play the different comps. Not only does our coach help us with the game, he also
helps us with individual problems if we come to him. Coaches are also a much
larger part of the pro-scene now due to the fact that they are allowed on the stage
to help in the pick/ban phase, which means that it’s much easier for us players
to get a good start to the game.
Thank
you so much for your time Lucas and good luck to you in the LCS. In closing, do
you have something you want to say to all the fans out there supporting you and cheering you on? Both you personally and TSM as a team.
I would like to say thank you to
all the fans out there that support me. It means a
lot to me to know that there is always someone
out there who expects something from
me. It motivates me to train more and play
better. TSM has one of the
largest and best fan
bases and I'm very happy to be a
part of that!
For
more updates and thoughts, follow Santorin on social media:
