Gambling on a New Start: A Short Chat with Kristoffer “P1noy” Pedersen
Gambit Gaming is a team that needs little introduction to fans of popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), League of Legends (LoL). Established in January 2013, the team was originally composed of Alexey “Alex Ich” Ichetovkin, Evgeny “Darien” Mazaev, Danil “Diamondprox” Reshetnikov, Evgeny “Genja” Andryushin and Edward “Edward” Abgaryan — all members of the legendary Moscow Five lineup.
The team became famous in the western LoL scene for their dominating performances in their region during the league’s second season, including being labeled as the favorites to win the S2 World Championships and being crowned the unofficial kings of the IEM tournaments.
After Moscow Five released their LoL squad after losing funding for their gaming division (partly because their CEO was arrested a year prior), Gambit Gaming picked up the ronin players and went on to continue their dominance, being one of the few teams coming out from the west to take games away from the Korean teams of their era.
The start of Season 3 saw Gambit retain their top tier form, though a gradual slump towards the end of 2013 (following the temporary departure of Edward to North American squad Curse) saw the once great Russian Overlords put on a middling performance at the S3 Worlds event, finishing in the 5th-8th bracket.
Fast forward to 2014 and roster changes have since plagued Gambit Gaming. Edward’s return did little to recapture their former glory and the team eventually lost their long-time captain, Alex Ich, as he left to take some time off for his wife and child.
Declining play from Darien and Diamondprox saw them benched midway through the season, with Gambit sliding towards the bottom of the table in the European League Challenger Series (LCS).In September of this year, the team traveled to the LCS Spring Promotional Tournament in Los Angeles, California with two stand-ins in their team.
Things have changed however and the team recently announced a more permanent roster coming into the 2015 season. Recently, we were able to have a short chat with one of the key players to help out the team during their battles in Los Angeles. Today, we are joined by Kristoffer “P1noy” Pedersen, newly signed Attack Damage Carry (ADC) player for Gambit Gaming!
Formerly known in-game as “Krislund”, the 18-year-old half-Danish, half-Filipino player replaced Genja for the LCS Spring Promotional in Los Angeles. As of Nov. 7, 2014, Krislund has changed his in-game name to P1noy after being signed onto Gambit. P1noy is a Filipino on his mother’s side. Born and raised in Denmark, Pedersen has been playing video games competitively since his childhood days. He has served on similar roles for Tricked eSport and Reason Gaming.
eSports Inquirer (EI): Hey there! Let’s get this thing out of the way first: Why did you change your nickname from Krislund to P1noy?
P1noy: I wanted to represent my “roots.” I really love my mom and her side of the family means everything to me. Me being able to represent the country I love in my own way means a lot to me.
Although I was born and raised in Denmark, I have been in Philippines numerous times. I even studied for a year in 2008 for 5th grade elementary school.
EI: Well, quickly moving on to League matters: How long have you been playing league? How did you start out in the competitive scene?
P1noy: I started playing league since May of 2011. I started on the competitive scene around February 2013 when I was playing with a way higher Elo (rating) support that taught me a lot and I improved from there. We played on a team together and it slowly developed into playing a lot of Danish local area network (LAN) tournaments and online. Soon, it became international tournaments and LANs with new teams and so on.
EI: As the new ADC for Gambit, what’s your favorite champion? And why do you like the ADC role so much?
P1noy: My favorite champion is Corki. ADC gives me that ability to carry a team after being carried by your second hand (the support) in lane. I really love the farming and carrying-later-on-in-the-game style. It just suits me well after playing a lot of carry in Defense of the Ancients (DOTA).
EI: In a statement released by Gambit Gaming, they said that they decided on you as a pick up for their team because of your talent and chemistry with the rest of the group. Some say however that you have limited competitive experience. Can you comment on this?
P1noy: It is true that I have (less) competitive experience, but that’s exactly why they decided to go with me. I’ve played a tournament with them in Los Angeles about a spot to get into the LCS which we managed to win. I myself had a pretty good performance. On the team, we also have 2-3 veterans who are willing to help me and other new guys on the team (Lucas “Cabochard” Simon-Meslet, top lane) to learn a lot.
But on top of it all, we are super motivated to play and improve!
EI: How long do you train for league during the day? How long do you play league of legends in general? What’s your mindset when playing or training?
P1noy: When I was at school, I trained usually 6-9 hours a day. Now that I don’t go to school anymore, I usually play for 6-16 hours. I play almost everyday (if I’m able to). I’m always looking at what I’m doing wrong, how I can improve and what exactly I have to do to reach to the next milestone of improving.
EI: For someone so young, can you describe your experiences as a professional player? Any nice stories or good memories?
P1noy: Nothing much actually. I haven’t experienced most kind of stuff that is funny. Just that I and my jungler, Diamondprox, every morning at 4 a.m. in America would go to eat burgers for breakfast before we headed to the studio to practice. We were in Los Angeles at the time and it was just overall super nice meeting fans and signing things for people for the first time. It was weird.
With Gambit Gaming recently voted into IEM Cologne as one of the European team of choice alongside the new blood in Unicorns of Love, look for a fresh start coming out from an old favorite. Joined by Curse and CLG — the North American representatives — the team will look to dominate the fields of justice on the back of their young but extremely capable talent.
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