Luken: "I think every player in a top tier team in Latin America can do better if they are here"
Following Sharks' exit from the ECS Season 8 Finals in Arlington, Texas, Collin "CarbonDogma" Davis caught up with 22-year-old Luca "Luken" Nadotti to discuss the team's results at the event, their match against Astralis, and their expectations and goals going forward into the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals and 2020.
I believe you've only played with Spanish-speaking teams before Sharks, so what was it like joining Sharks and how did it feel to get an offer from them?
At the beginning I was very happy because I'm going to compete in another region, and that's all I want. I was excited to play, but I was a little bit worried because of the language, we speak Portuguese in the team. So I had to learn some words I didn't know, but the guys helped me a lot so it was easier.
How has it been so far, playing with the Brazilians? Obviously you have meyern with you, so what is the dynamic like, speaking mainly Portuguese?
Yeah, I think we grew up fast in the first days in the team. We did a bootcamp in Europe, the first two weeks I think, and that helped us a lot to understand this and learn how to play together.
I wanted to ask a little about the ESL Pro League Relegation. I don't know how much you know about this, but some English fans might not know about what happened. I believe the Clutch LA League was going to give a spot at it, but instead it was given to the Latin America North qualifier. Do you know what was going on there, or why other regions didn't get a qualifier?
Really I didn't know about that, only the organization says, "You guys have to play this, and you have to qualify to play this tournament." And we played, and we didn't ask for anything. We only played and won and went to the tournament, we didn't know what happened then.
Even though all the players on Sharks weren't from North Latin America, do you know how you got to play?
I think you had to play from Mexico, but you didn't have to be a Mexican player or a Latin American player. Sharks was in touch with the organization who runs this tournament, and they say that you have to play in Mexico at the time, and all the Brazilian teams or Argentinian teams can do the same, but they didn't, we did, and we qualified.
After that you played in ECS, and you guys beat both Liquid and Cloud9 during the main season. What was it like being able to beat those teams during the tournament?
It was a boost for us. We are confident in our maps, so we knew that we can win against those teams. It was online, but I think it's the same with Astralis, we play our maps, we are confident in our maps, and I think it helps a lot because we are not playing a lot of tournaments. So that tournament helped us to know that we are doing good things, and we are practicing good.
After that you had the ESL Pro League first group stage, and it seemed to be pretty easy for you guys. Do you have any thoughts about the teams you played against, like DETONA or Isurus?
We knew that it's going to be tough because it was our first LAN event with the new team, and we knew DETONA, Isurus. I knew all the guys too because we played against them a lot of times, and we knew that it's different because it's so much more competitive because of the regions.
They are good teams, they are playing in a gaming house too, they are training the same hours at home, so we knew that it was going to be hard, but we are confident in our maps. Those two weeks in Europe helped us a lot because we scrim with a lot of teams in Europe, and you have a lot more scrims with any teams, and they're so good. That's why we are so confident.
Do you think the South American region is doing really well and they are improving?
Yeah I think so. We don't have too many opportunities in there, but I think every player in a top tier team in Latin America can do better if they are here, or in Europe, they can grow up so fast too. We knew the Brazilians are guys that won two Majors, they have a lot of teams growing up in NA, FURIA, MIBR, they are legends now. They only need opportunities to grow.
Are there any players, either from Argentina, or Latin America in general, that you wanted to shout-out, or think will be really good in the future?
The Argentinian guys from Isurus, they are always the top team in Argentina. So if they move to NA or Europe then they can grow up more and more, and be beating the top tier one teams.
What were your expectation going into this event with a bunch of really top teams here?
I came here with the mind to get experience here, enjoy, and also win, we want to win a lot. We came with that mind, we came here thinking okay, we have to play our game and see what happens. If it goes bad, we need to change that thing, we need to solve the mistakes, and that's it.
In the first match, you went to overtime against Astralis. Do you think that is sort of a sign of your team's future potential showing?
We knew that we are going against Astralis one week ago, and we knew that we can play Nuke, so we prepared that map a lot because all the people know Astralis is one of the best on Nuke in history. We prepared that map, we are pretty confident, yesterday we played against other teams and we did pretty good on Nuke, so we went in very confident. We should have won that map because in the 15-14 round, we are stacking the site that they go, 5vs4, but we did a few mistakes because of experience. And when you go to the overtime in that situation against Astralis, we pretty much know that we are done.
Also read: EliGE: "The CS schedule is completely terrible and it seems like there's no fix in sight"Even though you lost to MIBR the next day, do you still think you had a good showing overall?
Yeah I think so. We did a 3-12 half against MIBR and 2-13, and in the other half we did good things. On Vertigo if we started on T we would've done a better show, but then we saw all the mistakes that we had done, and against tier one teams you can't win by doing those mistakes, like bad flashes, bad timings. We are preparing for the next tournament now so I think it was a good experience for us.
Later this week you have the Pro League Finals, which is just a few days away. What is your guys' goal for that event?
I think our goal is like one match maybe. Do it better than here, don't do those mistakes. We can lose, but the mistakes that we do here it cannot be repeated over there when we play against a team like G2. We are excited to play against them, we want to win against them, to play again against Astralis in a best-of-three because you learn so much against those guys.
What do you think is your long-term potential for this Sharks lineup, something like making a Major or making the top ten?
We have a dream to play a Major together, or a large tournament like IEM Katowice or ESL One Cologne, that's like the greatest achievement. To do it together, it would be great to qualify for that tournament. In a year maybe we get those invites because we are a top ten or top fifteen team maybe, that's the achievement we want.
Sharks are set to face the new Renegades side in the Group B lower bracket of the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals tomorrow at 6 AM EST.
Earlier today, a joint report by HLTV and Globo Esporte stated that MIBR are currently in talks to replace Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles with Luken's teammate Ignacia "meyern" Meyer.
