"I do really well because my team trusts me a lot" LEV kiNgg about his individual performance

In the VCT Americas, Leviatan was one of the top teams during the regular season. They concluded the season with a 4-5 record, finishing fourth behind LOUD, Cloud9 and NRG. They were the top contenders coming into the LCQ. Facing KRU esports who came in hot after their win over MIBR and FURIA, Leviatan didn’t show up. The team had to recover from the loss and play Sentinels in an elimination game. With their back against the wall, Leviatan finally showed up. Winning the game 2-0, dominating Sentinels.  After the win, Strafe had an opportunity to interview Leviatan’s IGL Francisco "kiNgg" Aravena. In an exclusive one-on-one interview LEV kiNgg talks about his performance, Chamber as an agent, playing it again and more.

Q. Congratulations on your win, How is everyone feeling that now you have a chance to make it to the Grand Finals?

LEV kiNgg: “Yeah, we are feeling really good. We knew this match was important, we talked about a lot of things. All the pressure we took it out, so we came here to win today you know. That’s different from every other day of the map”

Q. As an IGL, what do you think was the problem against KRU yesterday?

LEV kiNgg: “The problem we had yesterday was, we had a lot of pressure. We have been dealing with external problems from everyone. We had a lot of things that we were not capable of controlling. So I think everything just came together leading to us feeling nervousness, pressure and fear. Yesterday, we didn’t go to win and destroy the opponents you know. We went in to do our job and you can see the difference between the performance”

Q. Is there a particular reason Leviatan didn’t ban Split and instead banned Ascent especially since it is a strong map for Sentinels?

LEV kiNgg: “For us Ascent is a weak map you know, we trained against Sentinels, they won a lot of their Ascent against us. I think that was the part of the problem that we scrimmed a lot against Sentinels. We had like 20-25 scrims in total against Sentinels, so we knew everything about each other. I knew their Split was strong, we lost three Splits against them but we knew how they played, we knew what they had prepared and we knew that we could go and make a strong map against them, even though it's one of their strong maps. So that’s why we decided to keep Split open because we knew they were going to pick Split because they knew they won Split three times. It was like we were reading a book and we knew what to expect”

Q. Starting off on Fracture, Leviatan looked a bit cold, what was the reason for that?

LEV kiNgg: “Like I said, we had a lot of stuff going in between so yeah. The first map was horrible, we played really bad. Playing this series, we really had nothing to lose, so that’s why we stepped up. Now we can be the team that we are in scrims. We are feeling really confident, the only thing that can stop us if the other teams play way better than us. The thing is that our first enemy is always going to be us and now that’s not in the picture. Obviously, a lot of people had a lot of faith in us. And Now I feel like we finally came back”

Q. Being the IGL of the team, there are seldom times when you don’t perform (stat-wise). How do you balance both fragging and calling for the team?

LEV kiNgg: “I mean it’s really hard. Everything goes back to the time when I started to IGL for Leviatan. I was horrible, I was terrible at calling and I couldn’t frag at all. It took me like seven-eight months to really feel confident with the role and my individual level. I think it happened just before the Turkey Champions. That’s when I started being confident in my calls, on my individual level. But yeah, I do practice a lot, I do a lot of extra work to get better at my aim, I play a lot of rank not a lot but yeah.

But the thing is that I do really well because my team trusts me a lot. They always tell me that you are the best. I have a lot of confidence on my individual level because of my teammates. So it’s hard for me to not believe I am the best when they keep saying that I am. Everyday they say, you are the best, carry us. I just go, do my stuff and today it worked really well. I did a really good second map and yeah I was feeling it.”

Q. As an IGL,can you tell me about your IGL’ing style?

LEV kiNgg: “I think my IGL’ing really focuses on being aggressive in the beginning of the round, in the first thirty seconds. Make pressure, make them go back. Today, we were doing it just like we practiced in the scrims. Usually, we try to replicate our scrims but we are too scared to take some gunfights which we aren’t going to win. It’s not like I do magic, it’s just the thing I practice in scrims and my team plays really aggressive. Everyone was really confident today, so it was really easy for me to make the first call and then kinda move the other team around.

But also today, something that really helped me is nzr was really confident too, so he helped me a lot with the calls. I remember I called something in a round on Split, I told my guys come back A and we’d do an A Haven execute. And nzr told me kiNgg come back B so I was like okay let’s do that. My teammates were really helping me today with the calls so it was way easy for me to play my game”

Q. You’d face Cloud9 next, any particular player or team you’d look out for in Cloud9?

LEV kiNgg: “They have a lot of talent, everyone in the team is really good. I do have a lot of respect for them. The ones I think are really good and always stand out are leaf. Leaf is insane, he is one of the best duelists in the region and not just in the team. The second player would be jakee, jakee has been doing amazing things, his aim is insane, he is an insane player. Both of them are the players we’d look out for and they are a really good team”

Q. Anything you want to say to your fans or conclusive notes?

LEV kiNgg: “Thanks everyone for always cheering for us. Thanks for trusting us even though we haven’t been doing that great. They have been really there for us and I can’t say anything more than that, we really appreciate it. We will do way better in these upcoming games.”

After winning against Sentinels, Leviatan went on to defeat Cloud9 next. Reverse sweeping the title contenders to face their LATAM brethren in KRU esports in the VCT Americas LCQ grand finals. Unfortunately, Leviatan couldn’t take the final steps and lost to KRU in the grand finals. 

The loss concludes Leviatan’s VCT 2023 season. Leviatan was the best LATAM team in 2022. The team made an impact on the international scene with their great runs and amazing games in Valorant Champions 2022 and VCT Masters Copenhagen 2022. They fell to Natus Vincere in the LOCK//IN event but displayed some amazing Valorant. While they failed to consistently remain at the top, they were one of the toughest teams to beat in the Americas. With the amazing talent in the coaching staff and the players, Leviatan will definitely come back stronger in 2024.  You can follow the updates regarding the same on VCT NA twitter. 

Credits: Riot Games // VCT Americas.

You can also follow VCT Americas on Strafe.