lauNX: “I’d say we even have more firepower than a lot of tier one teams”

Sprout were the dark horses at the Europe RMR, where they breezed through the Swiss stage all the way to a surprise a 3-0 record and a spot in the IEM Rio Major’s Legends Stage. “When we qualified in Malta we were in shock for like a week,” Laurențiu “⁠lauNX⁠” Țârlea told HLTV. “We couldn’t believe that we actually did it because we were the underdogs, just like we are now.”

The international squad’s Major run started with two defeats, going down to BIG and then suffering a one-sided loss to Liquid. The squad led by Ismail “⁠refrezh⁠” Ali didn’t give up when up against the wall, and took out Aleksi “⁠Aleksib⁠” Virolainen‘s Ninjas in Pyjamas in their first elimination series in Brazil.

The 17-year-old, who was sprightly after his team’s victory over the Nordic squad, talked about playing at the Major, the atmosphere in Sprout, his path to an international squad, and he made it clear that the journey is just beginning. “From now on I’m looking for a bigger team, maybe FaZe or ENCE in a few years, or a year, or some months,” he said. “Who knows?”

I can hear the cries of every pick ’em player from here. How do you feel about causing that?

I’m feeling good, I actually put us as 0-3 in pick ’em just for the memes and I was like, ‘If we win one, then that’s a win-win situation.’ So I’m feeling pretty grateful! The first two games were pretty off, we weren’t used to playing good teams on LAN and it was pretty rough. Everyone saw it, we got demolished by Liquid, they’re such a strong team. But now I think we’re prepared for everything.

You came in straight to the Legends Stage, with no time to prepare or get used to the setup. You kind of came out of nowhere to play the top 16 at a Major, so how has that been?

When we qualified in Malta we were in shock for like a week. We couldn’t believe that we actually did it because we were the underdogs, just like we are now. Nobody believes in us, but as I’ve said every time I had the occasion, nobody should say, ‘Okay, it’s Sprout, they will lose fast.’ I told people many times that even if we don’t have the experience, we have a lot of firepower.

I’d say we even have more firepower than a lot of tier one teams. We have three young players in me, Zyphon and staehr, and I can say that refrezh as IGL knows how to handle us pretty well. It’s just a matter of time before things click for us. We don’t rush things, we just play the game and we enjoy every moment.

You beat NIP, who did well at the RMR, although here they’ve obviously had some issues. It’s a team that’s still stacked with big names, though, so what does that mean to a young team like Sprout?

I think for me and staehr it’s like, ‘Wow, we did it!’ But for Zyphon it’s not so much that because he played in Stockholm and Antwerp and he actually had good runs with Copenhagen Flames, so he’s actually used to it. But for me and staehr, we watched them playing and now we’re with them, so it’s just an amazing feeling.

I did want to talk about Zyphon a bit because one of the things we noticed in the closing rounds against NIP was that he was very vocal and keeping everyone calm in the late rounds. How does that work out?

Zyphon has like two personalities. You could see against BIG that he was tilted and his emotions got to him. Sometimes he’ll be like, ‘What’s happening? Why am I doing this?’ and then like against NIP you see him feeling the game and going like, ‘Guys, calm down, let’s do this, let’s do that.’ Everyone has this part and we just need to master it more and calm down because we’re just kids, so…

Tell me a bit about the experience here as a whole. What are you taking in and what are the lessons you’re learning even from just being here?

Besides the LAN experience, because for me… For me, and I think everyone except refrezh, every LAN and every game, even if we lose like we did against Liquid, we just need to get used to it. We’re still young, we have a lot to learn and we need to enjoy the time we’re here. As I said, we don’t rush things, we play and enjoy the game. If we lose, okay, we watch the game and learn. We’ll call each other stupid or something and start laughing, but that’s it, we’re just here playing CS.

You’re here in the Legends Stage after going 3-0 at the RMR, but where do you see the team in relation to the rest of teams around you here?

We actually have this joke that there are two different Sprouts. There’s the one that you think, ‘What are they doing? They’re just stupid, tier five,’ or whatever people call us on HLTV. But then when we actually play well and we hype each other and we have good comms and we feel the game, the only team that can actually destroy us when we feel really good about the game is NAVI.

I really enjoy playing NIP, FaZe, and all of these teams because it’s experience and in the end if we play our own game and focus the whole game, we can beat some pretty strong teams. It’s just a matter of time until we click and do some crazy run that not even we expect.

You’re playing Spirit next, how do you think you match up against them?

That’s pretty nice because we beat them in Malta and we’ve practiced a lot against them online. Me, individually, I have a good friendship with magixx, so it’ll be pretty nice to play each other because we have our crazy jokes together sometimes. It’ll be fun, they’re a team I love playing against.

Russian memer and Romanian memer coming together, perfect.

Yeah, very crazy!

As a little anecdote, there was a segment talking about your nickname on the ESL stream. Was he your favorite player and you decided to make your nickname like his, or what was that about?

I watched CS before I even started playing CS, and I watched fnx. His name is Lau, so it’s like mine. He looks sick, fully tattooed, he’s Brazilian, and he’s the perfect player, so I was like, ‘What name should I have? LNX? No, I’ll just do lau and add the NX.’ He’s like my idol, I love him.

Did you get to meet him here in Brazil?

No, sadly not! But I’m looking forward to it.

You came up through the Romanian scene before going international, you played the Red Bull Flick 2vs2 where you lost to magixx…

No! I actually beat magixx, we lost to some Portuguese guys.

True, but they won the tournament!

Yeah, they did.

But for people who haven’t followed your career until now, talk a bit about how you came up and got to where you are.

When the coronavirus pandemic popped off and everyone was staying at home, in quarantine, I was playing some CS. Just like one or two FACEIT matches, but then I started to really enjoy the game and I thought, ‘Why not make a living out of it?’ So during the whole two years of lockdown, when I wasn’t going to school, I was just playing like 14 hours per day. I’d play FACEIT until 7 in the morning, then sleep ’til 12, and then play again until the next day. So I was fully grinding FACEIT and deathmatch.

Romanian teams came in and said, ‘Okay, this kid has potential.’ So I got picked up by GameAgents, then NEXUS saw me and were like, ‘Okay, he’s 16-years-old, we can play tournaments with him.’ I played with them for a year and then a few teams were interested, but Sprout came in with the offer I couldn’t refuse. From now on I’m looking for a bigger team, maybe FaZe or ENCE in a few years, or a year, or some months. Who knows?

So, a lot of ambition!

Yeah, the ambition is very high!