With the VALORANT APAC Last Chance Qualifiers (LCQ) that recently concluded, SEA came out on top as FULL SENSE won it all and became the final APAC representative for VALORANT Champions 2021. If you’re still not convinced of #SEApremacy, Paper Rex and BOOM Esports both had a relatively good run in the tournament.
BOOM faced FENNEL and NUTURN Gaming in the upper bracket where they were then taken down by the latter in the upper bracket quarterfinals. BOOM faced DAMWON Gaming in the 2nd round of the lower brackets before finally exiting the tournament.
With that said, we talked with BOOM Esports’ Rafi “frostmind” Diandra about their “hunger for more” in the future seasons and as well as their post-APAC LCQ insights. Here’s how it went:
This is the last slot to enter Champions. What were your expectations going into the tournament?
Our expectations were to win it all, obviously. We are here to prove that, as Indonesian representatives, we can compete at the highest level in [all of] Asia.
The Last Chance Qualifiers involved the entirety of the APAC region. Although it was supposed to be a LAN event, how do you feel about the online setup?
We feel pretty disappointed, we were hoping that this tournament could be a LAN event but this online format is pretty expected since the condition of the pandemic is pretty unstable so we were ready for this online setup.
Do you think the online setting, with the ping and packet loss issues, caused some teams to not play at their A-Game? Did these issues affect BOOM as well?
Yes, we think that [playing] online can be a huge problem because the location that these teams are playing is all over Asia. Actually, we have had some problems in the Fennel and NUTURN games since one of our players had packet loss and we had to test the ping again for [our] next game against DAMWON. So yeah maybe we can say some of the team is not playing to their A-game.
Before APAC LCQ, out of all the regions participating, which one did you fear the most? Is it also the region you were most excited to play against?
Maybe we could say Korea is what we fear the most since we know how SEA teams play but Korea had a different level of play when in a tournament. And yes it’s the most exciting region to play against because we are getting tested by them so it’s very exciting.
Where there any other challenges for your team going into the tournament? And how did you guys overcome it?
Challenges come here and there, even in practice or in [APAC LCQ itself], but we kept our mindset set to the target and we overcame [the problems] together [as a team].
Have you guys ever had scrim experience with any of the teams in the tournament? How does it feel playing against teams in a scrimmage and in one of the biggest tournaments? Do you think things would be different if it was played on LAN?
Some of the teams that we scrimmed against played the same way as we were expecting but I don’t think it would be a huge difference if it was played on a LAN setup.
How prepared do you think your team was to fight the different variations of strats that could come from the other teams? How did you guys prepare for the tournament?
We are just focusing on our game, we didn’t plan to change anything for any team because we believe our gameplay is what was best for us. Nothing special for the preparation, we just focused more on our practice and made sure we got the chemistry since we just added [Rizkie Adla “BerserX” Kusuma and David “Tehbotol” Monangin] to the team.
Which other team’s performance surprised you the most?
Northeption.
After this event where only APAC regions faced each other, where do you think SEA stands?
I think SEA stands up there [at the top], we managed to send 3 teams to VALORANT Champions so I think that is some statement [announced by the] SEA [region as a whole for the rest of the] world.
How do you feel about what BOOM has achieved in just the first year of Competitive VALORANT?
BOOM has had some notable achievements throughout the year and we are hungry for more in the upcoming seasons.
BOOM Esports is an Indonesian organization founded in 2017. Their VALORANT roster is currently composed of Gary “blaZek1ng” Dastin, Nanda “Asteriskk” Rizana, Kevin “Eeyore” Gunawan, Saibani “fl1pzjder” Rahmad, Rafi “frostmind” Diandra, Rizkie Adla “BerserX” Kusuma, and David “Tehbotol” Monangin.
