"It is playable, but if you compare it to Killjoy or a Cypher, it is not as strong a Sentinel" LEV Tacolilla about the current state of Chamber
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 Primary duelist and Op'er Vicente “Tacolilla” Compagnon. In an exclusive one-on-one interview LEV Tacolilla talks about his performance, Chamber as an agent, playing it again and more.
Q. What are your thoughts on facing Cloud9 next?
LEV Tacolilla: “It’s not going to be easy, they are a pretty good team, pretty good individual players too, and I don’t know. I just want to play, I expect nothing from the game, but it’s just that I know it’s not going to be easy”
Q. Was there a reason you chose to play Fracture over Ascent?
LEV Tacolilla: “Because we had good Fracture preparations. So we were confident about that pick today. In the moment we thought, fracture was a better option to play than Ascent”
Q. In the first few rounds of Fracture, it seemed like Sentinels would run away with the map. What were you lacking in those few rounds?
LEV Tacolilla: “We were just like, I think cold. I think I remember the clutch from Shyy, that brought back the warmth, the patience, we won that round and it translated to a map win”
Q. How are you feeling about your own performance today?
LEV Tacolilla: “Actually I know I can do better but it felt nice to do the same things I do in scrims. I did what I could, not less and didn’t disappoint the team. It’s pretty good for me. Feels Good! I am a little more confident now”
Q. What do you think was missing against KRU? What did you change in order to come out guns blazing today?
LEV Tacolilla: “I think we made a lot of mistakes yesterday in the game, as a team. Today, it was like everything or nothing. If we lose we go home, maybe because it was the last game and we had nothing to lose so we played like we are supposed to play and have fun. It was the most important thing that was missing from the previous games. We were just having fun and it worked for us”
Q. Did you prepare anything special today?
LEV Tacolilla: “No, we didn’t prepare anything special. We came with what we had and that’s all”
Q. You’d face Cloud9 next, is there any player you are particularly looking out for?
LEV Tacolilla: “No, there is no one player. There is no one special player for me. All five of them are pretty good so “
Q. Any mistakes you made today that you’d want to avoid in the next game?
LEV Tacolilla: “Not really, No. I just hope against Cloud9 we can play the same way we played today, having fun, relaxed. If we can do that, we can win that Bo5”
Q. What are your thoughts on the current state of the Chamber?
LEV Tacolilla: “It is playable, but if you compare it to Killjoy or a Cypher in some maps, it is not as strong a Sentinel as them, but it’s playable. If you have a composition and you wanna put a Chamber in, it is completely viable. But I think there are better picks than Chamber on most maps”
Q. Would you want to try playing Chamber?
LEV Tacolilla: “Yeah, I would like, I really like Chamber”
Q. One of the Cloud9 player’s criticized Leviatan for not having a deeper map pool, what is your counter-argument to the statement?
LEV Tacolilla: “I don’t think our map pool is weak. Anyways, we shall see on Saturday.”
Q. Anything you want to say to your fans or conclusive notes?
LEV Tacolilla: “I just want to say thanks to all the fans that kept supporting us no matter what. I really appreciate it, like really really appreciate it. I am grateful for everything that’s happening now. All the people are supporting me no matter what and I am really happy about that”
After the amazing win over Cloud9, Taco and co. face Cloud9 next in a best-of-five maps series. In the match, Leviatan came back from a 0-2 map deficit to reverse sweep Cloud9 to secure Grand Finals. Unfortunately, In the Grand Finals, Leviatan fell to a fellow LATAM team in KRU.
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.