“We are a team that likes to pick whoever they feel like comfortable on”: LeonGids shares Rogue philosophy after Berlin Major semi-final win

^{Image: Ubisoft/Michal Konkol}

After three failed attempts to make it to a Six Major Grand Final (Paris 2018, Raleigh 2019, and Sweden 2021), Leon “LeonGids” Giddens and Matthew “meepeY” Sharples have finally done it.

In 2018, playing for Team Secret, the British duo lost to the best roster Siege has ever seen, G2 Esports. A year later, in Raleigh, still under Secret, they lost to the eventual champions Team Empire. In Sweden, playing for Rogue, the 2021 world champions Ninjas in Pyjamas, defeated the Europeans.

It will be the duo’s first international Grand Final since their DreamHack Valencia Minor victory while playing under the name of i don’t know.

On top of that, Rogue are Europe’s final hope in Berlin. After 1,014 days, the region might be up for its first international trophy since Natus Vincere’s championship in Tokoname in Nov. 2019. 

Even watching from home, it was clear that Rogue were the fan favorites against XSET.

But even with the support from the packed arena, it was far from easy. Rogue were crushed on their own map pick of Bank, as XSET banned Echo. The target ban against Tom “Deapek” Pieksma seemed to work and XSET won five of the team’s six attacks.

“We expected the Echo ban,” explained LeonGids in a post-match interview with SiegeGG. “Everyone is talking about Deapek now all of the sudden, they are talking about him playing on intel, so we expected it to come through from XSET.”

Despite the impact the ban may have presented, LeonGids downplayed the importance of it and argued that “the issue was that we were counterplayed, and we just failed to adapt to it.”

After the 1-7 loss on Bank, Rogue had to win on Chalet to force the third map.

Against Wolves, XSET had surprised some by going to a map the French squad was comfortable on. Léo “Kyno” Figueiredo had explained that his team “had been studying, practicing” the map, which helped against Wolves – but not against Rogue.

Rogue won XSET’s pick 7-4 before going berserk on Oregon, dealing XSET a 7-1 loss in kind to complete a remarkable comeback.

“Our attacks often can get fumbled because of the Smoke grenades and stuff, so we said ‘we don’t even play Smoke on any bomb site, let’s just ban Smoke so we can be nice and fast on our attacks and we can make sure there’s no area of messing up,” revealed LeonGids.

After an almost flawless first attacking half, where Rogue got five of their six rounds, the match was almost set and done. Rogue’s Echo and Valkyrie combination was lethal and wrapped the series up with a great C4 kill. 

“We are a team that likes to pick whoever they feel like comfortable on, that’s how we play as a team,” explained LeonGids. “Overall though, I told my boys ‘we haven’t won the game yet, we are doing well but we have to keep our heads focused, we have to stay level headed, and just keep playing how we are playing because that’s gonna make us win.”

Rogue will play in tomorrow’s grand-final against FaZe Clan, hoping to win their first title as the Brazilians look to become the most successful team from their region.