Roccat is no doubt Finland’s most successful team in the history of electronic sports. Standing on the bronze and gold podium several times in different tournaments, while now Roccat is preparing for another great event, the KODE5 Global Finals.

KODE5 in Moscow will be the first great test for Team Roccat's new line-up. Not a long time ago Tino “tihOp” Puumala, a living legend in the Finnish community, replaced a younger player Samu “plastE” Aalto. The move automatically put a new energy into the team.

"For the most part we hadn't been able to perform as well as we wanted with plastE," explains Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen, the Roccat captain, "and we felt like a breath of fresh air was needed and that came in the form of tihOp. No hard feelings or a conspiracy theory here, plastE is a great guy but things simply didn't click in-game.”

Most likely, the lineup changes were caused by Roccat's flop at the DTS Cup, where fairly unknown Ukrainian teams made short work of the Finnish team. Kovanen does not seem to like the topic being brought up.

"Bad days happen in CS and at DTS a lot of things went wrong, both in and outside of the game," he says and stresses that the defeats were just a minor slip-up. "People are making a huge deal out of a relatively small tournament, while no one is talking about Virtus.pro losing to EYEsports at the Russian Kode5 Qualifier or emuLate dropping two French LANs in consecutive weekends."

Team Roccat now moves to Moscow with hopes of winning the event. And the new man is a positive presence both in and out of the game.

“I think tihOp's slower or more cautious style is good for us as we're known for being over aggressive at times," says lurppis when explaining the new player's influence on Roccat. “Practice with him has been good, I don't think our online practice has been this productive since the days with toNppa."

Despite this, Roccat will probably not go to the Kode5 finals as well-prepared as they wanted. Plans of a four-day bootcamp before the Moscow trip failed and the team had to settle for online practice. "It's a big disappointment for us," Kovanen told, "but we just have to roll with the punches.”

Though Kovanen does not consider KODE5 to be on a par with the ESWC or WCG in terms of importance, but rather "in the second wave of tournaments," the competition in Moscow will be as tough as it gets.

But Roccat's captain does not fear any of the teams. "I have respect for some," he says and, not surprisingly, goes on to name SK Gaming, Fnatic, mTw, Made in Brazil, Meet Your Makers, Mousesports and emuLate as the contenders for the spots on the podium. He does not give Fnatic as much credit as many of their fans would: "They are not unstoppable even though they are considered the best team in the world," he begins. "They have had their share of losses and everybody will be looking to take their throne at Kode5."

Thinking if the KODE5 Global Finals go on to Roccat's another failure, as in DTS-Cup, Kovanen unveiled they are not playing nearly up to their potential yet, but despite that they want to make their sponsors and fans proud. "I think the only pressure, if any, is from ourselves," he says. "We either need much more online practice or a bootcamp to get our game going 100% with tihOp."

Will the new Roccat be the ones to do it? "I guess you'll have to wait and see," Kovanen ends.