Tomi 'lurppis' Kovanen has been mostly famous for being a key member in top Finnish team roccat , and for a short period of time, Crack Clan . However, his fame has spread worldwide the last few months as he did a Beckham on European gaming and found himself in the top American Evil Geniuses ca.

Lurppis sat down for a little chat with our very own Alice 'ali' Lew to talk about the move to America, the team, the ESEA, why they failed at DreamHack and girl gaming.

SK.Ali: First off, how was the transition period for you having to come from Finland to live in Texas? Did you have to get a working visa and was there a problem?

EG.Lurppis: I'd say I'm still in the process of completely transitioning, I'd say my biggest issues are transportation as everything is so far away here without adequate public transportation, and not having enough hobbys etc to keep myself busy (largely due to first one).

I'm still in the process of getting my work visa (I can stay 90 days at a time) but it should be really easy because lawyers can just relate to zet's case and say it's the same thing again and the way it works they'll have to just OK it.

SK.Ali: How did you joining EG come about? Were you always friends with Frod and the rest of the EG crew or was it just totally random? Why did they go European instead of picking up an American player?

EG.Lurppis: It was probably a little random, I returned home after Easter after spending the holiday with some friends at their cottage and started going over news sites etc like I normally do to keep up and noticed EG was cutting Hanes according to WinOut, so I messaged Jordan on MSN to talk for a bit.

I then was asking who they're getting and he sort of joked "move to America" and I said sure I'm down, then he said my name had come up during their talks about it, so I talked a lot with everyone on the team for the next few days and to Alex about visa etc and decided to do it.

I'd say I was friends with Jordan before joining EG, and I'd been talking to Danny every now and then for a few years already but I didn't really know him/Tyler/Matt that well yet. As for why they decided to get a European player instead of an American one, I guess you'd have to ask them.

SK.Ali: What is expected of you in EG? Are you supposed to be that crazy impact player or the calm strat caller? Do you think it makes a difference that you have experience from playing in Europe while playing on an American team?

EG.Lurppis: I'm the calm strat caller of the team, which is actually a little change from the past cause even though I've always been calling strats, in my previous teams (roccat etc with different names) I was always one of the guys going into sites first in rushes etc as opposed to having to let other people do that now, so I'm still adapting a little bit to that.

I think the experience helps when we're playing European teams, as I know them a lot better than anyone else on the team. At the same time though, I'm literally clueless a lot of the time we're playing Americans, and don't even know how teams like to play or what spots each player plays etc so it's definitely taking time to learn about all these new teams and players.

SK.Ali: What's EG's schedule like for the summer? How confident do you feel compared to other American teams? How confident do you feel on an international level?

EG.Lurppis: As of right now we're playing in an online tournament hosted by Newegg for some hardware prizes, and planning on bootcamping a couple of days here before attending WCG Quiver shootout in New York on 18-19th July. The following week after that we'll bootcamp at Lethal Gamers and play ther mini tournament prior to ESEA-I Finals, which will be held there on 25-26th.

After that it's wide open right now, I think some tournaments will be announced later such as maybe X3O(s), EM events and so on. I feel very confident against American teams, and I'm looking forward to playing them on LAN in NYC and Dallas, as I've never attended a purely American tournament with EG before.

I'd say once we get back to our habits and practicing after this little break we should be fine internationally as well, we really played horribly at DreamHack compared to what we feel is our normal level, so fans shouldn't be too worried about our lackluster play over there.

SK.Ali: Jordan (n0thing) has a huge fan base here on SK-gaming. Can you tell us a little about how it is to play with him? And what about the older school players like Warden and Frod?

EG.Lurppis: Imagine playing with a hyper active kid who listens to one third of what you're saying and... Nah just kidding, Jordan is a nice kid who has a lot of talent for the game, he's nice to hang out with and we always have a lot of fun together at tournaments. I don't really know what to say, playing with them is pretty much like playing with anyone else now that I've gotten used to it.

SK.Ali: Scenario: YOU'RE PLAYING THE GRAND FINALS AT THE BIGGEST TOURNAMENT OF THE YEAR and it comes down to a 1v1 during the last round for the win. If you had to pick one of your teammates (or yourself) to be in that spot, who would you want to be in that 1v1 and why?

EG.Lurppis: I'd let Tyler do it, he's a really smart player and tends to win a lot of clutch situations for our team.

SK.Ali: What do you really think of the American scene? You've been here for a couple months, probably practiced against most top American teams, and travelled to a couple tournaments. Do you think American CS will ever reach the potential we know it can be? What do you think happened and does CGS play a part?

EG.Lurppis: One thing I don't understand is the inability of keeping teams together for a few months to finish a single ESEA or CEVO season. It seems like there's roughly 10 players or so who have probably played for 3-4 different teams during this season of ESEA, and it's just stupid cause if they actually sticked to same lineup and practiced they would get better.

It's up to the teams to put in the work and stick together to get better, right now there are five teams that I see continuously practicing to improve including us and that's not very many. Of course CGS played a part cause a lot of the old school top players switched to CS:S for CGS and never came back, so now there are bunch of new people who have the ground work to do to catch up. There's plenty of talent over here I think, just need to work for it and attend some tournaments and I'm sure everyone will keep improving.

SK.Ali: ESEA-Invite finals is going to be on LAN at LG in Texas this weekend. America's "best" will be in attendance and like you've said to me, the throne is yours. If not EG, would else can you see taking the event? Want to give me Tomi's top 3 performance picks?

EG.Lurppis: Haha the throne is not mine yet! Or well, LG's one is I guess but this is slightly different :p. Either way, the obvious top three favorites for the event will be EG, coL & Gravitas. It's going to be fun for sure and I can't wait to play everyone on LAN.

SK.Ali: Do you follow female CS at all? What's the difference between the European female CS and the American female scene?

EG.Lurppis: I guess I don't follow it too much, I get my updates from regular esports/CS websites or from talking to players.

SK.Ali: What is your take on female CS? Do you think we'll ever have what it takes to compete at a high level?

EG.Lurppis: Define high level? Nah just kidding, obviously there's nothing stopping you from being able to beat the best male teams, and from what I've heard you guys are doing pretty well vs males in ESEA-Main, and you did drop that 30 on us 4 years back... So I guess anything is possible?

SK.Ali: What happened to your SK account and do you want it back? :)

EG.Lurppis: I had to deactivate it cause I didn't want to ignore all the people asking me questions but I also didn't want to bother answering as I thought I was done with CS after Crack Clan :P. I figured deactivating actually mean you can re-activate it but apparently not on SK site. As far as getting it back, that's sort of whatever I don't really mind not having, saves me some trouble.

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