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Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen, former in-game leader of ENCE and OG Esports and currently of Natus Vincere, is the star of the 386th Episode of 'Reflections'. This episode is part one of three about Aleksib's career.

Aleksib's career began in his native Finnish scene and he was a member of an early ENCE roster as a relative nobody in 2016. With that line-up being broken apart he dominated Finnish CS for the following year with HAVU before a new look ENCE line-up, featuring names he had scouted, was assembled.

An early breakout event was ESL One Cologne 2018, where ENCE defeated the likes of NiP and MOUZ and played eventual winners Na'Vi close. After grinding up the placings of the medium sized and tier 1.5 events, ENCE then qualified for IEM Katowice and mounted one of the great underdog runs all the way to the final, where the mighty Astralis downed them.

In the rest of 2019, ENCE would prove themselves a top three to four team in the world. They won BLAST Madrd, ending Astralis' almost-record-breaking nuke win-streak. They would rack up many more top placings like top four at cs_summit 4, 2nd at Dreamhack Masters Dallas and 2nd at IEM Chicago.

The Starladder Berlin major arrived with unusual circumstances as Aleksib knew, privately, he would be benched but was allowed to play with the team. They would make the play-offs, with him famously fragging out in the swiss phase, only to be defeated by Renegades in the quarter-finals. He was kicked from the team after the event.

Forming a new squad with NBK in OG Esports, there would be barely any LAN events before the team was forced to compete online like the rest of the world. Despite an underpowered roster, Aleksib was able to get OG a good ranking and some deep online finishes to establish himself as more than just an IGL of Finnish teams.

After the online era, Aleksi would receive an invitation to join G2 Esports, one of the world's biggest organisations. Despite early success, making the IEM Katowice 2022 final and almost winning it out of the gate, G2's results were too up and down. Failure to make the play-offs of the PGL Antwerp major, no deep finish at IEM Dallas and an underwhelming IEM Cologne run saw him kicked. A semi-final at a BLAST mixed in there hadn't been enough to keep his job.

Aleksib was soon picked by up NiP and would help them qualify for the IEM Rio 2022 major, though they couldn't make a deep run there. NiP was notorious for roster moves seemingly constantly, but a top four finish at BLAST Fall 2022 stood out as a positive note in an otherwise troubled period. The end in NiP came suddenly, as a top eight at IEM Rio 2023 and a near miss at making the BLAST Paris Major play-offs saw his time in the Swedish org come to an end.

Aleksi was recruited to a new international Na'Vi roster that he helped get second at ESL ProLeague S18, the last CS:GO LAN. s1mple then departed the line-up and was replaced by w0nderful. Despite some good match results and solid placings, few expected much in terms of trophies. Na'Vi shocked the world by winning PGL Copenhagen 2024, the first CS major.

In part one, Aleksib talks about his entry into the competitive scene, joining ENCE twice, early tier one runs, making the Katowice major final and later beating Astralis at BLAST.

This interview was recorded on the 18th of April, 2024.

► Time-line of topics discussed:
00:00 Starting out as a League of Legends player
05:45 Old CS pals reconnecting?
07:20 Early ENCE
10:38 suNny
13:30 Dominating Finnish CS with HAVU
17:27 Aleksib getting the future ENCE players
21:54 ESL One Cologne 2018
27:42 allu
32:24 FACEIT London EU RMR
34:31 Levelling up at medium sized LANs and qualifying for the major
41:45 Did top teams scrim ENCE pre-Katowice?
43:44 Twista as coach
45:14 Swiss and allu leaving for his child's birth
50:19 Team Liquid quarter at IEM Katowice
55:30 Na'Vi semi
59:54 Astralis final
1:02:56 BLAST Sao Paulo
1:04:49 StarSeries S7
1:06:17 BLAST Madrid vs. Astralis

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Special thanks go out to JerCkysMiNi0n.

#Aleksib #ENCE #Thorin

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