Hello everyone, I got the chance to sit down with Emil “Superkge” Karlsson, the captain of LIONS eSports to talk about their team and expectations. Hope you like it!

Hey Emil! Can you please talk about who you are and your history in eSports?

Superkge: Hey! Well, I'm not really sure of what people wanna know. But here’s some "short" info. I'm 20 years old from Sweden, working. Pretty positive and happy person! I started out playing HoN competitively really early in the beta but didn't really have any success, so I was just this no-namer. But then when I met Skyzoe and Mynuts in TMM I started playing with them. We did really well as the team ADON, which turned into LIONS.

Then after a while I couldn't really play anymore due to my work schedule. So I didn't play competitively for some time; then right before eSportSM started their qualifiers for DHS I got into 90s and from there we did really well and beat a lot of good teams.

We got taken out in the semi-finals in the BYOC for DHS. Then we kept playing for 6 months until DHW Qualifiers started (we won the Mid Wars tournament). I thought that we wouldn't get any further with the team we had so I chose to make some changes. But I really wanna say that all of those players are really good, they just need some more time. Now I'm in the new LIONS.

There are a lot of competitive games out there; can you tell us what is it with HoN that kept you playing this game?

Well, the game in itself is so nice (though the community needs to get better ^^). I really love to play HoN competitively, the gameplay is so nice. I think that some changes with heroes and items could be done, nothing major though. This game is so much better than LoL and Dota2. Though the money in both of those games is higher I still prefer playing HoN because the game is so damn nice!

So, LIONS eSports—please explain what you guys went through to get the LIONS sponsorship.

The things we went through until we built LIONS and gained sponsors was kinda messy. We talked first with Druidz, but their agreement wasn't what we were looking for. We turned them down and they came with a new deal, and we thought that was a really good one. So we accepted it, though we didn't wanna tag up before we signed contracts because of what happened before. There were some issues about it so they took the offer back—I don’t really want to get into it, it was a big mess.

Then we talked with Decerto and we were their team for a few months (2 I think). But they said we didn't perform well enough, so they removed us as their team. There were some weird things with that as well. And then MEGABEVeR helped me talk with Björn (LIONS HoN manager), and things went very well and we are now their team.

Let’s meet the team then!

They are just a bunch of douches! It's Handsken, Krebsen (Noobf), Sealkid and Aellgi.

Let’s start out with Handsken. The guy I've been playing with really long; he’s really a great guy. He’s our Drafter and all around player and he's really good at playing different heroes. I remember he ringed a lot of times for my old team and played really well on different ones. He carried us in a really important game with Tempest. He’s a good wooder, solo laner and support. Every team needs someone like him.

And now to Krebsen (Noobf). I don't really know too much about him other than his recent teams. He’s also really a good player—you can see that from what he has done in the past. He's our initiator / semi-carry. He really knows when to initiate and what to do overall.

Sealkid is our main support. He’s a really good support; he looks up new warding places and keeps control of where the enemy support player is warding (he typically looks up these kinds of things before the games). Nothing much more to say about him other than he's our ward bitch ^^.

I've been playing with Aellgi since 90s. He’s our carry player and he really knows how to farm efficiently. He’s really a great person who keeps the team spirit up.

I'm suicide / solo lane.

Why do you think you guys are a good team? What makes you synergize so well that you can compete in the competitive scene of Heroes of Newerth?

I think our success in HoN is due to everyone being a really good player. But we are kinda new to each other—never really played with Krebsen (Noobf) and sealkid)—so all we need is time, then we will become a top team. For the time being it goes really well for our team in scrims and such, so give us time ^^.

Where do you see your team in a couple of months? What are your expectations for the new big thing: HoN Tour?

Top 3 at least! HoN Tour will be really nice I think, I really like the idea of it letting new teams have a chance to compete for their ranking while they even make some money. I say, Go HoN Tour!

Do you have any teams you fear to face in the tournaments? What do you think makes them scary?

I don't really "fear" any team at this point, but the best team at this point is compLexityGaming by far. Tt eSports is really annoying to play against because their ping is really high on USW servers, but they also have some with high ping so it's fair. There are a lot of good teams now and I think Gary Johnson 2024 can get really far (IF they can stick together).

How do you prepare for your HoN matches?

We normally play 3-5 scrims every day. Other than that I don't really have any time to TMM or stuff like that, too much going on in real life—work, friends, church, and I’ve been traveling some lately.

Thanks for the interview Superkge, it’s been really nice to talk with you. Are there any shoutouts you would like to make?

Thanks for the interview, big shoutout to you RoLanD! Other than that for all my amazing fans and followers. Also I wanna shoutout to Gloriosa, Playride, Björn (Our manager), MEGABEVeR and my former team! I really hope I can see some of them back in the competitive scene and another shoutout for ArchiTigeR (Go Emerald Warden) ^^.

Also I would like to mention that LIONS have their own Community clan [LESC] Lion Esport Support Clan. Everyone is welcome to join it, though flaming or anything like it is not accepted. They play In-Houses. We from LIONS are going to join some in the future, so you can play with us. To be a part of this you need to contact either me or the following officers: Gloriosa or Playride.

- RoLanD
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