Retrointerview – as the name suggests, it is a “retro” interview, buttery. In this type of articles, we will focus on people we worked with a few years ago and who are not necessarily still working on their projects. The questions will mainly concern the past, but there will be a few tidbits about the current scene.
InTrALEX is the founder of Speedrun Esports. One of the first teams to cooperate with us in 2019. Alex suspended his project a few years ago. Despite this, we still maintained contact with him, so you can read the results in this article.
We do not have such good contact with every former partner, so if the owner of a project that no longer exists, but we cooperated in 2019-2022, is reading this, please contact us via private message to email or Facebook if you would like to appear in such an interview.
e-mail: kontakt@superiongg.pl
[R] Hello InTrALEX, first of all, please introduce yourself to our readers.
Hello everyone, my name is Alex, better known in the CS GO world as InTrALEX. I was the founder of Speedrun Esports from 2017-2020. At the moment the project is on hold.
[R] Speedrun Esports operated for less than 3 years, from 2017 to 2020. Can you tell us why you decided to end your business then? Is there a chance to come back?
On the one hand, a bit of burnout, on the other hand, there is little time to divide attention between managing the team and private life.
[R] Looking at the current state of the Polish underground, what is your opinion? A step forward or a step back?
It’s hard to say considering that I haven’t been closely following the teams’ progress for a very long time. There are several individual individuals who have made it big and are already playing for serious organizations.
[R] What do you think is missing among players in Poland who want to get out of the so-called underground and they are still there?
I know from experience that people lack perseverance and humility, they don’t want to train a lot and only want to win.
[R] Three years ago there were twice or even three times as many teams in the Underground, where do you think it comes from that teams disappear from the map more often than they appear?
It seems to me that the lack of free tournaments is the main problem here, now you have to pay for everything, and not small amounts.
[R] What did running a project like Speedrun teach you?
Oh, I learned a lot, especially understanding, striving for goals, managing people, which helps me in my professional life, and a lot of patience, so all the positives.
[R] Currently, there are no Counter-Strike 2 tournaments on our scene. There are too few of them to be well-organized, and each tournament now has something to complain about. Why do you think it comes from that there were high-level Underground tournaments in CS:GO, but there are no such tournaments in Counter-Strike 2?
I don’t really have a strong opinion on this subject, there is something to add to every tournament, whether amateur or even professional, whether it’s poor organization of such an event or even weak computers on the lanes. I remember several tournaments in the underground where there was cronyism and the admin kicked out his friend’s opponents because they lost the match or even the lack of a server (although I never had a problem with that, because I was always happy to borrow mine). It’s hard to have an impeccable tournament.
[R] What do you think about the CYBERSPORT ranking?
A very nice alternative to HLTV, so to speak, and a very motivating project. Anyway, I gave up running SpeedRun when this ranking added teams from the underground, I think everyone would like to see their team in a given place.
[R] The team/project you had the best time working with in 2017-2020?
I think it was the NewaPower team, we became friends with them during the Polish Amateur Esports League, which we won, and since then we often trained together, helped each other with tactics, or even mixed teams on weekends and played for fun, those were great times.
[R] If you could go back in time, what would you do differently at Speedrun?
I made a lot of good and bad decisions, I got a lot out of this team and we left some trace in the underground. I think I could focus 100% on managing the team. I don’t regret anything and it was a great adventure, I met a lot of cool people and the darker side of the coin
[R] How important a role do you think social media plays for underground teams and tournaments?
Social media is a mandatory tool for every team that counts on something more than just playing. This makes it much easier to track the results of potential players or even sponsors.
[R] Why did you decide to cooperate with our media portal then?
I think it was time to promote the team somehow. Superion seemed to be more serious than just editorial.
[R] Thank you for your time. Want to add something to your fans?
Also, thank you for remembering, don’t give up on achieving your goals.
