“We may have practiced more than other teams”: Lagonis on his team’s number "oNe" professional season

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Lorenzo “Lagonis” Volpi is a hell of a player both inside and outside the server. Siege is not his only passion, he was born with a racket on his hands – Lagonis is a huge tennis fan. Most recently the Brazilian has been practicing padel, another of his favorite sports. 

Such context gave me the chance to bring him back to the Mexico Major, which is undoubtedly Team oNe’s best memory since joining Siege. Back then, players had ping-pong tables in the venue’s gaming room – and guess what team won. “In Mexico it was nice! Table-tennis was so fun!” he laughs.

Unfortunately for him, no table-tennis was seen at the Sweden Major. Team oNe wasn’t successful at defending its Major title, following an unexpected loss to Rogue. “They were super aggressive on Kafe, we didn’t expect that. It was our second or third time playing there, we didn’t have much experience,” Lagonis said.

About the second map, played on Oregon, Lagonis said that the team made “many droning and position mistakes.”

Sweden’s disappointment was followed by a 0-2 loss against MIBR at the BR6 Finals. It was not the greatest ending to the team’s season. 

Last year will go down in history as the beginning of Brazil’s dynasty. Team oNe gave Arthur “TchubZ” Fernandes permission to build a roster from scratch, with the final result being announced two months before the beginning of the Six Invitational 2021. Incredibly, at its very first international event together, and with all of its players making their international debuts, the golden team took down the reigning champions Spacestation Gaming, which was followed by a loss to Team Empire.

It was also a huge first initial contact with the international community. The team was able to get the results. They also got the plays – Karl “Alem4o” Zarth became an overnight sensation with his performance against G2. And with work and experience together, they built a synergy that arguably no one else has in the scene. 

The Brazilian roster would get its revenge a few months later, as Team oNe defeated the Russians at no less than the Mexico Major Grand Final. Five months after putting the pieces together, Team oNe arose as international champions. From golden kids to the men in gold.

You can’t start building a house from the roof. Same here, you can’t start practicing and thinking of strategies if there’s a lack of synergy. Well, you obviously can, but the results might not be pleasant. Such an argument has also been used in FaZe Clan, who recently won the Sweden Major – players decided to stick together, create a synergy, and learn how to go through certain situations by failing until victory. 

Voilà, Major champions. Both oNe and FaZe.

Said Lagonis. “We have a lot of synergy and a lot of work. You need to practice, you need to talk. It is a lot of hard work, we may have practiced more than other teams. We are younger, but we have played the game a lot.”

It is a fact that Team oNe is one of the most hard-working teams in the scene, as that’s the only way to compensate for their inexperience. That’s the only way to succeed in a region full of cores that have been together for years, going through experiences and game situations that teams can only learn with time. 

The question now is, can Brazilian teams own the game for much longer? We will have an answer to this question in less than a month, when the Six Invitational 2022 ends. Lagonis thinks that “teams surely used Christmas to learn a lot, copy, and adapt things, and bring the Brazilian mentality.”

The Six Invitational will be played in Sweden from Feb. 8 to Feb. 20, with Team oNe aiming at obtaining another piece of international silverware and prolonging Brazil’s international dynasty.