First off, could you please introduce yourself to those of us who don't know you?

Yo my name is Joona Leppänen, I'm 20 years old and currently here in Seoul for WEG #2 together with team astralis from Finland.

Speaking of Finland, how did the whole 'Finnish people are online' thing get started?

Uhmm... I suppose we can all thank the legendary clans such as Clan Z and Ewoks with their gigabyte config files for that. Not to forget that finns used to do considerably bad in big events.

Outside of Astralis and D-Sky, you hardly hear about other Finnish teams. Why is that?

Well probably because these two teams have had the very best finnish players for the past couple of years. Basically I think it all began when Liquid Ice was formed back in 2003 and then eventually Guardian left the team to form a team of his own that eventually evolved into astralis. Also the fact that astralis and especially DSky were the
only teams with sponsorship to travel around the world to attend events. I think we'll see more teams from Finland attend these events like Wings has done lately.

Why don't we see more sponsored Finnish teams when there are numerous teams in the rest of Europe with full sponsorships?

Probably one of the main reasons is the lack of people who have both the business instinct and the passion to esports to make those major deals true. But things have definitely gone for the better all the time with the amount of events / prize money rising all the time. I think it's a matter of time until we see more and more finnish teams with decent sponsors, hopefully us being amongst them :)

Have you and your team enjoyed being in Seoul so far? What have you guys been up to while in Seoul?

Yeah, we've had a lot of fun here! Apart from all the hardcore practice we've been going out quite frequently as that seems to be the common hobby among the teams here as well :). Basically we've just been trying to have a balance between playing and having fun so we won't get over exhausted of playing. It's all good over here!

What has been your best gaming moment in your career? The best tournament you've had?

All the way back in 2001 it was probably one of the most unbelievable moments when we came 3rd at the World Cyber Games here in Seoul. Standing there on the podium with hundreds of people in front of you, video cameras all around you and considering it was the very first international event of mine. That was just simply unbelievable. I think the best
tournament for myself has to be CPL Summer'04 where we came 4th with DSky, although if things had gone even slightly differently we could've gotten top2. But regardless, we played some real good counterstrike that tournament.

If there was one thing in CS you could change, what would it be and why?

Make Source disappear, for eternity and even further k thx.

Do you think WEG is the future of E-Sports and especially CS? Why or Why not?

Problem at hand is definitely the amount of time coming to WEG requires. Like for us it wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for the summer holidays that everyone's got right now. If WEG just keeps on pushing their format further and fix a couple of flaws it will become if not the biggest, at least one of the biggest tournaments in the world. Solely it's value to companies who sponsor teams makes it the biggest event at the moment in my opinion.

If Finland and the US had a dream team match for CS, who would be on both teams? Who would win?

Just cos' I don't want to make anyone sad (actually I don't want to get my ass kicked) I have to say for Finland I say whole astralis lineup! For the US my picks would be hanes (love you Corey <3), frod, method, Ksharp and umm... let's say Warden. We would obviously win since we're so darned random.

Thanks so much for your time Joona. Anything else you want to add?

No problem brooks. I just have to say I'm still waiting for that 2nd date baby ^^. Oh and by the way - bar chair > brooks. Thanks to our sponsors Steelpad / Icemat, Shuttle and Level7 netcafè in Helsinki !