Forg Gang won 3 games back-to-back to be crowned champions of BLAST Titans last weekend. We spoke to the man behind the tournament winning 1 v 2, Jordan “Legitlolly” Matthews, about the event, maps, season 10, aim assist and why on earth his team is called Forg Gang.
Aside from recently completing a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, 22-year old Jordan "Legitlolly" Matthews was also the winner of the $23,000+ Apex Legends BLAST Titans tournament. The British gamer, who competes for the unsigned team Forg Gang, made history with a clutch 1 v 2 in the sixth game of the Finals to secure the win. Playing alongside Legitlolly in Forg Gang was Frenchman Romain "row" Daly and 24-year old Dutchman Kai "Faenex" van Duppen.
Forg Gang had a bumpy start to the BLAST Titans Battle Royale event, only just making it out of the groups and the bracket stage. However, when it came to the final day, they ended on a high, winning three matches in a row to claim the title. We spoke to Legitlolly in his first official interview since winning the tournament.
What is Forg Gang?
Malystryx: So first off please explain how on earth you came up with the name Forg Gang?
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): When when made the team I was like guys, give a name but they didn't have any ideas, so I asked my girlfriend who really likes frogs. There is this is meme of a really badly drawn frog and its mispelt. Then it's just that plus gang because they're three of us. My girlfriend also drew the logo we have now.
Malystryx: What are the perks of being an orgless team? What has that been like for you?
I'm living at a friend's place at the moment, so I only pay bills. I'm not worried about my financial situation and I'm kind of enjoying not having to give a cut of my winnings to anyone at the moment. We're waiting for the next ALGS Circuit and for bigger names to come into the scene and hopefully get their interest. For us, we're more looking for an org that can build our socials, so rather than join a smaller org, we're happy to keep playing orgless and join a bigger one if that's possible. At the moment we're trying to build up our reputation a bit more.
LegitLolly on the BLAST Titans win and rough start
Malystryx: From a spectator's point of view you guys didn't seem to have a particularly good tournament until the final day. I was wondering if there was something more to it, because the difference was just massive in the Finals.
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): There's definitely a bit of a story behind this. Since the ALGS champs we've only played together for one week, which was over a month ago now because of technical difficulties. After that week, Faenex had his account hacked, and they were changing his password up to five times a day, like every other hour. That lasted for about a week.
After Faenex got his account back, we played for a couple of days then Row's PCs GPU broke, and he couldn't get a new high end graphics card. As a result, Row didn't play for two weeks and we played just two days of practice before BLAST. Heading into BLAST we were rusty with our comp and we honestly scraped our way through the groups and bracket.
For the group stage row's PC was still broken, and he went and borrowed a PC for day one. For upper bracket his own PC was back but still broken. For Game 1 of the upper-bracket we just played badly, that was on us. Game two, Row crashed and we played duo and after that Row's computer just wouldn't turn on, so we played the last two games as a duo. So we literally didn't get to play the game for upper-bracket part one. In the Finals, we got back into our place of working together and fixed our mistakes, and managed to pull through with the triple win.
"Game Two, Row crashed and we played duo and after that Row's computer just wouldn't turn on, so we played the last two games as a duo. So we literally didn't get to play the game for upper-bracket part one. In the Finals, we got back into our place of working together and fixed our mistakes, and managed to pull through with the triple win. "
Malystryx: So tell us about the BLAST Finals. You've scraped through, playing duos in a trios tournament for a chunk of the playoffs bracket. How did it all work out so well for you from your perspective?
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): I think at the start of the tournament we were rusty. I think Faenex said in his interview that we actually originally agreed to just treat BLAST Titans as practice because its the only big tournament we have before the next ALGS season. We hadn't been able to practice enough beforehand, and in between games we were just discussing what parts we needed to improve, thinking ahead to the next season.
In Game 4 of the Finals, we were sat in the building the game would end on with no meds. Luckily the circle pulled to us and we managed to win that game, and we just rode that momentum.
After that we were just like 'well if we win this one, let's just win the next one'. Our mentality throughout the whole thing is with match point format, it doesn't matter how badly you're doing if you just win every game, then you're going to win.
Legitlolly's tournament winning 1 v 2 clutch. FYI caster Dan Gaskin did end up shaving his head.
Malystryx: Three wins a row to claim the title is no easy feat. The game winning kill actually came down to you in a 1 v 2 situation. The clip is now famous, but what I love about the start of that clip is you're whiffing hard on EVA-8 but then you pull out the AR and do the business. In the post-match interview Faenex said him and Row were telling you to just take it slow. Can you run us through how you felt in that end game scenario?
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): For starters, I hate Eva-8 with no shotgun bolt, but honestly I was kind of shaky and nervous in that firefight anyway. I knew if I get this, its over. The back-to-back-to-back wins, it hadn't been done before for a match point. I saw the Valkyrie ulti into the sky, like that person's dead. That's just over. So it was all on that 1 v 1 and I knew it.
I just got a bit shaky and my team were just like 'calm down, it's fine you got this', and after I heard that I was chilling. I was quiet, I was calm I just wanted to make sure we're definitely winning this game. Then I just let loose a massive scream which kind of ruined it for my girlfriend and my flatmate, who were watching it with five minute delay. (laughs)
"Then I just let loose a massive scream which kind of ruined it for my girlfriend and my flatmate, who were watching it with five minute delay. (laughs) "
Legitlolly on BLAST Titans format and Olympus vs World's Edge
Malystryx: Love that. BLAST are known in other esports games as a tournament organizer, especially in CS:GO. What did you think about their overall format? Hakis from Alliance commented about not liking there being more than one map.
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): Honestly I feel like Apex Legends comps would do better with two maps because it's a bit stale having to play the one map all the time. We need more practice on other maps because Olympus I just found it kind of random. People tried to play it like it's World Edge and I think that's why people were uncomfortable with it. I do agree there should be another map, but there needs to be a way to integrate it nice and slowly, not just throw it out in our face.
Malystryx: I'm Gold 3 at the moment, far from a pro. For an average player like me, what is the difference between Olympus and World's Edge from a competitive stand point?
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): With Olympus you really have to commit to your comp. You're either going for kills, like a full on killing spree, or you play a spot you know you can rotate to zone from. On Olympus you have to pick a good spot. On World's Edge for example, if you're caught on rotation there is a lot of cover you can play around. On Olympus it's very open, so it's more punishing if you're in a bad position. So you have to be very clear on what you're doing, because things you could get away with on World's Edge, you won't be able to to on Olympus.
On World's Edge you can bubble and portal if you're playing Gibraltar and Wraith to a building. However, on Olympus if you're caught in a bad spot, there's nothing else in portal range for you to get to.
" On Olympus you have to pick a good spot. On World's Edge for example, if you're caught on rotation there is a lot of cover you can play around. On Olympus it's very open, so it's more punishing if you're in a bad position. "
LegitLolly on Season 10, Valkyrie and console aim assist in ALGS
Malystryx: What are you looking forward to Season 10 in terms of legend changes?
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): I'm very excited to see Horizon back, I was one of the original Horizon players when she came out. Apparently she can move more in her gravity lift, so they're reverting a nerf they gave her.
I'm really excited to see how that plays out, because she has some really fun interactions with other legends. After they nerfed gravity lift, you would go up it slower, and you could literally just get beamed, so it was basically useless. Before you could go up fast and strafe in it and you wouldn't get hurt at all.
Malystryx: There was a lot of Valkyrie's in the finals, something like 13 or 14 out of the 20 teams. What do you make of it? Is she overpowered?
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): I think Valkyrie is really very strong but I wouldn't say she is overpowered because you sacrifice a lot to run a Valkyrie. So in our comp we were running Valk, Gibraltar, Caustic. We had no way to really gather info. Crypto has his drone, Bloodhound has a scan, but the only way you can get info with Valk is when you're committed to ulti. So you've got to make decisions on the fly, if you can do that, then she's very strong, but I wouldn't say OP.
Malystryx: ALGS Year 2 will open up the championship to cross platform players from console. How do view this change?
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): I mean, as long as they're on the same aim assist as the controllers players on PC I don't mind. There is a scale of aim assist strength from zero to one, where one is like aimbot and zero is no aim assist at all. If I'm not mistaken on that scale aim assist is 0.4 for PC, but on console is 0.6.
If console players play with the same aim assist as PC for ALGS, in my opinion they'll be playing at a disadvantage. Console is just worse than PC and they're going to have lower FPS. The only benefit they had was the better aim assist, and they won't even have that.
I'm more worried about availability of strike packs, which are really popular in the console community. Strike packs are physical modules you can add to your controller, and Apex is pretty notorious for having bad cheater detection. So I'm just hoping they don't leach into our tournaments because there is only three LANS this year, so the majority of events will be online.
"If console players play with the same aim assist as PC for ALGS, in my opinion they'll be playing at a disadvantage. Console is just worse than PC and they're going to have lower FPS. The only benefit they had was the better aim assist, and they won't even have that. "
Malystryx: Any final words to the Forg Gang fam?
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): So now I've finished my degree I'm planning to take a year out to pursue Apex Legends, and I'm trying to get hold of a PC to stream consistently. I'll try to stream online tournaments whenever I can. Also check out my team-mate Faenex, he streams on Twitch.
Faenex is the biggest streamer out of the three of us, and he used to be a world champion in Paladins for Na'Vi before he switched to Apex. Once row finally sorts out his PC, he'll be streaming too. Hope you guys will support us!
Forg Gang will be competing in the BLAST Titans 3v3 Arena event this weekend, offering them a chance to double their winnings.