Brandon “Juves” Defina is the captain and jungler of one of the top four teams in the Oceanic Pro League of Legends Series. Originally starting as a talented soccer player he transitioned to League of Legends and over the last two splits has shown a great capacity to improve and help lead Sin Gaming to impressive victories.

What originally got you into video games and League of Legends?

So, I come from a big soccer background. So, obviously, I just played soccer and I never really played computer games and then  me and my friends, used to have playstations. So, we used to play FIFA.

And then I had a group of friends that started to like computer games about four years ago… five years ago. They were like, “come play DotA.” So, they were like "I bet you can’t play DotA," 'cause they were Asian and were like, “white guys can’t play computer games.” And I was like, "oh whatever, I’ll go play it." I went to play DotA, and then I got somewhat decent at it, and then they went to League of Legends and said, “come play this, this is better” and, yeah, I began playing League about three years ago now -- coming up on three years. So, then, that’s how I got into League.

What motivated you to go from playing with your friends to getting into the competitive play? Has your motivation changed over time?

So I started off literally just with friends, just to have fun. I didn’t know that there was a competitive scene. Back then, there really wasn’t much of one. But, yeah, my nature’s really competitive. So, I was playing soccer at a really high level and then I got injured quite bad so I was out for a few years. And, so during that time I obviously developed my League of Legends skills because I wasn’t doing much, so I became better at LoL. And, it was kind of like the competitiveness just grew on me because I wasn’t getting it from soccer anymore 'cause I wasn’t able to play. So, I got into competitive League of Legends. That kind of just accelerated and I got better and better. Now, I look back… I still play soccer but not at a really high level anymore. I’m just more focusing on League.

I think that answered your question. I hope it did.

Yes. So then what has been the hardest challenge for you since entering the competitive scene in League of Legends? You played competitive soccer, was that an easier transition for you or do you think it made it harder?

I think soccer was easier in the sense that I didn’t have to convince my parents that it was a good choice, if that makes sense. Like, with League of Legends, it’s like, “Hey Mom, Hey Dad, yeah, I’m going to Sydney. I play pro League of Legends.” And they’re just like, no, you’re not going to give up soccer, pretty much, to play a video game. So, at the start, I had to really convince them that it was good. So, that was  a really big challenge. And now, they’re probably my two biggest fans. Whenever I play, my mom will have it on in the kitchen or something like that. It’s pretty funny. I’d say that’s a big challenge.

Then, just like, getting everyone else to understand what you do. You have to put time into it and commit and practice. But yeah, whether that be like girlfriend, friends or something like that… Yeah, that’s probably the biggest challenge.

Have you ever gotten your parents to play it or do they just watch you?

No, but like my mom will watch… Like, Rusty’s her favorite caster. So she loves the casters. So she’ll just watch and ask me like, “You were down in kills but winning in gold, why?” And I would explain it, "Oh, because we had more towers. Towers are really good." Then she’d be like, “oh, I get it.”

That is adorable, actually.

If you’ve ever seen me stream, she’s sometimes a big part of the stream. She’ll come in and be talking to me, and the stream loves her because she talks to the stream sometimes.

So, you’re the captain for your team. How do you feel this role affects you? Was it something that carried over from soccer or is it new with League of Legends?

I guess, it’s kind of carried over. So, when I played I was kind of a leader on the field. And I guess coming into League I… you can kind of transfer a lot of… I’ll call it real life sports, into league. So, the concept of teamwork and  motivating, like if there’s a big game, giving them a little pep talk...that kind of thing.

So, I guess just by doing stuff like that, I guess it was kind of like, "I guess he’s our captain of our team," If that makes sense… it was more like a general consensus that I was captain and now I guess I just get listed as captain. Because I tell my team if anyone has problems, yeah, come to me and then we’ll have a chat, or motivate people before games, pep talks -- you know, stuff like that.

As an individual, what do you think of yourself as a player?

Honestly, a couple of splits prior, I was really not good. I was not good in comparison to like… other junglers, like the better half of the junglers. I was honest with myself and stuff. I even said to the team: do you guys think that I wasn’t that good or good enough? Just let me know. I don’t mind. I don’t want to ever be like, "Hey I’m captain, you can’t get rid of me," in that sense.

I don't know. I wasn’t happy with the way I played. I was in a real dark spot and then I kind of motivated myself to start watching VODs, really try, start trying hard in solo queue and really just be honest with myself how I play. Then, I saw towards the second half of the split where we pretty much won every game, I’d like to think that I was a big factor as to why we won. Obviously, RYmeister went huge and the team played really well, but I like to think that I’ve improved a lot.

So, right now, if you ask me what I think of myself as a player… I honestly think that I’m one of the top four junglers in OCE. And, I think consistency is my biggest problem at the moment… so, if I get consistent then ,I don’t know, I really don’t know. I think I’d be one of the best.

In your competitive career, is there a moment that sticks out to you as the worst point, a point that you would never want to return to?

Yes. It would have to be... There’s actually  a few. Let me think which one is actually the worst.

You can use a few examples if that’s easier.

Okay -- so, it was the split before last split against Dire Wolves, and we were winning the game and it was pretty much -- like -- all I had to do was Smite Baron, but instead, I tried consuming it on Nunu and the consume has a cast time, and I died to Baron. We pretty much lost the game from that. And I was like, "Holy shit." I just got roasted by everyone. And at that moment, I was like, "Oh yeah… I’m not that good." It was pretty bad.

And then, losing to Trident this split was pretty dark. It was like everything we worked towards was pretty much finished. Because, obviously, we didn’t expect to lose to Trident and  when we did it was a big fucking --- big wake up call… which kind of, in the long run, turned out to be a really good thing.

So yeah, those two moments I’d say. Because the Dire Wolves one… we lost that and then we pretty much lost every game. I’m not sure if it was like a tilt factor or something like that but yeah. Downward spiral.

Alternatively, then, where do you feel like you’ve had your best moments? How do you think you can recreate them for yourself and your team in the future?

I have two best moments and they both happened this split. So, during Super Week, it would be 2-0'ing Dire Wolves and winning 2-1 over Chiefs. It’s just cause, like, at that moment in time we actually translated scrim results into OPL and we actually played well as a team and you could feel the development. It was like, "Hell yeah, we can beat anyone," and basically stopped everyone else from calling us shit from that point on. We were actually respected after that. And yeah, In a competitive game, I’ve never really beaten top two teams and to do that was just like, "Oh fuck yeah, finally!"

The second one was just playing at LAN. Even though we lost Semifinals, it was a neat; first time experience for pretty much all of us except Cardrid. Obviously, that was a huge moment even though we lost, I obviously wasn’t even --- I was sad we lost, but it was still a really good experience.

To keep doing that, I’d just say we've got to keep scrimming and working hard and I think we like --- it’s weird, like --- I’ve spoken to another OPL player about this and I’d always be like, "I don’t care if I play bad, as long as we win," kind of mentality. And now it's --- after speaking to Carbon, he’s kind of like, "I would rather play well because if I’m playing well that means we’re probably going to win," if that makes sense. So now, rather than just focusing on winning, I focus on playing well. I think that’s what I can do to keep on going with that form. So if I just know  I'm playing well, I win my lane -- especially in my role we have pretty good chance of winning the game.

It’s definitely a good view to have on the game. It usually translates.

Yeah. I kind of thought of it as being selfless, right?  So if I played bad and we win, I didn’t care. I’d sacrifice my game. But it’s like, well… play well. Like, focus on playing well.

What is your favorite and least favorite champions?

So -- actually, right now, my favorite junglers are the best three junglers in the game. Right now, it’s Graves, Kindred and Nidalee. Right now, I’d say give me Graves, Nidalee and then Kindred in that order. I just like them so much because you can actually feel like you’re doing damage. Because… the junglers since Kha’zix and Lee Sin nerfs have never really had the opportunity to carry games. And for once, this meta is great. So, it’s so much fun.

My least favorite champions would be those potato tank junglers like Sejuani, Zac… I know I’ve got like a famous Zac now 'cause we won OPL games on it, but I just don’t like playing it. But I’ll play it if it’s what the team needs.

That Cinderhulk meta was probably not your thing.

Yeah, the Cinderhulk period of time was the driest one for me.

What do you think of season six so far?

As in the patches?

As opposed to season five, how the metas evolved and the differences in how the game is being played in season six.

Season six is a weird one, like, obviously I really enjoy it because the junglers have the chance to carry games now. I mean, junglers could always carry games, but I mean by damage; so like, Graves, Nidalee, Kindred. So, in that respect I actually really like the game.

What I don’t, I guess --- it’s not that I don’t like it, 'cause it doesn’t affect me 'cause I don’t have to play it, but I don’t like control mages coming back in because I feel like teams can just get away with wave-clearing. I guess weaker mid laners can just play safer. It’s not as much --- Obviously, you can still develop mid leads playing control mages, but it’s not as volatile as playing assassins. So I really don’t like the fact that it’s moving into control mages rather than assassins. I really like the assassin play around mid lane. I like that top laners are playing tanks because it lets me play carries. I like that in season six.

I guess the only criticism I have is death timers. I mean, it’s not the end of the world because if your wave manipulation is good, death timers --- obviously it still matters, but it won’t matter too much if your lanes are shoved and then you lose a fight; you’re not going to lose too much gold --- I mean, not too many towers. But yeah, it’s noticeable to say the least.

Season five.. What was season five again?

Most people primarily remember it as having really long games filled with tank junglers and tank tops; it was kind of boring after awhile. Season six is more fast-paced. There was more stalling in season five.

Yeah, I can agree with that too. I like playing in season six better because you’re not fucking --- I mean, obviously, if you played the game properly it would never go to 60 minutes... but I like the fact that you can’t stall until 60 minutes. It’s pretty much if you’re losing, it snowballs. It means that my role as a jungler is more relevant now because games actually snowball a lot harder. So, I like season six a lot better than season five. Season five was like vision control, wave clear, vision control, wave clear, obviously rotate... and stuff like that.

I like the champions in season six better and the pace of the game, makes my role feel a lot more relevant.

Do you think that it’s gone too far to compensate for the long length of games last season? Obviously, the games are faster now and a lot of that is the changes to death timers, making mistakes more punishing. It seems in some games that a team can do everything right and then they lose a team fight after 30 minutes, resulting in a lost inhibitor. Thoughts?

So, I think that people have the wrong idea about how games end. So, if you look at TSM vs Ever at IEM, People were complaining that TSM lost that game because of one team fight and the death timers were too long. But if you look at the team fights before that, TSM actually lost about two to three teamfights previously and they didn’t lose the game, and the only reason they lost that game off of death timers is because they took a fight around baron and their mid lane was getting pushed in already. Your wave manipulation has got to be good because of the way that death timers are.

I don’t think that the death timers are that bad because if you look at another example like the NA LCS Finals, most of the games hit 40 minutes and in EU, the third place games there were a few 20, 25 minute games... but, I mean, those were just straight out stomps. I mean, if you’re getting stomped, I guess you deserve to lose the game. I don’t see why you should be allowed to just stall it out.

It’s rewarding. If you have a really good early game, it’s rewarding. There’s games that have gone to 40, 45 minutes and I think that’s long enough. I like it.

What changes in the game would you most like to see?

I don’t know how you’d fix this, but I’d like to see more standard lanes. I don’t like lane swaps. I think for the viewer --- I mean like, for us, when we watch lane swaps and we see the technical aspects of it and we’re like, "Holy shit, they played this lane swap so well," and stuff like that, it’s like really interesting for us. But for the people, probably in lower Elos that don’t really care about lane swaps and shit like that, it’s just pretty pointless for them and it’s really boring. So that’s one thing that I would probably change or try to.But I don’t know how to fix that. They’ve tried fixing it.

OCE is often overlooked. What changes would you most like to see for your community and the structure of competitive play for OPL?

I think for a region that really doesn’t have really --- I mean, we have infrastructure in the sense of Riot and they do a good job at giving us the opportunities to do certain things, but for a region with such little resources, we’re actually quite good. We beat… for example, Chiefs beat Brazil and Brazil literally four times, double, triple our viewers, probably earn more money, more sponsors… I’m pretty sure they’re in gaming houses too. I think for the little that we have we’re pretty good. I’m not saying we’re a good region, right? Don’t get me wrong. I’m saying for what we have, we do quite well.

So what I would like to see is pretty much more money so that people can commit more time to it, right? But then, it’s not feasible for Riot to just hand out more money. Do you know what I mean? You don’t even know if they can, but then it’s not even feasible to do so because we don’t have anything to prove that it will be worth it, like viewer wise. It’s a business, right? You know what I mean. So I’d like to see more money and then people can commit more time, people can get gaming houses, put more money into coaching.

And then in the longer term, obviously better internet. Like, that’s probably the least of our worries right now. Because, I think first we got to go into actually getting good coaches, developing good coaches and players can commit time into the game.

There’s a huge difference when you’re able to fully commit to something rather than juggle.

Oh yeah, you’re literally trying to go to an international event to compete with teams that fucking live in a gaming house for like two years now or whatever.

I think most of the other regions, at least their top teams, have gaming houses.

Yeah, even Japan. DFM... I think DFM have a gaming house. Don’t hold me to it, but I think they do.

Do you feel like more chances to play on LAN would improve the overall performances of the teams even if right now it is not feasible?

Yeah. I don’t think it’s feasible, but I do think that playing on LAN is a huge difference… I know it was our first LAN this year… or this split, and we were so nervous, and we didn’t really know how to play on LAN. Everything’s different, like the way your mouse moves, the noise in your headset, to the lights -- it’s so different, you know what I mean?

Obviously, the Chiefs have experience cause they’ve played at many LANs, but they play at our LANs like once every few months and these… I think the other teams… I don’t know if they’re playing on LAN, but I would assume that most of them play on LAN more than we do. I think it’s a huge difference because you have to take that time to adapt. Even if it’s like one game, two games, you’ve got to adapt to the settings.

What people have influenced you and helped you the most in becoming a better player?

I think just our coach, at the moment, Bencel. He’s  been a big help and also my teammates, right? Because they have all improved and I don’t want to be the one that -- or the reason that -- they’re not getting any results. I don’t want to be the reason holding them back. I just use them as motivation.

But other than that, intrinsic motivation… if you don’t want to play then don’t play. If you’re not motivated to get better then I don’t think you should play.

Do you ever have conflicts with your teammates? If you do, how do you resolve them?

I think every team has conflicts. It’s just the nature of the game. I mean, in every sport you’re going to have conflicts. So, it’s just about whatever the conflict is calming down and then talking about it with a level head and resolving it that way. Like there’s no point in not speaking to each other about it, you know? Obviously, every team has conflicts, it’s just about being mature and solving it. Don’t let it dwell, pretty much.

Do you have any funny or embarrassing stories you can share about yourself or the team?

Let me think… So Rogue, he… he always talks about his cat right? His cat’s name is Mr. Cuddles and you can’t take him seriously when he tries to introduce himself and his cat. Because it’s like, "What’s your cat’s name?" and he puts on this soft voice and goes, “My cat’s Mr. Cuddles,” and I’m just like, "Are you serious?" And then it turned out he has like six cats… and that’s not embarrassing but we always joke around with him and call him Cringe 'cause he’s got six cats.

But then, another funny story is I remember when were bootcamping in Sydney, our old AD Carry Cardrid ---  we saw a bird sitting on our balcony and were just like… we walked over to it and it didn’t fly away, and we were like, "What the hell, why isn’t this bird flying away?" And then Harry’s trying to pet it and then Harry stuck his finger out to the bird, and the bird just latched onto his finger and wouldn’t let go. It was actually hilarious. I have a video on my twitter of it. Actually so funny, the bird just latched on and he was like, "I can’t play anymore; my finger’s gone." It was so funny.

What are your hopes for your future?

So my hopes would be to --- obviously before I retire, I want to try and play internationally or at least win the OPL or something like that. So, pretty much, my long term goals are... I’m still at Uni this year, then. depending on how League goes, I might. after Honors. take a year off and then maybe go back and do my PhD or something -- but we’ll just see how we go this split coming up.

Any messages you would like to give to your international fans or potential fans?

Just thank you, a big thank you. Because it’s really nice reading messages of support and stuff like that, so it obviously gives you  an extra boot of motivation.

If you enjoyed this piece, follow the author at @poetsanarchy and the player at @SinJuves.