Everyone's favorite Skumbag: Celebrating Krepo
Riot·5/13/2015, 9:11:04 PM·2 votes·19,797 views
Despite his infamous nickname, Mitch "Krepo" Voorspoels is anything but a scumbag.
Most celebrated for his time with international champions Counter Logic Gaming Europe (aka CLG.eu), Krepo's lovable personality, educational streams, and insightful appearances on tournament analyst desks have helped him amass an international fan base. Although he is one of the biggest personalities in League of Legends today, Krepo's legend has been years in the making.
Krepo's fortune changed when two players from Absolute Legends, Henrik "Froggen" Hansen and Mike "Wickd" Petersen, were looking to replace their bot lane and jungle. "They wanted Snoopeh, and Snoopeh had enjoyed playing with us in La GG previously, so he recommended us and they said, 'yeah, let's get [Krepo and Yellowpete.]'" Absolute Legends merged with CLG and created the CLG.eu roster.
After their founding in December 2011, the team got their first big break a month later in an online tournament called Kings of Europe, where they went head to head with European darlings Moscow Five. Krepo and his squad were the clear underdogs in the tournament. When they defeated Moscow Five in the finals, the upset was a clear signal of great things to come. "Moscow Five steamrolled all of those tournaments, so that was a big opening statement for us."
This victory provided the team with validation and confidence, making it easier for them to focus on team play. "Of course the atmosphere is going to be really great if you had just made a team together and it starts going well." Even on a personal level, the team clicked and Krepo believes this was key to their success. "I think the power of CLG.eu was that we were really good friends," Krepo explain. "It helped that we were winning, but the atmosphere on the team was great because of our teamwork."
This powerhouse squad was ready to take on the world.
Over the course of 2012, CLG.eu dominated top placements in European tournaments. They managed to win three international tournaments, including DreamHack Summer 2012, and finish Top 3 in seven others.
In the Summer of 2012, CLG.eu would be one of two European teams invited to play in Korea's Azubu The Champions tournament. Taking place in Seoul, they would grab hold of the opportunity to make a name for themselves against the best teams in the world. "It was one of the biggest crowds we had ever played for. Just being there that day, a nice and sunny day in Korea, playing in the finals of a video game tournament two months after I dropped out of college to do this. It all came together. That's my best memory."
CLG.eu managed an impressive 2nd Place finish at The Champions, proving that they were among the world's elite teams. Despite being upset in the Season 2 European Regionals, CLG.eu qualified for the World Championship. They managed to make it to the Semifinals before losing to Azubu Frost.
While it seemed as though the future for CLG.eu looked promising, the team would never dominate again.
After EG turned in a 15-13 record in the Season 3 EU LCS Spring Split, rumors surfaced that Froggen had become frustrated with Evil Geniuses' lack of outstanding results and wanted to build his own super team, Alliance, with Wickd. "I don't fault him for that and I never have. It was the logical transition because the team kept playing very poorly and we just didn't have the results anymore." The team would split, and Krepo would soon have to make major decisions regarding his future.
Krepo felt frustrated by the public's opinion of the team and believes that their negative outlook began to influence Evil Geniuses' mentality and overall dynamic. "Everybody had this perception that these three leftover players from EG got tossed to NA and that they were just garbage, ancient players that were long over their [prime] and they were just bad. I think subconsciously my teammates just assumed that, 'Yeah, this guy is on his way out. He's just here as a face, a brand, and a marketing tool,' which I always found annoying."
With an equally disappointing 7th Place finish in the 2014 Summer Split, Krepo was ready to move on. "At the time I said it would be really humiliating if I had to end my career on another relegation, which pretty much happened when I ended 7th that split."
Krepo wanted to wait for a better opportunity to come along and decided to start streaming for Cloud9, a period that lasted for about two months. "I think if I'm in a really good mood, my streaming can be funny. I try to make a lot of jokes, but I also try to be informational."
Despite having a rapidly expanding fanbase, his heart wasn't in it, and he had a desire to play again as a professional. "It was hard back then because I was simultaneously trying to practice to become a competitive player, and talking about the game at the same time takes away from your focus a lot." Although he enjoyed streaming, he was eager to return to the LCS.
Krepo joined former teammates Froggen and Wickd again, now on the rebranded team Elements. Unfortunately, the team environment was not any better than that of Evil Geniuses'. "I feel like I joined a ship that, instead of it sinking, had already hit the bottom on the ocean," Krepo admitted. "I tried to fix it, I really tried. There were a lot of underlying issues that were never treated and were allowed to fester to the point where they became unfixable. This wasn't any particular person's fault, but over the two months that I was there, I literally just got the energy drained out of me."
After ending the 2015 Spring Split with an all-too-familiar 7th Place finish, Krepo steadily lost his motivation to play the game. "I really realized that those two months in Elements just sucked the life out of me and I didn't want to [live] on a grind like that. Every year it ended up being the same: I grind for two or three months where I devote all my time to the game, and it ends with disappointment because I will never be able to achieve what I achieved in Season 2."
Krepo says that he does not regret this decision, and that it feels as though a great pressure has been lifted from his shoulders. "When I wrote my Facebook retirement post, I looked back and asked myself when I had last experienced three consecutive days of waking up happy, and I couldn't find one. So as much as I love playing and as much as I love the stage, I just had to retire."
Now that Krepo is done playing professionally, he actually enjoys spending his free time streaming. "I kind of stopped streaming because the joy got sucked out of the game for me; it just wasn't fun anymore, like 3-4 games and I got salty." Without the pressure of maintaining a certain level of play, Krepo has fallen in love with the game again. "It's really fun to play without pressure. I dropped out of Challenger and I didn't care. There is literally no obligation for me to play well, and I can just have fun and play other roles. It's very liberating in a sense."
With abundant experience on analyst desks, Krepo wants to pursue a future career in casting. "I really like painting a picture of the game while it's going on. I really like trying to predict things that are going to happen, and I want to highlight a lot of very specific things that are currently not being highlighted."
From his illustrious tenure on CLG.eu to his role in the League of Legends community as a much-loved personality, Krepo's contribution to the scene has been highly impactful. Even if his dream of working as a color caster doesn't come to fruition, Krepo promises his fans that he's not going anywhere.
"I want to work in esports regardless. It's my passion. I have different job opportunities right now, but time will tell [where I end up]."
So about that nickname...
"I just played a lot of League when I was starting out. I was pretty shit." Despite his eventual greatness, Krepo's career came from very humble beginnings, but his passion for the game grew over time. "I got better and grinded my way up to the 1900 ELO range, which at the time was like pretty decent," Krepo reflected. When he realized that his hard work could yield results in an already-growing competitive scene, he began to search for a team. "When you join the occasional Go4LoL or play with all these pro players like the Fnatic guys and realize you're almost on the same level as them, why not pursue it eventually?" He got his start on a French team called Fureur, but soon moved on to play for another French roster, La GG, in early 2011. This was the team that would eventually lead to an international powerhouse. Krepo was introduced to Peter "Yellowpete" Wüppen and Stephen "Snoopeh" Ellis, two players who would remain his teammates for the majority of his career. Since Krepo was a mid laner at the time, the team had two mids and no support. The team decided to trade roles between their two mids, PLXNOCHET (La GG's mid at the time) and Krepo. "Turned out I was pretty good at support so I played it more and more and more, but as a result I was always stealing kills." "That's when they started calling me Skumbag Krepo."The Dawn of a New Era
Krepo's fortune changed when two players from Absolute Legends, Henrik "Froggen" Hansen and Mike "Wickd" Petersen, were looking to replace their bot lane and jungle. "They wanted Snoopeh, and Snoopeh had enjoyed playing with us in La GG previously, so he recommended us and they said, 'yeah, let's get [Krepo and Yellowpete.]'" Absolute Legends merged with CLG and created the CLG.eu roster.
After their founding in December 2011, the team got their first big break a month later in an online tournament called Kings of Europe, where they went head to head with European darlings Moscow Five. Krepo and his squad were the clear underdogs in the tournament. When they defeated Moscow Five in the finals, the upset was a clear signal of great things to come. "Moscow Five steamrolled all of those tournaments, so that was a big opening statement for us."
This victory provided the team with validation and confidence, making it easier for them to focus on team play. "Of course the atmosphere is going to be really great if you had just made a team together and it starts going well." Even on a personal level, the team clicked and Krepo believes this was key to their success. "I think the power of CLG.eu was that we were really good friends," Krepo explain. "It helped that we were winning, but the atmosphere on the team was great because of our teamwork."
This powerhouse squad was ready to take on the world.
Over the course of 2012, CLG.eu dominated top placements in European tournaments. They managed to win three international tournaments, including DreamHack Summer 2012, and finish Top 3 in seven others.
In the Summer of 2012, CLG.eu would be one of two European teams invited to play in Korea's Azubu The Champions tournament. Taking place in Seoul, they would grab hold of the opportunity to make a name for themselves against the best teams in the world. "It was one of the biggest crowds we had ever played for. Just being there that day, a nice and sunny day in Korea, playing in the finals of a video game tournament two months after I dropped out of college to do this. It all came together. That's my best memory."
CLG.eu managed an impressive 2nd Place finish at The Champions, proving that they were among the world's elite teams. Despite being upset in the Season 2 European Regionals, CLG.eu qualified for the World Championship. They managed to make it to the Semifinals before losing to Azubu Frost.
While it seemed as though the future for CLG.eu looked promising, the team would never dominate again.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
One year after being acquired by CLG, the team as a whole decided not to renew their contracts, and parted ways with the organization. Deciding to rebrand under Evil Geniuses, the team would fall into a slump in the face of fiercer competition both in and outside of Europe. "The meta shifted a bit at that point, and split push is definitely what killed Evil Geniuses in my opinion." Teams like Fnatic would play a medium-risk, high reward strategy by extending on all three lanes, so even if one teammate was killed, the others would split push down their lanes. "It was really hard to deal with that for us, and looking back, I feel incredibly stupid that I didn't see it." Ultimately, EG struggled with responding too slowly to these more aggressive tactics and a lack of understanding led to significant holes in team play. "You tend to fall into patterns really easily because they're working so you always assume that they'll keep working, but people eventually figure those patterns out and exploit it. I think we adapted very poorly." Feeling less confident in their play, the team began to fall apart as their priorities strayed from playing the game. "We kind of died a little after that."
After EG turned in a 15-13 record in the Season 3 EU LCS Spring Split, rumors surfaced that Froggen had become frustrated with Evil Geniuses' lack of outstanding results and wanted to build his own super team, Alliance, with Wickd. "I don't fault him for that and I never have. It was the logical transition because the team kept playing very poorly and we just didn't have the results anymore." The team would split, and Krepo would soon have to make major decisions regarding his future.
A Shot at Redemption
Krepo had to decide whether he should stay in Europe or go to North America for a fresh start. "Snoopeh had always wanted to go to NA so he went there for sure, and then Yellowpete followed him, so I was like, 'Yeah, I guess I'll tag along.'" Hoping to rebuild and replicate the success of CLG.eu, Krepo did not find what he was looking for. Evil Geniuses' disappointing results in the 2014 NA LCS Spring Split took its toll on the team, as benched players continued to live in the gaming house, making the environment less friendly than on CLG.eu.
Krepo felt frustrated by the public's opinion of the team and believes that their negative outlook began to influence Evil Geniuses' mentality and overall dynamic. "Everybody had this perception that these three leftover players from EG got tossed to NA and that they were just garbage, ancient players that were long over their [prime] and they were just bad. I think subconsciously my teammates just assumed that, 'Yeah, this guy is on his way out. He's just here as a face, a brand, and a marketing tool,' which I always found annoying."
With an equally disappointing 7th Place finish in the 2014 Summer Split, Krepo was ready to move on. "At the time I said it would be really humiliating if I had to end my career on another relegation, which pretty much happened when I ended 7th that split."
Krepo wanted to wait for a better opportunity to come along and decided to start streaming for Cloud9, a period that lasted for about two months. "I think if I'm in a really good mood, my streaming can be funny. I try to make a lot of jokes, but I also try to be informational."
Despite having a rapidly expanding fanbase, his heart wasn't in it, and he had a desire to play again as a professional. "It was hard back then because I was simultaneously trying to practice to become a competitive player, and talking about the game at the same time takes away from your focus a lot." Although he enjoyed streaming, he was eager to return to the LCS.
Krepo joined former teammates Froggen and Wickd again, now on the rebranded team Elements. Unfortunately, the team environment was not any better than that of Evil Geniuses'. "I feel like I joined a ship that, instead of it sinking, had already hit the bottom on the ocean," Krepo admitted. "I tried to fix it, I really tried. There were a lot of underlying issues that were never treated and were allowed to fester to the point where they became unfixable. This wasn't any particular person's fault, but over the two months that I was there, I literally just got the energy drained out of me."
After ending the 2015 Spring Split with an all-too-familiar 7th Place finish, Krepo steadily lost his motivation to play the game. "I really realized that those two months in Elements just sucked the life out of me and I didn't want to [live] on a grind like that. Every year it ended up being the same: I grind for two or three months where I devote all my time to the game, and it ends with disappointment because I will never be able to achieve what I achieved in Season 2."
New Adventures
Even though Elements managed to dodge the Promotion Tournament, Krepo believed that it was best to end his professional career. "I want to make sure that I'm not pointing fingers here. Things didn't work out and that's alright. I'm grateful to Elements for giving me one more chance and allowing me to have some closure. There's troubles in every team. I couldn't fix them, or I tried and failed in that regard, and that pretty much sealed the deal for my retirement."
Krepo says that he does not regret this decision, and that it feels as though a great pressure has been lifted from his shoulders. "When I wrote my Facebook retirement post, I looked back and asked myself when I had last experienced three consecutive days of waking up happy, and I couldn't find one. So as much as I love playing and as much as I love the stage, I just had to retire."
Now that Krepo is done playing professionally, he actually enjoys spending his free time streaming. "I kind of stopped streaming because the joy got sucked out of the game for me; it just wasn't fun anymore, like 3-4 games and I got salty." Without the pressure of maintaining a certain level of play, Krepo has fallen in love with the game again. "It's really fun to play without pressure. I dropped out of Challenger and I didn't care. There is literally no obligation for me to play well, and I can just have fun and play other roles. It's very liberating in a sense."
With abundant experience on analyst desks, Krepo wants to pursue a future career in casting. "I really like painting a picture of the game while it's going on. I really like trying to predict things that are going to happen, and I want to highlight a lot of very specific things that are currently not being highlighted."
From his illustrious tenure on CLG.eu to his role in the League of Legends community as a much-loved personality, Krepo's contribution to the scene has been highly impactful. Even if his dream of working as a color caster doesn't come to fruition, Krepo promises his fans that he's not going anywhere.
"I want to work in esports regardless. It's my passion. I have different job opportunities right now, but time will tell [where I end up]."
will tell 
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