aspas Is a Blessed Player; He Reminds Me of Myself - Reflections with fRoD (2nd App) 2/2 - VALORANT
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Published 2024-05-03
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► Check out a previous VALORANT Reflections here: • Any Team Other Than LOUD We’d Have Be...
Daniel "fRoD" Montaner, former super-star sniper of compLexity in CS 1.6 and VALORANT coach of LOUD and now of MIBR, is the star of the 390th Episode of 'Reflections'. This episode is part two of two about fRoD's career.
fRoD is one of Counter-Strike 1.6's most iconic AWPers and super-star players and considered by some to be the best sniper in history. He was grinding in the early days despite often being dismissed or ridiculed until he broke out in united5 as not just a talent but a LAN monster, famously helping them defeat Team3D and finish seventh at CPL Winter 2003, one of the game's majors.
Again cast aside during roster shuffles, he joined up with other talented misfits in coL and took the world by storm. Starting with a fifth place finish at CPL Winter 2004, coL would go on to become one of the best if not the best team in the world. A runners-up finish at CPL Barcelona in 2005 was followed up by a major win at ESWC 2005.
In 2006, coL managed to finish runners-up at WEG Masters and bounced back from a rocky few events to win the WSVG ISC Summer event. When CGS came around, with big money on offer and seemingly the new focus of North American esports, fRoD and coL signed up and their CS:Source side was the best in the world but the franchise points system of the league meant they were gatekept from the big money by poor GMing and underperformance from players in other games.
After CGS, fRoD was one of the few legendary NA pros to make a full return effort to 1.6 and in EG, playing alongside star talent n0thing and Finnish IGL veteran lurppis he would add some more placings to the resume. They finished third at Arbalet Europe 2009, fourth at the IEM IV Global Finals, third at Arbalet Dallas 2010 and won MSI Beat It 2010. The latter saw them beat one of the best ever FNATIC line-ups in a full Bo3 LAN final!
fRoD only dipped into CS:GO, with an ill-fated comeback to coL which didn't last long. After that he coached NA sides for a few years until VALORANT came along. In VALORANT he rose again to become a world class competitor from the coaching side, helping LOUD win Champions and then go on their epic 2023 run of second at Lock-In and third at Champions. He has since become a coach at MIBR.
In part two, fRoD discusses his pivot to VALORANT, coaching DaZeD and Skadoodle in T1, his time in Pioneers, how he came to work with LOUD, how skilled aspas is, the VCT tournaments of 2023 and why he is with MIBR now.
This interview was recorded on the 9th of April, 2024.
► Time-line of topics discussed:
00:00 Coaching DaZeD
05:55 Pioneers
08:52 jcstani
10:54 Working with LOUD when they won Champions 2022
16:04 LOUD rebuild for 2023
18:33 aspas
20:39 Lock-In
24:13 Saadhak
28:10 VCT Americas dominance
30:34 VCT Tokyo Masters
34:49 Champions group of death
37:40 Beating FNATIC twice
39:41 Paper Rex
43:00 EG match
47:43 Potter
49:34 Why is he no longer in LOUD?
52:13 bzkA
52:34 Kick-Off
58:07 Goals
1:00:15 Redemption arc?
1:04:02 Final words
The first Reflections with fRoD
• 'Reflections' with fRoD reflections
The Art of CS and fRoD guides:
mega.nz/file/tjsTjbjC#SzndYzGWr7pEbvhNP5dsa4yJ4WsF…
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All Comments (7)
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Never heard or seen much about Frod before this interview, but now i see not only how much of an fps legend he is, but also how mature and wide-minded he is. What a incredible person and professional
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very insightful thank you thorin my goat
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Frod seems intelligent as fuck
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Hilarious intro
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Man, the fall of from Kick off to Stage 1 for MIBR was insane, hopefully stage 2 they recover but the format is shit as stage 1 results count towards that so their yr is prob over
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Good insight, but I'm not going to take everything at face value from Frod considering his history. Dazed was most likely stuck in his ways, but from Autimatic's interview and actually watching them almost 2-0 prime Sen in qualifiers, they absolutely should have gotten more time to gel together. They were progressing well even when Frod left. I never understood why Skadoodle didn't want to OP in Valorant though. It wouldn't surprise me if that was another reason why Crashies/Food (Victor) didn't want to play with him anymore
