Speeed on his team’s readiness for The International 2026: “This time, we played a bunch of LAN tournaments and gained a lot of experience.”
GamerLegion support player Paul “Speeed” Boccicchio spoke in an interview at The International 2026 about the roster changes following the arrival of Daniel “Ghost” Chan Kok Hong and identified the team’s biggest challenge of the season.
On the results at The International 2025
Considering that this was my first The International and one of my first LAN tournaments, we were pretty happy. We played well against PARIVISION (TEAM VISION) and almost managed to win a map against them, which was something incredible for us at the time. So I hope we can repeat that or play even better.
On how the team has changed since last year
We’re more experienced. As I said, last year’s The International was one of our very first LAN tournaments; we got crushed in every qualifier, but then we pulled ourselves together and made it to TI pretty much by accident. This time, we’ve played a ton of LAN tournaments and gained a lot of experience.
On the roster changes following Ghost’s arrival
It changes a lot—we went from Yamsun to Shad, and then to Ghost in a short period of time. They look at the game differently, they have different skill levels, and we have to learn to communicate. Ghost had to adapt to some of our ideas. It takes some time to get used to new players.
On the biggest challenge of the season
Basically, everything. We had to learn how to play against good teams, which is incredibly difficult. I don’t think people realize how the level keeps getting higher and higher, even when moving from Tier 2 to Tier 1.5. The game keeps changing and evolving. We’re still working on all of this. The mental aspect of playing at LAN tournaments is different from online play.
GamerLegion suffered a defeat against Aurora Gaming on the first day of the group stage at The International 2026. The team has dropped to the 0:1 bracket, where it will face one of the other teams with a similar record.
Photo by Paul “Speeed” Boccicchio.
