We interviewed Lei "forget" Li, who will be making a return to top-level competition after his debut 7 years ago as his team UYA (formerly 5POWER) will participate in the SL i-League StarSeries S3 Finals next week.

After a series of lackluster results in 2016, Chinese team 5POWER made a couple of lineup changes at the end of the year, bringing in ZhiHai "⁠QKA⁠" Fu and ZhenDong "⁠Not7⁠" Mo, and have since then seen their fortunes improve.

Following the holiday break for the "Spring Festival" (Chinese New Year), the team upset TyLoo in the qualifier for SL i-League StarSeries S3 and earned their first ever trip to Europe and a spot at a big international event.

They added to that success by finishing top four at a smaller international LAN called China Cup two weeks ago, where they were the only team to win a map against TyLoo while giving them a good fight in the semi-final (18-22 Cache, 16-6 Cbble, 6-16 Mirage).

Since then they have been preparing for their big international debut at the $300,000 event, while their organization recently changed its name through a merger and they will now represent UYA in Ukraine next week.



Li "forget" Lei spoke to HLTV.org ahead of SL i-League StarSeries S3

For that occasion, we spoke to the team's most experienced player and in-game leader Lei "⁠forget⁠" Li, who is the only one to have previously attended a big international LAN, albeit back in CS 1.6.

(The interview was conducted before 5POWER took part in the Chinese qualifier for IEM Sydney, where they were bested by the eventual winners ViCi in the quarter-final.)

Hello forget, let's start with a bit of history – you had your debut at a big international event almost 7 years ago at IEM5 GC Shanghai, when your team Inner Mongolia replaced mousesports (who withdrew due to cyx's tragic accident) and there you proved yourself as a big talent in China, especially for your AWPing skills, even making our Top players list. At StarSeries S3 you will face the world's best for the first time since then, can you tell us what you have been doing for the 7 years since that time, what changed in your life and how did you evolve as a player? Yes, we were very honoured to attend IEM, such a large international event. But I was deeply saddened by cyx's departure, he was a great player. I have been transitioning from CS 1.6 to CSGO in these years, playing for many different teams. There was a period of time when I gave up on playing CS professionally, but I couldn't stay away, that is why I came back. Since we have many readers who are not familiar with your team, can you tell us a little bit about each player, the roles, experience, strengths and weaknesses? And do you have a coach, and if yes, how much involvement and what kind (strategy, motivation) does he have? Our coach is Long "⁠JimmyL⁠" Jing aka "Brother Long" (note: they call him Long Ge in Chinese, which means "brother dragon"), he has so many roles in the club. He is the owner of the club, our big brother, coach, babysitter, security guard, analyst and psychologist. He is amazing! We are really appreciative of Brother Long's contribution, his unique knowledge of the game is very helpful, we have great times analyzing and researching tactics. Our practice is strict, but JimmyL is one of the best coaches and mentors for CSGO in my opinion. When we are arguing or feel depressed, Long helps us. I feel very lucky and I'm thankful to Brother Long for choosing me. My teammate Wei "⁠shuadapai⁠" Wang is a player who has the most professionalism I've ever seen, we are all infected by him. HongGuang "⁠Stevie⁠" Li, he is fat but he is really good at basketball, he has really good aim skill as well. ZhiHai "⁠QKA⁠" Fu is our main AWPer, he is young with good movement, he comes up with ideas and always knows what to do during a match. ZhenDong "⁠Not7⁠" Mo (LoveZ) - we feel assured every time he is left playing a clutch situation, he is our clutch master with a calm and steady personality.



5POWER's gaming house is said to be one of the best in China

What kind of playing conditions does your team have at 5POWER (now UYA), do you have a salary that allows you to play CS:GO professionally? Does your age (four players over 26 years old) provide any limitations for you or your teammates (like family commitments, less time to play, less motivation)? Our club is in Dalian, Liaoning Province. We have a pretty good practice environment, and our club house is by the water and near the mountains. Everything at the club including salary is stable, so we have no worries, we can fully concentrate on the practice and officials. I think we are still young, f0rest, TaZ and NEO are almost 30, and they are still playing at the top level. If they can do it, so can we. shuadapai is already married, the rest of us are not. I want to marry my Chunchun (girlfriend), she has been waiting for me at home for so many years. I have promised her I will be marrying her once I grab a trophy. You went through many lineup changes in the past year, but since adding Not7 recently you started getting better results, such as qualifying for StarSeries by beating TyLoo and now a top4 finish at China Cup. What kind of improvement did this lineup change bring, is it mostly higher skill in the team or did you improve in some other way? In December of 2016 we brought in Not7 and QKA. We should give credits to our coach who did a really good job scouting these two talents, they keep surprising us in every match. We regret that at China Cup we didn't take the chance we had of beating TyLoo 2-0. We ended up losing 1-2, didn't make it to the finals. But we are feeling very good right now, we still have some communication problems, but I believe we can make it perfect. Our style now is more detailed, careful and we have more tactics than before.



UYA ahead of their flight to Kiev

(left to right) Yang Xu - manager, Not7, Stevie, JimmyL - coach, shuadapai, QKA

(crouching) forget

How did your preparations for StarSeries look, how much practice did you put in? Is there something specific that you focused on (map pool, anti-stratting, individual skills)? We have been preparing some strategies and tactics for SL i-League, but also trying to keep our own style. Our coach brother Long gave us 4 days of rest (after China Cup), then we started the practice for the event. I know that we will play the Swiss system, random opponents, in which case it is hard to prepare anti-strats. Every match will be tough, but we will try our best to go through to the playoffs. Now that you had time to analyze your performance at China Cup, what are your thoughts about it, are you satisfied? You were the only team to win a map against the new TyLoo lineup there and you also played double overtime against them on map 1, do you have some regrets about that map, or anything else during the tournament? We got up at 7am that morning, we arrived at the venue, then we spent all the time competing on the stage until 4am of the next day, which is a total of 21 hours! We lost 1:2 to TyLoo, and didn't manage to get to the finals, but we were all exhausted at the time and I was not playing in my best form. I believe we could have beat TyLoo, they are a tough rival of ours, but also good friends. Our biggest regret is that we couldn't bring the trophy back home.

UYA player ratings in the past 3 months

As this will be the first big CS:GO event for every player in your team, what are your goals/ambitions in Kiev? What do you think will be your team's main strength when facing the world's best teams? For us, SL i-League S3 is a high-intensity exercise, each team there is among the best in the world. We hope we can qualify for the top 8. Our advantage is that we are not afraid of losing, but they are, that is their weakness. Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! After Kiev, what are your team's plans? Which tournaments after that are the most important? What kind of goals have you set for the rest of the season/year? After Kiev, we will pay attention to all the events possible for us. The club has a plan to send the team abroad to have a bootcamp. We hope we can play well and win. With the latest transfer news, it seems that Chinese top teams have realized that young Chinese players are not developing fast enough and instead look for players in the rest of Asia (like BnTeT, Freeman and a few others) – what do you think is the problem for Chinese young players? What would you change in Chinese CS:GO structure to guarantee a better future for local players? The young generation of Chinese players don't have many chances to play official matches, and they are also lacking professional mentors to teach them, some of them can't find the best way to improve on their own. 5Power will create an academy in the near future, all under-19 players with a dream can come. There will be a professional course and teachers here to train them. On a personal level, what are the plans for "forget" in the CS:GO future, what are your career goals and ambitions? My goal is very simple, to be a good professional player. As long as I am still in the club, I will try my best to fight for the club's glory. If one day I retire, I will become a caster.

The newly renamed team UYA enter the tournament as arguably the biggest underdogs, and they will play against Natus Vincere in the last match of day one (April 4th).

HLTV.org would like to extend thanks to Chang Marshall Luo and Pan Xu for helping out with the translation during the interview process.