Valorant Boom Esports team coach Ji “Meow” Dong-jun shared his delight after his team won the 2023 Valorant Challengers Indonesia Split competition last week at Taman Anggrek. Boom Esports, as the Split ID champion, will represent Indonesia in the Ascension 2023 competition, which will be played on June 28th in Bangkok, Thailand.
Meow joined Boom Esports in mid-2021, just two months after he left South Korean team Tubeple. Boom Esports, who have followed Meow’s career since his CS:GO competitive days, entrusted him as the head coach of their Valorant team.
His Boom Esports career blasted off to a tremendous start. He guided the squad to major victories in his first year, including VCT 2022 Indonesia Stage 1 -3 and VCT APAC Last Chance Qualifier 2022. Boom Esports eventually went on as the first Indonesian team to compete in Valorant’s highest level, Valorant Champions, in September 2022 in Istanbul, Turkey.
Their extraordinary performance, however, were not rewarded sweetly. Despite their strong showings during the ID Stage and the APAC Last Chance Qualifier, they failed to join the Valorant league franchise and were replaced by Team RRQ. Therefore, Boom have to go through a longer qualification process to be able to take part in the VCT Pacific League next season and compete for a ticket to Valorant Champions 2024, a challenging task given they will be competing against big names in Southeast Asia that are stocked to the brim with talented young players. Meow, on the other hand, stated that he has been enjoying the competition in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia.
“I think the competition in Indonesia is very interesting. I think there are some strong teams here. We have grown over the last two years thanks to experience against big teams like them and also other teams in Southeast Asia who we fought back there.”
Meow informed us after the Grand Final Split 2 last week at Taman Anggrek that he has enhanced his team’s training programme and is delighted with the performances his players have shown this season. He even lauded the work of the youngsters Rizkie “Berserx” Adla Kusuma and Hildegard “Shiro” Arnaldo, who took over for Rafi “Frostmind” Diandra and David “Tehbotol” Monangin, who departed Boom Esports following the 2022 Champions. He credited them as the most improved players who helped the team through Split 1 and 2.
“I believe we are improving because we are more disciplined in training, regardless of who comes in and out. I analyze every game and find out what can be improved from every player on this team. From there I’ll make a routine training pattern to fit our tactics.” he said. “And I believe Berserx and Shiro have made significant progress in the last six months, especially in terms of mechanics, aims, and communication. We used to have this language barrier, but they quickly overcame it. These newcomers definitely showed great determination.”
Meow is now focusing on Bootcamp in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 18th. Meow stated that he’s not pleased with the team’s general performance in a few games during Split 2, and he wants to resolve their issue before the Ascension.
“I have to prepare a few things before we leave for the bootcamp in Thailand on the 18th. I think our game is still far from perfect. I feel that our gameplay was a bit chaotic, still a bit inconsistent, during the Split 2, especially with our map awareness. We need to fix this before Ascension begins.” Meow said. “I still haven’t observed our next opponents in Ascencion, but I think teams from Japan and South Korea are very strong. But there is also Bleed from Singapore, a team which caught my attention in the recent months.”
