Juha “aNgeldust” Kurppa is one of the most enigmatic and successful Counter-Strike: Source players of all time. He was at the forefront of the entire Counter-Strike: Source scene when he helped form and became part of Insignia Cadre (the roots of this very site) way back in May 2006. It was here he would establish himself at the top of an entire game. You need only look at his achievements to see how well he has done. Now, over 2 years on, he’s stepping back to perform his time of National Service, a compulsory 6-12 month stint of army training.

In this candid (and long) interview we reflect back on the last two years of source. Enjoy!

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So Juha, you'll shortly be leaving the scene for a few months, explain why?

Hey Max, I'm leaving the scene on the seventh of July, to join the Finnish defence forces, to do my national service. I will be gone for six, nine or twelve months depending on my duties there, so I'm not going to be able to be online but just once a two weeks or something.

Is this something you want to do at this stage in your life, or if possible would you delay it and focus on Counter-Strike: Source?

Well, as it is in Finland, you have to do your national service at the age of 18 - 28, but I decided to do it now as I just want to get it out of my way. I could probably get it postponed and focus on CSS, but doing that, I would sacrifice too much of my own time to spend on the game. So I'd rather do it now, and come back when I've done it, and don’t have to worry about it later on then. Also, as you grow older, it gets more annoying to go and do it so it’s fine to do it now when I'm still relatively young!

Rumours were circulating about your possible participation at the CGS combine with Berlin Allianz, was CGS something you considered worthwhile in delaying your national service for?

Well, I'm not going to deny that, but it was more of the case of going to LA with people I love to hang out with and play, in real life and in game, while kicking some North American ass of course. I'm still highly competitive person, so I'd of course love to go and show people my game in the USA and CGS would allow me to do that, where as the normal LAN’s at the moment are not worth it. I came to my senses though, and realized that if I go to the army now, I might be able to catch the next season or something else will also turn up, and I'd have one thing less to worry about at that point. I have to say though that team would have rocked!

Are you disappointed that has CSS failed to materialize into a potential career for you? 18 months ago did you think at this stage we'd have more for Source players than just a handful of "professional" teams in Europe?

Well, not really. After I was done with 1.6 back a few years ago, I wasn't really expecting anything. I started to play CSS for fun, although I really disliked the game at first but some of my friends wanted me to properly give it a try. It brought me loads of nice trips, lots of new friends and experiences that you can't really buy, so I'm not disappointed. After all, I've been working steadily for the past few years so the potential career thing was not something I was aiming at, as I knew I would earn more by just staying at my normal day job.

eSports in my opinion is still so young, that I can't really put it above a "normal" career, as it is really unstable and majority of the organisations are not really well ran, despite all the talk there is.

When comes to the question, well, I can't remember what I thought 18 months ago, but of course it has been always a kind of a "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst" situation for me, so no surprises. But your facts are not straight , as there is at least 4 teams earning salary from Europe, those based in CGS. Then there's fnatic, and the majority of the German teams get a salary too, so you could say, that they're "professional" too, couldn't you?

What would you say is your favourite team you've been in over the past years in Source?

Every team has had its up's and down's (pun intended). During my stay in children of cruelty, and firstcore, alongside Jonssen, gRiLLi, Eversor, ilc and deemi, it was really a learning experience for me, to get to learn the competitive side of this game. Then we went to astralis and afterwards cadre, with Sauna^ (much love, Kimmo) taking us aboard, and there I started to see the organisational things of the game, and again, an awesome experiences throughout the whole stay in the teams.

But for teamwork, games et cetera; I'd have to say the newest Four Kings line-up was the best. We had just the right amount of individual attributes, and teamwork, and it’s truly a shame that we underperformed so badly in the i33 final games, as I think we would have easily taken those if we were playing our own game. Also, I enjoyed spending time in that team outside game, the lads; God, Eversor, Natu and Odiouz were a great bunch of guys.

A great experience for me was as well going to merc in Team LGT. As you might know, there has been always a kind of a rivalry between team Logitech and Cadre/astralis/4K in finland, and I had to think outside of the box and join them, which turned out to be a great fun. Sadly we didn’t have much time to get all the things fixed so we would have actually won something worthwhile but two great LAN’s , if not gaming wise, but huge amounts of fun :)

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Gamers can do cool poses as well!



The first of many slightly homosexual pictures.



Zaikovski looks happy, too happy....



A young Insignia Cadre celebrates an Assembly win.



Olander and Juha



"If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain."



Four Kings at I33.

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You were at the top of Europe for a long time with Insignia Cadre, do you think you individually haven't improved as much as the rest of the scene over the past twelve or so months?

Yes, I think that I haven't improved as much as the rest of the scene. May it be because of line-up shuffles, or other things, that I haven't been able to get my head properly to the game, or that others have improved that rapidly. It might also be about just playing too much, that I might have lost the urge to invent new things and tactics, and strive to be the best at all times. But bear in mind, that it’s an easy road to the top, but not as easy to stay there, and I've been up there for the entire time I've been playing CSS so I can't say I'm totally disappointed.

Generally speaking though I think it’s a great thing, that the scene evolves. It brings new blood to the top teams and maybe the current 1.6ers won't whine about the skill gap then.

What have been your highest and lowest moments in gaming?

Highest has to be still winning the Summer 2006 Assembly's final against team zEx (nowadays half of Berlin Allianz and half of 4K). The game was just so emotionally packed and the fact that it went to the absolutely last round on two maps, and oh boy did it feel great after that. It was in my opinion the perfect game, two good teams battling it out until the last few seconds. The fact that they're all my friends as well, felt amazing to win it.

The lowest moment has to be the infamous alarm clock farce at Lan79 in 2007. After being almost two days up straight with just a few hours of sleep, the whole team not waking up to the alarm clock and getting disqualified from the tournament, where a top 3 placement was nearly sure, with just some mediocre teams standing in the way. Then add a nice little sickness that burst on the way back home, and it was pure gold. The whole trip to the airport kind of saved the trip for me though, was nice chatting shit with ritch, Tyron, yourself, the infected production guys and others, and then spending the time on the two airports, driving with the carts and running the escalators whilst absolutely knackered from the staying up.

You've hinted that on your return you'll go into management, can you expand on this?

Well, if I'm offered something, I might look into that. I feel it could be the time for me to go towards the managerial side of things next, so who knows. I still love the whole eSports concept, and the scene and I want to be involved in it, so it could go either way. So if some of you who read this article want to hire me, then drop me a mail or a message and I'll mail you my CV!

If you could pick a dream team right now for you to play with, which four players would you pick and why

Kind of a hard question, as there are more than four people I would like to play with. But if it would have to be a foreign team, I would take Troels "eXce" Kierulff and Martin "orga" Hansen from team Magnitude, both really easily one of the best players in Europe and lovely guys both in game and out, then I would probably take David Olander & Joacim "majk" Kroon from Berlin Allianz and get their insights of the game, and there we would have a nice Scandinavian line-up, with them speaking one language and me yelling out insanities. If it had to be a Finnish line-up, I would probably take the current team Logitech and just go in there, them being a top class team as well and there's no other Finnish team at the moment even close to them.

What kind of state do you see the competitive CSS scene in right now?

Competitive CSS is doing fine. A bit of a summer slump going on now but I think it will grow again in the autumn. There are big tournaments going live in the near future, with both with the Russian league and the PC Gamer showdown or whatever it was, and I think if people will just stick to the game, believe in it and market it to the scene will grow more in no time. Overall, the scene is bigger and better now than it has ever been, but it still has lots of field to improve.

I seem to remember something about aNgeldust the movie?

Well, it’s only been due a few years, and like we all know, something good is worth the wait. So now, I can happily report that Mr Peter Kapsylen Mörk is still doing the movie, and he will release it when he is ready. So don't put pressure on it, but when it comes out I hope it can fulfil all the hype it has been getting the past few years, I will try to help Peter as much as he needs me to.

I'm sure you have a billion people to thank, here's your chance!

Thanks to all the sponsors and organisations I've been for allowing me the chance to live such an interesting few years in this field. Thanks to all my friends in the scene: Troels Kierulff, Martin Hansen, Nico Strott, Joacim Kroon, David Olander, Danni Hansen, Robin Johanson, Jonas Nordqvist, Fredrik Nilsson, Ted Svensson, Ole-Chrisse Slaattene, Simén Aasi Henriksen, Peter Mörk, Henrik Christensen, Jim Thors[T]en, Tom Chenery, Henry Greer, Tony Oldfield, Paul Chaloner, John Day, Richard Gibbs, Lewis Hughes, Kasper Magnussen, Thomas Hanna, Philipp Schmiedt, Michel Grün, Patrick Kriebus, Juha Tolonen, Samuel Räsänen, Olli Moukku Salmi, Markus Saronsalo, Sami Kuivala, Joni-Ari Laakso, Juha Westerlund, Juho Koivisto, Juho Myyrä Sunnari, Matias Tontti, Markus Raatikainen, Geoff Harrison, Michael Elias Hayek, Joakim Järnström, Christer Loukas, Marko Mattila, Tony Wentjärvi, Fabian Iden, David Green, Mark Ockenden, Mark Dempsey and numerous others with whom I have had the pleasure to interact with in the scene during the last few years.

Also thanks to Mr Max Silver, Mr Benito Drebing and Mr Robert Pinsler.

And huge thank you’s go also to Kimmo Vähä-Ruohola, Teemu Hiilinen, Fu Qiang, Paul Monks, Toby Aldridge and Ben Woodward.

At this stage I asked Juha if there’s anything else he’d like to say, he asked if I could ask some random questions, I complied.

Taking into account just the social side of things, what was your favourite gaming event you've been to?

It has to be Lan79 2008, we had such a nice trip there from Finland, got to see a bit of Paris on the way and going on in the bullet trains. Dreamhack was kind of nice as well, with all the snus and great looking chicks on the way!

Tell us one of your most interesting gaming related stories

Well personally I found it not so amusing at the time, but when we were going to lan79 in 2007, our flight was a bit delayed, so after we got our luggage from the CDG airport, we went and got lost to a subway, with no-one speaking English even at the airport in Paris, we had to found our way from CDG to Orly in less than an hour, and of course it being a 3 day weekend after all (no-one seemed to remember to tell us), the roads were packed. So after awhile, wabbit called me on my cell phone and said that the bus that would take the gamers from Paris to Bressuire (shitloads of kilometres) had already left the Orly airport, and we had not done even half of our way from the other airport to Orly.

The roads were jammed, and so I got Olander’s number from wabbit, and I called him, and after explaining shit he gave his phone to the bus driver, and I gave my phone to the taxi driver, and then they spoke on the phone and we tried to signal what we wanted(for them to meet somewhere so we could go to the bus), obviously neither of them speaking English, and then, the taxi driver called from my phone to the other taxi driver which was following us with the rest of the guys and then after a while of doing random shit we finally got there, just to fail with the alarm clocks later in that tourney. Stress free gaming, right?

And finally, the most homosexual experience you’ve had?

Seeing one male eSports player give himself a blowjob....

Nice, thanks a lot for your time, good luck in the army!