Joel ”Apemother” Larsson was suddenly kicked out of Ninjas in Pyjamas, despite the team’s success.
Now he tells Aftonbladet Esport about his new, very own, team and how it felt to be let go from the Swedish organization.
– I was surprised, it was out of the blue, he says.

As 2014 turned to 2015, Swedish up-and-comers Lajons were officially recruited by Ninjas in Pyjamas. The classic organization wanted to make it big in the Dota2 scene and the success was almost imminent.
Ex-Lions qualified for several LAN tournaments and under the NiP moniker they took the Dota2 world by storm with their aggressive, all-in playstyle.

But only two months into their new adventure, NiP suddenly decided to kick midlaner Joel ”Apemother” Larsson out of the team. ”Sometimes you need to make changes” was the official word from the team, but according to Apemother he was taken aback by the decision.
– The news that they wanted to try Linus ”Limmp” Blomdin came out of the blue. But they handled it in a good way, besides the fact that I was surprised.

A couple of months have past and Apemother has moved on to start his own squad, Taco Life.
Along with Johan ”Zapport” Ahlehjelm, Aron ”Zergo” Runesson, Jesper ”Miracle” Nyhlén and Richard ”Jellopy” Hill he has set his sights on being invited to The International 6, but is still hoping to qualify this year too.
– We want an invitation to the qualifier, but then we have to win a smaller tournament or two, he says.

Taco Life, already qualified for the Swedish Championship Esport-SM, was created after the idea was given to Apemother by a friend.
– It hadn’t struck me that you could create your own team, but there are a lot of really good players out there if you look.
– I started the project with Jellopy a couple of weeks after I had to leave NiP and I knew Zapport through mutual friends. Zapport brought Zergo and Jellopy suggested Miracle. We tried playing together and it worked really good.

Now they play six days a week, close to five hours per day. And even though his adventure in Ninjas in Pyjamas ended abruptly, Larsson is still open to being picked up by another organization in the future.
– If we aim to reach the top we need to be backed by an organization eventually. You just have to reach a point where both parties benefit equally from signing a contract.

Have you found your own style of play yet, after the time you spent together so far?
– No, I can’t say that we have. We’re still trying to find it.