SEMPHIS: "We’re pretty happy to finally have an org and get some help to come to these LANs"

Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke with Voca’s coach Kory "SEMPHIS" Friesen at fl0m's Mythical LAN Las Vegas 2026 after their opening win against Rave.

SEMPHIS talked about the decision to bring Gage "Infinite" Green in for Dylan "slump" Naylor, Wyatt "snav" Phillippi’s transition away from IGLing, and how the previously orgless team ended up with Voca.

Find the video interview below, with a full transcription underneath. All questions and answers have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling coming out of that day one win over Rave?

Felt pretty good. They have a new player they've only really played with for a week. We've recently acquired Infinite, so we've had longer time than them, but we kind of recruited him right around the player break so it was very difficult to get good quality practice and we were scrimming the people that are here. So, what do you show and hide and stuff like that. We're pretty happy with the results so far though.

How do you think the team did in their run in Miami without you?

I tried to watch as many games as I could, but there wasn’t always a stream for the game, which was kind of frustrating. It looked good from my perspective, taking a map off M80, taking a map off NRG, who, in my opinion, are the two top NA teams. You could make an argument for either of them depending on the day.

So, the fact that we got a map win on LAN, in my opinion, we’re kind of a younger roster with newer players that are trying to solidify themselves, make a major, and climb the ranks. It was a good confidence boost for them. It’s not like we went and lost to a more unknown team. We just have to go over the small things. We didn’t have a lot of time between LANs to implement fixes, but overall, it would be like if you’re Virtus.pro and you beat Vitality on a map. You want to be better, but it’s a promising look.

Why did you decide to change out slump for Infinite?

We had wanted to play with Infinite before and we actually had him on a roster a few months ago, but he had some personal stuff come up that I’m not gonna really go into. He had to take some time off CS and when he came back, he wanted to rejoin. Unfortunately for slump, he was the most inexperienced one who the team felt had the most work to do to fulfill the roles we want him to because slump wasn’t in his most natural roles.

He primarily was an AWPer that switched to a rifler for our team to let dea AWP. So, when you consider all those things it just made more sense to get more instant results with Infinite because he naturally plays those roles.

There’s nothing against slump here, he’s a good player, really good mechanics, he’s always on time, willing to play, willing to grind. So, any team that’s looking for an upcoming player, he’s a good choice. It was just one of those unfortunate things where it wasn’t really slump sucks, let’s cut him, it was more this is someone we had planned on playing with before and this is the best way for our roles of our team to work.

Was the experience Infinite brings a significant thing you were looking for?

Yeah, it definitely played a major role in our considerations. It’s not just the experience, it’s also the attitude towards being a more authoritative figure in the team whereas slump is more passive. He’s gonna go with the flow of the team, if they want to practice ten or two hours, he’s gonna be fine with whatever, which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with that, but Infinite is more, we need to do this, we need to fix this.

As a coach, some of those things you try to pull out of your players, but it’s more beneficial to come from the players themselves. If you’ve ever coached anyone in sport or something, of course, coaches have a role and they’re important, but the team wanting to do those things is gonna yield the best results because it’s coming from within them. You can’t force people to do what they don’t want to do. I find when you have a player on a team that is there pushing people and driving them, it just means more.

Do you think nosraC taking over as IGL has allowed snav to perform better?

snav was always a good caller himself. With nosraC, he only wanted to play if he could be a caller. He wanted to transition into being an IGL for his career, where snav might have been doing it out of necessity or others don’t want to call, so he learned to call. He wasn’t like, I need to do this role. It was just, nosraC wants to join, are you okay with him calling? We tried it at a LAN and it felt right, so we made the switch. But, snav being an IGL knows a lot of little nerdy tricks. He can be a second voice. In the match we just played, he said no to something and offered a different solution.

On one hand, it can be problematic when you have too many chefs in the kitchen. Sometimes when I’m listening, I want to say something, but I have four people giving ideas and I’m always like, if I give my opinion now, it’s even more cluttered. So, I just kind of sit there and as long as I feel like they’re hashing it out in a good way, I won’t say anything because once three or four people are talking, you gotta just let them make up their minds.

Unless I really think something is good, like if I think this will work one hundred percent. Then I might be like, shut up, which you just gotta do sometimes. They don’t take it the wrong way, sometimes you gotta get people to stop talking.

Also, snav has lots of little tricks. He plays FPL all the time, he pugs all the time. He’s very nerdy in the sense that he knows all the spam lineups, the mollies and flashes. If nosraC wants to call a strat, he can fill gaps too. If you’ve ever called in a pug or for a team, you want to do something off script, but only you might know the nades or the flashes that you need to throw. So, it’s nice to have a second person that can do that. It kind of reminds me of when I played with seang@res.

I started calling for a period of time, got fifth-eight at a major with me calling, so whatever laughs. But, it was so easy because if I wanted to call an on-the-fly strat, I’d be like yo seang@res can you throw this smoke, this flash, and he just knew it. So, we didn’t have to go over it. There is power in being able to audible on the fly on LAN. It’s hard for teams if they prepped you and it doesn’t work, they don’t know what’s coming. It has its pros and cons.

How did you end up with Voca and why did they decide to invest in North American Counter-Strike?

They were just interested in the scene. If I had to guess because I haven’t talked to all the investors, I would assume it’s a region where you feel like you can make the major at a lower cost than getting a European team, where the road to a major is a little bit more difficult. I definitely think their goal is for us to make a major. They contacted us on Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it.

I started talking and he kind of asked what we were looking for, salary, things of that nature. I kind of told them everything and he said, okay I’ll get back to you, but it’s not gonna be quick. A couple months later, I got a DM back. He said, okay we talked it over and he kind of gave me an offer. We kind of went back and forth, changed a couple things, it’s never gonna be perfect on the first go.

We kind of just came to an agreement and we’re pretty happy to finally have an org and get some help to come to these LANs. Especially like Fragadelphias and this LAN, they don’t pay for you to go. If you qualify for a BLAST or an ESL, they’ll pay for everything. Now that VRS is so important, it’s definitely beneficial to have someone that will help you travel there. In terms of why they got into CS, I’m not entirely sure.

They just wanted to be in esports and Counter-Strike’s a very big game. It was one of those things where we’re kind of their test run and this is them dipping their toes in. They got investors and they’re just trying to kind of build around us. Who knows, maybe they’ll drop us, maybe they’ll pick up more games. It’s hard to say.

Do you think its a surreal feeling for the team to be cheered for, especially for some of the more controversial guys?

I’m sure it feels good. I think everyone’s a little different. Some people feed off that energy and they definitely like it. I’ve always felt when people cheer, it feels a little awkward because I’m just like, hey, I just play Counter-Strike. I don’t really see myself, at least when I was on Cloud9, as a celebrity and that’s what it feels like when people are cheering and wanting your autograph. I don’t know personally how they feel, but from my own perspective, I always thought it felt weird.

I’ve had other teammates where they definitely love the attention, whereas I’d rather just kind of chat with someone on a normal basis than have them feel like my fan. You’d have to ask them personally, but with some of the reputations they’ve had to work on. They were younger, made some mistakes here or there and they’ve been working on it. I always tell people, it doesn’t matter what you did, if you shut your mouth and you win, people will forget.

How is the team feeling going into the next series against NRG tomorrow?

We took Mirage off them. I still think they have a stronger map pool than us. We can win the series, but when you beat a team on a map that is our strongest, or one of our two strongest. I’d say that and train, they also have a very good train, which is why they are hard to play against. The issue is whenever you win a map, they can counter and change what they did to defeat you the next time. Whenever you win, you’re at a disadvantage on that map going into the next game. So now we’re at a disadvantage on Mirage, so we’re gonna have to really focus on taking a Dust II or another map off them.

We veto Inferno, so they don’t have that to pick. The map pool is gonna be the biggest thing and being prepared, I don’t want to say being prepared to lose Mirage, but being prepared that we’re going to have to fight them on their best map. Say we lost their map, they could have new plans and stuff ready if we picked Mirage, so that means we pick a different map or we change our plans and try to think of how to adapt to what they’re gonna change versus us on that map.

That’s the hard thing about Counter-Strike, that’s why when people match Falcons or G2 or Spirit, the game looks so weird sometimes because it’s counters on counters on counters. That’s what high level CS turns into, especially with these guys who play FPL and scrims all the time. You all know their little tendencies. You’ll even here in comms, it’s X player he’s gonna do this, and they’re right a lot. It’s just a lot of knowing.

On day two of fl0m's Mythical LAN, Voca lost to NRG 2-0. They will face Rave later today for a spot in playoffs.