Formerly a professional PUBG player, Magno " Pr0phie " Ramos previously played for major organizations in that game including Ghost Gaming and Cloud9, before retiring after three years of competition in 2020.

After a one-month stint with the self-led Genesis Genesis Inactive Karbon Pr0phie Magno Ramos Kehmicals Rhett Lynch CAD3N Caden Brill Nosyy Jordan Van De Voort , he's now one of the five star players on Moon Raccoons Moon Raccoons Inactive icy Jacob Lange tech ZK Timothy Ly , who have made their way through the first UMG Open Qualifier and are the only remaining unsigned team in contention for First Strike: North America.

With the UMG Closed Qualifier on the horizon, and eyes fixated on Moon Raccoons in Group C, we caught up with pr0phie about his transition over from PUBG, joining Moon Raccoons' roster, and what the future of the unsigned team holds.

Before moving to Valorant, you were previously a professional PUBG player. How has it been transitioning over to the FPS esport?

I'm still learning. I didn't have a lot of Counter-Strike experience, maybe like 500 hours or so. So, I've just been practicing all the time [and] playing ranked games just trying to catch up to all the Counter-Strike players because I know they have a lot more experience than I do. It's just been grinding every day.

As far as I know, the first Tier 2 team that you were a part of was Genesis. How did you get to be a part of that roster or how did it form?

I kind of made that team. Me [and] CAD3N — my PUBG friend — we teamed up with some guys that played on ranked. Nosyy , I knew him from a ranked game. So, we added have each other and he had two guys with them, which is Kehmicals and Karbon and we formed the team together.

The Genesis [name and logo] came from PUBG. Back when we did PUBG Worlds, we didn't have an org, so we had to create a logo and a team name in order to join PUBG Worlds because we qualified. So, we used that name after Cloud9 dropped us, so we kind of made that team name and logo and everything. And I kind of just borrowed it and formed the team for Valorant, so we had a name, you know.

A while back, Genesis disbanded and you joined Moon Raccoons. What was the process of joining the team?

So, how it all started is that a few weeks back, we had a tournament, and [the grand finals] was Genesis vs Moon Raccoons and we actually beat them. But, we were in the process of trialing people and some people didn't want to play, you know? They were just trials, right, and they didn't want to continue playing and stuff like that. And we were also having internal problems in the roster and we were trying to build the roster again, but it just didn't work out. We just didn't see it working out with the other players, so we decided to disband it to look for other options.

So at this time, this is where I posted "Hey, I disbanded the team. Genesis disbanded, we parted ways, and I'm looking for a team." And this was at the same time that Shawn left the Moon Raccoons guys, and so the Moon Raccoons guys hit me up because I played really well against them. So, they wanted to give me a tryout and see how I played with them and they really liked me and I really liked them. After my trial period, they let me know that they wanted to play with me, that's about it.

How was it like meshing into the team, especially considering you were replacing Shawn, who blew up during the RNG x NSG Invitational, while going into the qualifier for First Strike?

I play the way I play, I don't really compare myself to anybody. I just play the way I play and hope that I'm good enough and that my practice and my grind has been working out. I played deathmatches every day for like three hours and I practice a lot just to catch up to players that are way better than me.

I don't really think anybody's better than me and I don't underestimate anyone either. Like, I'm confident in myself. I think a huge part of any video game is just being confident in yourself and believing that if you keep practicing hard enough, you might just you'll be better, you'll be the best, you know?

Moving over to the First Strike circuit, how does it feel being in the closed qualifier as the only unsigned team?

Honestly, it feels more awesome because of knowing that we're the only one that is not signed. There's a different feeling to it because everyone else is signed and we're the only one that's not signed and all their eyes are on us, because we're the only unsigned team.

So, we get a little bit of eyes on us, which is good, it's not too bad. But at the same time, we also would love to be signed to a team — you know, tied to an org. I mean, I think everyone else is trying to go pro. I would love that. And yeah, I think it feels pretty great.

How does being unsigned and playing against these other signed rosters affect your mindset?

As my teammate FIEND would say, we play for the people, so we play for the people. For me, being signed or unsigned, it doesn't matter. Like, we're playing to have fun. We're having fun playing with each other. We like each other a lot. Like, our team chemistry is really nice. Nobody's toxic. It's okay. It's a good feeling.

During the open qualifiers, you guys got a lot of really good results, including some upsets that many were surprised by. Are there any games that you feel especially proud of with Moon Raccoons?

The FaZe game definitely I'm most proud of because everyone played really well. Everyone was communicating. I think everyone was firing on all cylinders, so it was a great feeling. Like, winning is always nice. It's a good feeling to win.

[There was also] the 100 Thieves game, I only just joined the team, so I only had like a week of practice with the team. So, when we went to the third map, which was Bind, we didn't really have any practice on that map with me because I was still new to the team. We practiced all the other maps except for Bind. And then when we played that third map, which was Bind, I didn't really know what I was doing because we didn't really talk about it. We had no practice on the map. And we still managed to make it to overtime with them.

I think now if we played them, I think we'd be able to do better against them now that we've had more practice time. And you know, I know what I'm doing in terms of where to go, what to do when in certain situations... But yeah, we didn't have a lot of practice on the team yet. Or, rather, I didn't have a lot of practice on the team, basically.

Now that you guys are in the closed qualifier, what are your thoughts on your current group?

I think we have a really good group. I don't underestimate anybody in our group or anybody at all in this tournament. I always go with a mindset that we should always play the best and don't go underestimating anyone, and just playing the best Valorant we can play.

We put in a lot of practice, like every day, so like, hopefully that practice pays off enough for us. And you gotta put the time in, basically.

How has analyzing been as an unsigned roster? When you were previously with an organization in PUBG, you had dedicated analysts who would help spot out issues and crunch numbers, so how has it been with Moon Raccoons?

We just do it ourselves. We study the games, we watch VODs. Like, we have our coach. RaptorZ is a good coach, he always helps us. We always watch VODs together, we sit down, you know, chill, be eating, watching, eating popcorn, whatever, having dinner. And we're all just like, chilling every day watching something together and learning to learn with each other, even though we're just hanging out. And I feel like you don't need to have an organization to be able to do that yourselves as it's all about yourselves putting time and putting work on the things that you need to learn from it.

What do you think the future of Moon Raccoons is, especially with the persistent looming possibility of poaching from major organizations?

The future's bright, that's all I can say. Everyone in the team is dedicated to each other and I think the biggest part of this team that most other teams don't have is our friendship to each other. Everyone is super close and nice and everyone's just vibing. Everyone has a good vibe with each other and poaching might or might not happen, but at the end of the day, we talk to each other a lot about everything. And we keep it honest, you know, we don't talk about anybody behind their back.

Anything else you'd like to say?

I just think that one of the biggest reasons I think that I joined this team is because of the way the team is with each other and I can't say that to a lot of the other teams. I don't know how they operate, but I think this team, it's all about the vibe. It's all about how everyone treats each other and if you treat each other good, there's always going to be good resources. You can only go up, right? The sky's the limit.

Moon Raccoons will make their final run for one of the four remaining First Strike: North America slots in the UMG Closed Qualifier this coming Thursday. The team will be playing in Group C, taking on Complexity, Serenity, and Gen.G.

You can follow Pr0phie at @pr0phie and Moon Raccoons at @MoonRaccoonsGG on Twitter.