“That's what the passion is”: Ever-versatile Viridian reflects on life and Counter-Strike

Written by Lachlan "Flamboyant" Hamilton

It’s very rare to have a storied career in Oceanic Counter-Strike outside of a single discipline, which is one of the reasons that Edward “Viridian” Azzi has become a household and much-loved name within the local community.

From being a top in-game leader in the region with his unsigned team Only One Word to streaming and observing the top events in the region and coaching abroad, Viridian has proven himself one of the best personalities in Aussie CS.

He is a hard man to track down, and an even harder man to get to talk to; however, with some skillful convincing (I spent so much money), Viridian sat down with us to talk CS, life, and his rise in the esport both as a creator and a player.

TF2 to CS: Viri's Humble beginnings

As a lot of you may know, Counter-Strike is Viridian's life.

His days consist of eat, sleep, Counter-Strike, and repeat. After graduating from university with a degree in computational design, he went all in on the esport—and it's paying dividends.

“[The degree] is there if the CS stuff gets stale, but so far it's still been progressing and I see that there's still potential for something to happen," Viridian said. "Outside of Counter-Strike, I just freelance with stuff like editing."

When he isn't playing an official, Viridian often streams local matches, giving back to the scene using the very platform he's built up over the years. Thanks to support from family and the money he makes from competing and streaming—combined with the freelance gigs outside of CS—he's making do.

"I'm lucky enough to be able to have the time and support from my family to continue pursuing [CS], so I spent a lot of my time just thinking about CS-related things."

"It's just Counter-Strike, that's where the passion is. I'll see where I can take it."
- Edward “Viridian” Azzi 

Viridian’s origin story, for the most part, probably looks similar to your average CS player of this day and age. He grinded hours of Team Fortress 2 to begin with, sinking thousands of hours into the game.

“I was playing Pyro, Scout, Sniper… I put at least 3,000 hours into playing TF2 because my brother had it on his PC,” he said. “I had a crazy amount of hours in casual, and I never really wanted to play competitive games because it took so long. I used to watch my brother play comp, and it was 40 minutes. I was like, what? That was just too much time."

Eventually, a young Edward leapt into the more competitive side of FPS, leading him to discover Counter-Strike.

“It just came down to one of my schoolmates," he explained, stressing his days of subbing in were "very amateur." But a few sub-ins turned into a starting spot on the playing roster—and Viridian was hooked.

“It wasn't how I wanted to start at that level because it was pretty scuffed back then with the CGO teams. The quality was just all over the place but it was a good experience.”

After bursting onto the scene, the hunger and drive for more competition began to creep up on Viridian. The drive for better opponents eventually earned him a spot in the Caught Off Guard (COG) roster where he made a breakthrough. Viridian reminisces over his big break—ESEA MDL Season 34's relegations in 2020. COG dropped 0-2 to Riot, but bounced back in a big way against Ballarat Bulldogs.

“My main breakthrough season was the ESEA MDL Season 34 where we had to compete against Riot for our first match, which we lost 0-2. Then, we had to play Ballarat Bulldogs and we beat them. We popped off,” he chuckled,

The "pop-off" would be short-lived.

The ESIC Purge

The majority of the roster that had gotten Viridian into competitive play and even a coveted HLTV profile split apart—but not due to time commitments or roster changes. The bulk of the squad were victims of the ESIC purge of the OCE region in 2021, something Viridian avoided thanks to his risk-averse personality.

He saw his peers discuss gambling on various matches both domestically and internationally, but steered clear of getting involved.

“This is not something that people should be involved in, so I strayed away from that. I hopped into [the] Discord out of curiosity and then I was like, ‘Okay, this is just weird'."

The aftermath of the ESIC bans wasn’t pretty, and Viridian believes ESIC had targeted OCE. “35 players getting banned and most of them were pretty ridiculous, especially with bans relating to actual games overseas,” he said. “Let's say you bet on Astralis or Fnatic in an ESL Pro League—you would get attached to a ban. The scene was targeted.”

“With that many bans happening, people should get a warning instead. But, you know, that shit happens.” 
- Edward “Viridian” Azzi

“For me as a player, it was whatever. I'm still just here to play. It doesn't mean much to me because there were more opportunities to focus even harder on the game—the bans weren’t going to faze me."

That focus in a time of such controversy and noise around the OCE region created a demon when it came to understanding team CS. The dedication to the game has seen Viridian grow to become one of the biggest names in the scene.

“I've been comfortable talking heaps during the game, like mid-rounding and having that extra voice,” he said. “I was never really a quiet player because you need to talk—better communication gets you the wins."

Balancing the IGL and AWP roles isn’t easy, despite there being several who have tried. For every Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Casper “cadiaN” Møller or Yaman “yam” Ergenekon, there are hundreds who can’t connect the necessary dots.

Viridian’s far from that level, but he’s enjoying the challenge so far. “It's been going pretty well. There's a lot of stuff to learn, but I'm still pretty comfortable leading the team alongside AWPing.

“I just need more experience to get more comfortable finding the balance between playing for myself and also the team. It's not anything unknown, I just jumped into the deep end. I had the confidence to go in with it.”

From playing to observing: Narrative construction

The brains don't stop in the server. Viridian has expanded his game knowledge thanks to his experience as a tournament observer, learning the ropes alongside Aussie export and king cameraman Michael “MC” Campagna.

“MC messaged me out of the blue when IEM Sydney was announced. He asked me if I wanted to observe at [IEM]—this was full jumping in the deep end in terms of observing,” he laughed.

“[I had] no experience in the past besides my stream. I would go watch the games and cast and like actually switch myself like in open qualifiers. Whatever was open to the public, I'd love to stream them and just create that story for the stream observing and just yapping.”

While it’s important to know about Counter-Strike to become a good observer, Viridian explains there’s a major difference in how you approach the role. 

“It's pretty different because when you're playing, you're thinking as a player, you're thinking about all this stuff in the context of a player," he said. "When you're observing, it's about the storyline you create for the audience that's watching.

“You need to keep in mind certain rules about observing. Not swapping the camera too fast, building context so that the audience can follow what's happening in an enjoyable manner.”

Viridian got another chance to observe at DreamHack Melbourne, wielding the sticks for some of the biggest matches at the event. “[Observing for a live audience] is like an element added on top of observing where you listen to the crowd and the hype they give and you prioritize what the audience wants to see.

"If a player is dropping 20 or 30 kills [and] going nuts, you will hype up the whole atmosphere by adding that element to your observing.”

When questioned about his contribution to this year’s IEM Melbourne, he declined to comment with a cheeky laugh. However, he’s trying not to let observing become his main role in CS.

“[I want to be] playing. I want to just play at some LANs, compete against overseas teams and get more experience,” he affirmed.

“If the opportunity pops up where I can observe for whatever event, I'll take it. I'll sacrifice a little bit of time from playing just to get involved with observing because it's really, really fun, and attending these big events is pretty, pretty cool.”

What does the future hold?

When asked about the future of his career in esports, he explained his priority of where he wants to go and what he wants to do—and he has given it plenty of thought.

"There's observing, there's even coaching and there's playing. The priority, for now, is playing and then obviously observing and then coaching, in that order. That said, it depends on the opportunity.

In an ideal world, however, Viridian would love to do it all, and keep his pathways open.

“I’m just thankful for the community overall. Over the years it's just been, like, for the Counter-Strike experience for me, it's just been progressing, and that's all thanks to everyone in the community. So I'm grateful for them, and grateful for everyone in production, too."

“Having observed events, you work with a lot of people who cover all this stuff, and as a viewer, you don't see the work and just everything they put into it. So they, deserve a big shout-out. Then, also my teammates.

“Hopefully, some opportunities pop up next year where we can play on LAN. That's the goal.”

You can catch Viridian's team Only One Word as they progress through ECL this season before they suit up for our very own DFRAG Invitational in March.