"If We Work Hard Enough, We Are Going to Win MSI and Worlds" — Caps After G2's Surprise Loss to Fnatic

Mid lane in the LEC feels very volatile — a lot of mid laners perform in a given meta then disappear. What makes the difference for you to be the only European mid laner who stayed relevant through all those meta shifts?

I'm definitely grateful to have gotten the chance to play as long as I have.

I will do everything I can again to just become the best and finally get that Worlds trophy, which I've definitely been chasing for a long time.

Staying in the LEC and getting to play year after year is just a lot of fun — we keep coming back to these splits, we keep running into obstacles. Like today, trying to solve them and figure out how do we win this game against Fnatic next time, from a strategy aspect as well — I think it's awesome. So I'm definitely very grateful for the opportunity.

After all these years — isn't it ever just tiring?

Obviously there are always ups and downs. There are definitely times where you feel more or less tired, but it all comes in waves. Sometimes it's more exciting — playoffs, First Stand, new patches, there are always things that make it more fun. Sometimes you're really enjoying something, like solo queue or scrims where there's a certain concept you're just picking up. Those are the easy moments — the ones where you really feel like you're making progress. But then there are the tough times — where you're making the same mistakes, there's no clear solution to how you improve, and it feels a bit darker in that sense. Less fun. It definitely feels tough when it's like that. But that just makes it even better when you finally find a solution and figure out how to get better.

Caps in 2019 — Photo Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games

When you look at the top teams right now, MKOI found Jojopyun in NA, KC found kyeahoo in Korea. Why is Europe struggling to produce top-tier mid laners in recent years?

I'm not sure about that. Some years there are definitely more players coming in. I'm not sure what to attribute it to. There are always some years where maybe we have more mid laners or fewer mid laners. For all we know, next year there could be three or four new mid laners and maybe two of them will be very good.

I definitely still have a lot of faith in the upcoming mid laners, and in the other roles as well. I'm excited to see who will actually make it to the big stage.

Coming back to First Stand — how do you explain the struggles against BLG compared to the LCK teams? They were much more creative and made the games messy, a bit like Fnatic did today actually.

You're spot on. We found a lot of success playing the slower games where we get time to think, time to come to the best conclusions, get our prep time. Against BLG they kind of just hit us from level one — a lot of invades, mainly. That threw off our rhythm and then they just kept it coming, the fights kept coming. Even the first game we won was very much of a struggle. After that one we already knew it wasn't going to be easy. They will fight us to the very end. And sadly, they just managed to come out on top of all of those.

We definitely need to clean up our communication. Sometimes we spam the communication. Today I think we talked past each other — everyone was maybe saying something but we weren't all on the same page.

When it gets very fast and very stressful, we just need to find a way to stay on the same page. We're finding a lot of success with that in slower games where we can really execute our strategies.

You said in an interview that if there was a good reason for you to be the next HoL inductee, it would be because of the hope you embody. How have you never lost that hope after six years of trying?

Every time you lose — not every time, but a lot of the time — it just feels hard. It feels dark. In some ways you could say you lose the hope. But I think always rewatching the games just kind of removes the emotional aspect of it and you see — oh wait, if we just did these things better, we could win this. We could win these games so easily. It always feels bad and good at the same time to rewatch, because you're like: if we just did these small things better, we could have come out on top.

It's always a struggle to get better. At the start it was a struggle for us to even become the best in Europe.

Last year at this point we were coming off a very tough final, now we managed to win the first split. But that's not a guarantee for the future. If we play like we did today, we're obviously not going to win even Europe. So we just need to keep staying sharp, keep focusing, and not take the time we have for granted. All the other teams are making progress too.

Caps at FST — Photo Credit: Bruno Alvares/Riot Games

Given this roster and how you've been playing recently — not today, but recently with First Stand and everything — is this your best shot since 2019 to lift an international trophy?

It's always a bit hard to say with chances and stuff. But it's definitely been the closest we've been in a long time to winning, at First Stand. There's no guarantee for the future though.

If we work hard enough, if we are sharp, if everything goes perfectly — we are going to win MSI and we are going to win Worlds.

But obviously not everything is going to go perfectly and obviously we're going to make mistakes. As long as we keep putting in the hard work and do our very best, I definitely believe we can win MSI and Worlds. But I also believed that in other years. The main thing is just doing better than we've done in the past. Going into it we lost earlier years, so at the end of the day it was like zero percent. It's definitely higher right now.

But we could have done better in those other years, and we will do better this time.

I have Vladi in interview after you. Anything you'd want to tell him?

Congrats to him for the win. He played really well and Fnatic stepped up since last week. They will need to keep this up if they want to make it to playoffs and go even further, which I'm sure he's hoping for. It's definitely exciting to see Fnatic winning games again. Although I would have loved if it was against someone other than us.

"If We Work Hard Enough, We Are Going to Win MSI and Worlds" — Caps After G2's Surprise Loss to Fnatic - DPM.LOL

"If We Work Hard Enough, We Are Going to Win MSI and Worlds" — Caps After G2's Surprise Loss to Fnatic

Comments (0)

Game one looked absolutely surgical. Then the next two games it was like watching a completely different team. How do you switch so fast from one extreme to the other?

Is it also a question of finding a new identity? I feel like whenever BB is on the weak side top lane it looks much better for you. Today he was on picks that want lane priority and gold, and it looked harder.