Melzhet on MKOI's toplane situation: "It's a way to make sure we have a good option no matter what"

This is your first year basically taking over the drafts, right? I felt like last year Zeph was mostly the one drafting.

No, it's literally the same system as in scrims. In scrims I don't take too much care of the draft — my assistant does the draft to practice champions and so on. We keep the discussions going, of course, but I'm focused more on gameplay, individual coaching and team reviews. Then on official days, they present one idea and I'm the one deciding the calls and the shots. So the responsibility is fully on me if a draft happens and goes wrong. It was the same last year — I always work the same way. It helps me focus really, really hard day by day on gameplay and helping the players individually. And on officials, I still haven't found a way to fully give the draft to the other guy, so I've done the same every time. My assistant is always involved, though — he was really involved in the drafts before with Hansen, and now it's Alphari, same system.

To come back to today's struggle — the fact they came back after you had the advantage. It feels like something that happens a lot with MKOI, even last year, and it was kind of the same against BLG at the EWC. Do you feel it's an issue you've always had that's hard to fix?

Of course.

We are not as good as we should be at dealing with emotions when we're ahead.

For example, in this game we tried to finish when it shouldn't have been the call at all. So we sometimes end up rushing more than we should. Of course, sometimes you misplay and that's part of the game, it happens to everyone — no team closes 100% of the games they're ahead in, it'd be really weird if someone did. But it's for sure a weakness of ours, everybody knows it, it's nothing new. We've been trying to work on it: controlling emotions, being clearer, reviewing a lot on what we need to finish the game rather than going for desperate calls. There are different kinds of mistakes we make — some of them I think we've solved, some not. For example, in the first game we had a comp without siege and we were very patient about getting to the point where we could finish, instead of "let's try to siege or dive a tower." Those mistakes were happening in the past, once we didn't but then in the third game we did it. So that's why I'm happy in some instances and disappointed in others.

I discussed it with Jojo after the EWC, and he told me you focused mainly on the early game during the off-season, and that your big recent weakness was teamfighting — that it was a bit "disgusting," as he said. Would you agree, and is it something you've worked on since the EWC?

I think after the spring split — I don't know what happened — we started to teamfight like complete shit. It can be a lack of confidence, not trusting each other, or tending to go for certain ideas like tunnel vision. Sometimes we get really weird flanks that shouldn't happen, sometimes we don't wait, or we engage when we shouldn't. I think it happened because we used to have a system that was very easy to run when Alvaro was the main engage and we followed up. You can still have that in this meta, and we're going back to it and working on it. But in spring and at the EWC we didn't have that much practice — we were still trying to bring Alvaro back, and other things we hadn't played in a long time. So I think it's all fixable. It was one of our strengths.

I think we were a really good teamfighting team in the past. Now we are disgusting, to be honest.

Last question, because we don't have much time — I have to ask, because NightSlayer has been announced as coming to Berlin to train. Whose call was it, and would you say it's a way to pressure Myrwn?

No. Look, this is always going to be misunderstood or whatever. The pressure is always the same. Why I'm bringing NightSlayer is because we have really talented people in the academy, and it's something we need to develop. Yes, Myrwn wasn't performing his best — but since we had a talk at the EWC, Myrwn

The timing, though — it's right after the EWC, where Myrwn underperformed a bit.

I know, but it's like — in the first year, after Worlds, I had a talk with him about it. He performed really well, then he started to perform really badly. It's highs and lows, nothing new. The only thing I did this time is: okay, let's bring NightSlayer, because we need to develop our academy too. I think it'll be good for him, and it's also a way to make sure we have a good option no matter what in the top lane.

If Myrwn plays excellently, or he's trying harder — and he is trying — I'm maybe not going to change him.

But I can't fully flip now after all these highs and lows. I don't want to flip in the most important split without a good option in case things aren't working well. But so far I think he's doing better. After the EWC we had a long talk about it — it wasn't supposed to be public, so there wouldn't be this drama.