"For Summer Split, we'll have to ask ourselves the right questions" — Striker looks back on Shifters Spring Split

Shifters' first loss of the weekend at the LEC Roadshow in Évry trims the team's playoff odds to 0.6%. Head coach Striker spoke to RFT.GG about the reasons behind a stalling season: a solid early game undone, match after match, by a crumbling mid-late. The coach also looked ahead — to next week's EWC qualifiers, the review that awaits before Summer Split, and his own future on the bench.

How are you feeling?

Not good, as you can imagine. It's doubly hard because we're almost out of playoffs after this loss. And it was on a stage a bit bigger than the LEC's, so those are always games that matter more, beyond the pure result on the standings.

It has become a pattern — you win the early game and throw from there. How do you explain never really finding yourselves in games?

There are probably two reasons. The first is that we have a playstyle pushed toward winning the early game, getting winning lanes, and that goes all the way down to the draft — we prepare for it. So on average, it's normal that our early game is better than our mid-late game.

The reason we took that direction is simply that we realized this was the recipe — whether in officials or in scrims — that got us wins. Whether it was against Movistar KOI or teams like Vitality in Game 1, when we managed to see the game through from start to finish. The moment we didn't have a lead, it got much more complicated, even though we'd tried to work on it. So the first thing is that the drafts are designed more for winning the early game than the mid game.

The second reason comes from different ideas in teamfights, how to approach them. We tried to fix that with VOD review, so the players could understand each other better, and so we as staff could bring some keys to simplify it.

Would you say you maybe neglected the mid-game in how you approached matches, scrims?

No, the mid-game has been the part we've worked on the most, even recently. Late-game depends a lot on teamfight execution; in mid-game, there's a lot more macro involved. We put the emphasis there. You could see it last week when we played G2: the guys had done good work on it, we were better in that situation. Today a bit less, but it stayed a priority throughout, because we know it well — if you take a lead and throw it away, nothing else works. So the emphasis was on the early game in terms of preparation, but work-wise, the mid-late game is what we tried to consolidate the most. Our early game itself was pretty good, but it's what we focused on least in terms of actual work — only on prep, we were ready.

You still have two matches to play this weekend, and two more after that. How do you see it?

The first thing is that we're not mathematically out — 0.6%, I checked. We're in the same boat as Heretics. It's tough because we owe it to ourselves to try until the end. But the truth is, whether we're out or not, we want to win as many games as possible. It's a matter of honor: when it's your job, when you spend 13 hours a day on the same thing, you don't want to lose. It doesn't depend on the results — when you play against another team, you don't want to lose. That's what we're going to use to do our best until the end.

Playoffs aren't realistic anymore: if it happens it'll be a miracle, it's not really in our hands anymore.

But we want to get as many wins as possible so the season is as unblemished as possible.

How do you see things going forward with Shifters? Now that playoffs are almost unrealistic, how are you thinking about the rest of the year?

It's a bit early. There's the EWC, which is our competition — we're playing the qualifiers starting next week. Making it would be a good thing for the club; it's an important event on many levels. That'll be our short-term competitive focus — maybe more than the LEC itself, even though we're playing similar teams, so it doesn't change much. Then for Summer Split, we'll have to ask ourselves the right questions. We need to do a review, talk with everyone, try to understand what wasn't working — even if we already have our ideas on why we sometimes couldn't find ourselves in-game and often outside of the game — and then act on that.

Do you yourself feel a bit in danger in light of all these discussions you're talking about?

What I tell the players every time is that our results are bad, and you need motivation both when you're at the top and when you're at the bottom. When you're at the bottom, the motivation is clear. But I also told them this wasn't something I was holding over them as a threat — it was something I was telling myself too. That'll be the club's call. I don't really ask myself the question day-to-day, because it could have happened last year too.

Either way, it's not something that'll change how you work day-to-day. It can only weigh on you, or not. And if you let it factor into your day-to-day work, it doesn't bring you anything in terms of quality. I'll wait and see.

If the club thinks I should still be the one steering the boat for this Summer Split and that the changes should come from elsewhere, that'll be the case. And if they think the opposite, that'll be the case too.