Busio on taking accountability for the LYON loss and the practice behind KC's Worlds run

How do you feel after the loss against LYON?

Of course, disappointed. I think we were playing a good game. I just messed up, like, two fights in a row. I don’t know if I was getting zoned by, like, Galio ult or CC’d or something, or like mid-Kalista ult, but I couldn’t get my Renata W’s off on my Kalista. And that makes me mad, because then in hindsight I should have just W’d before. But it’s also a fine line to play, because you don’t want to W too early — because if she doesn’t get a kill and it resets and you have the five extra seconds, then you wasted your most powerful tool. So there’s just a balance, and in this game I read the balance incorrectly. So that’s pretty disappointing for me, because it’s usually something I think I do pretty well. I never waste it and I never don’t get it off. But this game it happened twice, so I’m pretty mad about that.

You’re not the only one to blame, though. At some moments you looked a bit spread out given the gold lead, and the micro decisions weren’t only on you.

Yeah, I mean, I’m sure. But that’s just the feeling I had, because I was playing the game and it’s like, oh, if I just W’d, we would have swept that fight. So I’m disappointed.

Did making two mistakes in a row take you out of the game a bit?

No, no. I mean, it’s weird, because I was having very good ultimates that game, I think, and I was playing well. I was just missing that part of my gameplay. And yeah, it’s just something I wish I could have done better. So, disappointed. But it’s a best of one, so losses can happen. And I think we’re still playing overall well.

Even once it snowballed, you held the base in that base race. You had a good early game and came back a bit. Do you feel there was still a good showing in there?

It’s hard to say. Maybe once we fell behind from those fights, the comeback is just the enemies making a mistake, not us doing anything particularly good — like them trying to end the game there and us barely holding on. That’s just luck, you know, they were a bit too greedy, so we got that opportunity. So everything before that matters more.

Did you feel outscaled in that game? Once they get ahead, there’s no coming back?

I mean, you could say that, because when Syndra gets a lot of CDR and whatnot, she does outrange us. So we need to do something impressive to win the fights, but at the same time you can still win. We’re stronger once we’re hitting the objective, as we have Kalista. Even though they outrange us, if we have some flank situation, their range advantage won’t matter that much. But yes, on paper, I would say Yunara, Lulu, Syndra should outscale us.

You were facing Inspired, your former teammate. Did that make it a little more personal?

No. I want to win the game just as much, and it sucks to lose just as much. It doesn’t really change that much.

Speaking of Inspired, I feel like him and Bwipo were very strong vocal leaders at FlyQuest. At KC, communication and leadership feel much more spread out, more of a team effort. How challenging was it to adapt to very different team environments?

Yeah, I mean, definitely a different team environment. And it’s just about experiencing it and then kind of learning how to adapt, and what holes you need to fill in the communication, in the team atmosphere and whatnot. And I think it’s like that with anyone joining a new team. It’s different people, so you have to slightly change your responsibilities.

You wouldn’t say it’s going from one extreme to another? At FlyQuest you had two very strong driving voices, while at KC everyone has their voice.

Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely different team environments, but I don’t think it honestly changes as much as you would think. And the reason is, even when I was on FlyQuest, having stronger voices in Inspired and Bwipo, my personal goal still remains the same. I still want to make sure I’m making good decisions based off what I see, regardless of what they’re saying. Because if you just blindly listen to somebody else, you’re not going to really be playing that well.

Reapered told me something similar about this team — that when it goes wrong, everyone is listening to the others and nobody is thinking on their own. Was that a strong focus for KC in getting back in form?

Yeah. Anytime we’re having, like, a rough performance, very often the reason is that people aren’t taking enough responsibility for themselves and making sure they’re playing what’s on their screen.

Are you still confident? Because if you take out the second half of this game, you’ve had a very good Worlds run so far.

Yeah, I mean, I’m still confident, of course.

Not tilted too much?

I guess right now I’m a bit tilted.

Last time we spoke, at the LEC finals, you mentioned practice hadn’t been going particularly well heading into that tournament. How has practice been heading into this Worlds, and do you feel the team took the right lessons from what happened?

Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s the best practice we’ve had all year, and it’s our peak of all year right now. I think we had a really good internal bounce back after the bad finals weekend.

Ever since the Cloud9 series, I feel like you’ve been playing with much more confidence, especially in the early game. Has that confidence been one of the biggest factors behind your performances?

Yeah, I mean, you could say it’s confidence, but I think it’s more specifically us being more chill, and that shows in the game as maybe confidence to you. And in terms of comparing our early game now to the Cloud9 series — I mean, the Cloud9 series was just horrible gameplay by us. So I think every aspect of our play is good compared to the Cloud9 series.

We’re only a few minutes removed from the LYON game and the next one is tomorrow. How do you reset that fast?

You know, go in the room, drop a “my bad, guys. I didn’t Renata W in two fights. Trust me, it hurts me as much as it hurts you.” Then you rewatch, you see if there’s more recreatable takeaways. Because if the only takeaway is “oh, Busio didn’t W”, you didn’t learn that much. There’s probably more things in the game — with the lead that we had, maybe it shouldn’t just come down to my W. So I’m sure there’s many things we can watch from that game. So yeah, you just treat it like any other loss. It’s best of ones. Move on, get ready for tomorrow.

Is there a team you’d specifically want to face in that 1-1 bracket?

I don’t have, like, a strong opinion, because I believe we can beat Eastern teams. Not like in a “we can” — like, I actually believe it’s just we go there and beat anyone else.

Anyone? Even the LCK teams? You feel confident going against them?

Yeah. So, ready for whoever we face.

G2 are in the 1-1 bracket as well. You haven’t had the most success against them this year, although you did in regular season and in best of threes. Could that be a good matchup for you?

Yeah. G2 would be a good matchup.

A last word for the KC fans?

Thank you, guys. Tomorrow will be better.