El AD Carry de Cloud9, actuales líderes de la LCS NA y que llevan una trayectoria impecable esta temporada, habla con BlitzSports sobre el Chronobreak y el nuevo equipo de C9 sin sus historicos jugadores que ahora están en Flyquest.
Q: What's the best thing a fan has ever done for you?
I mean, I can remember stuff that people have given me, just in person. Like I know we had a Korean fan meet that... There was like a super fan there that just went around with like a hat that she wanted to put on you to take a picture with. Me and Meteos did, like, the heart thing together because she was like forcing it. I mean, it wasn't like anything nice done for me. I mean, I've gotten cookies a few times from one fan. I think she actually. It was during Worlds, where we couldn't go out to see fans and she asked the manager to bring cookies up. It was like oh wow. Nice.
Q: You've been with C9 for a long time now, and at one point, you talked about potentially leaving. What kept you on the team for so long?
Well I think the only ever time that it was, you know, talked about like leaving--that was kind of like a Riot-pushed agenda. I never really said it. It was just like, “You guys were doing terribly, Sneaky. What would you think about, you know, joining a different team?” Like, I mean, yeah, we're like 8th place LCS right now. That was 2015 Summer, where we barely made it into the spot that isn't relegated so we kept our circuit points. That was the only time I've ever even considered it, and it wasn't even anything past that. It was literally Riot asking me that question. So I've never really considered leaving C9, honestly. It would be a really weird experience for sure. I guess all of my members of the original roster have experienced it, you know. Meteos left and came back a few times. Hai did the same thing. Lemon and Balls recently only moved to the FlyQuest team, but that was also a weird experience I think for them, because I don't know if they were really sure if they're going to play or not. It was just kind of, “we're playing the Challenger thing,” and then it ended up pushing into an opportunity for the LCS spot.
Q: What's it like not having LemonNation, Hai, and Balls on the team with you?
It's different for sure. Different environment without Lemon, Hai, and Balls. Because I mean I've been around them for such a long time. I kind of knew what they'd be doing, you know? Hai is always really commanding in the game. Lemon always has a lot of strategical questions, like, what we should be doing. I know he had a lot of strong level-ones he likes doing. He's like obsessed with pick/ban, you know, he has the notebook. He likes doing it. I don't know if he’d ever really want to give control up of pick/ban to anyone when he's on a team. So I miss the guys for sure. It's a pretty nice experience, you know, playing against them today.
Q: What happened with the whole Deterministic Disaster Recovery Tool situation in that match?
That is a weird name for the recovering of the game. I was actually confused at what you’re saying, but it was pretty interesting. I didn't expect that at all, that they'd be able to bring the game back to 20 seconds before the bug happened. I think it's actually a really nice feature that exists in Dota, I think. I'm fairly sure. I've never actually seen it, but I've heard of it. And it's pretty insane, because if we had to do a remake, we would have had to do completely new pick/bans, and that means they could go for, like, a Zilean ban instead of the Kennen ban second phase, which kind of just ruins the team's plans. But if you go in a remake where you just drop back 30 seconds, it's like, “Wow, okay. Well that bug that just happened probably isn't going to happen, unless it's just completely broken champion.” So yeah, it felt pretty good with whatever the name you said it was.
Q: If you were to stop playing competitively, do you think you would coach?
I haven't really thought about too much for like the aftermath of League for me like after my playing career. I don't, I'm not entirely sure if coaching is to like too viable because it's actually really hard to do, I think, to be a really good coach. I don't think it's just, you know, look at replays, just, you know, “you guys screwed up here,” but you kind of have to have the answer yourself to these plays. Say you watch your team do a bad play near Dragon or something. You have to have an answer, like, what should they be doing instead. And that kind of thing. And I think Reapered does that really well right now. He's been around for such a long time in the game--League--that he's built up a ton of experience, and, you know, he's been on a bunch of Korean teams that he's done pretty well with. So he has a lot of knowledge, and I think it would be really hard for me but, I mean, I would maybe try it out. Lemon kind of did that when he retired. It was an interesting experience. It's kind of what I was talking about where, like, you just going into a match like, you know, “you guys screwed up here, here, here.” It's not the worst. But it's just, like, you've got to have that extra level of knowledge about the game.
It sounds like fun just getting to point out everyone like you messed up here, here, here, every time.
I mean, you kind of have to be a little mean with it, like a little strict, because if you're super light about it, then they don't really take you seriously. The players will be like “yeah I know, I know, I know,” and blow it off as if it didn't really matter. But a lot of these mistakes do add up in the game, and you kind of have to impound that into your players.
