Thanks to their victories over Rogue and SK Gaming, Fnatic are alone at the top of the LEC - League of Legends EMEA Championship - Summer Split (5-0). Ivan "Razork" Martin talks to Sheep Esports about these two excellent weeks, after an unsuccessful MSI.

Did you expect such a close game against SK Gaming?

Iván "Razork" Martín Díaz: "According to scrims, we should have won easier but I think we kind of shoot ourselves in the foot with the draft and the level one was a little bit wild. We got a bit behind from it so... I didn't expect it to be too hard but after the draft, I kinda knew we might sweat a little bit.

Is the level one fight something you expected? Is it also something that you practice?

Razork: I said: "Okay guys, our draft kinda sucks, they can late invade bot side, they can late invade top side, so we need to be ready." I was ready for it, but Oscarinin (Oscar Muñoz), and I were a bit split, so we couldn't chunk the Renekton and then the fight was a bit wild, not gonna lie.

But did you still get the upper out of it?

Razork: I actually think it might sound like we got the upper hand because we got one more kill. But in reality it's better for them because enemy team gets my camp, top wave was really bad and it's just like not good. Then Isma (Ismaïl Boualem) also took my bot side camp because I don't know if he's coming top and they have mid priority. So, it was a bit hard to play the game. But I honestly think they got the upper hand.

What did you think of playing against Isma? Do you think that he's a strong jungler?

Razork: I played many times against him already. I think he's adapting and growing very good as a player. Right now, maybe the thing that he can struggle the most with is that he doesn't have a huge champion pool. Or at least I feel like he's always playing this type of champs: Maokai, Sejuani, Xin Zhao. He's not really a big carry player but he plays really well according to his team.

A lot of fans compare SK Gaming botlane to Fnatic botlane. Do you think that it is fair and that SK botlane is strong?

Razork: In scrims they were not doing that good, but actually SK is playing so much better in official. I don't know if it's because they are not very disciplined in scrims, but they just are on the same page. I'm very surprised about SK bot, I feel like they are playing really good.

Fnatic is alone in first place, with a 5-0. Do you feel like you learned from MSI?

Razork: Yeah. I wouldn't say that we learned from one side because the patch is totally different, but we have the momentum going. Even though we lost we all are really hungry to win and we kind of changed the way we approach practice. Right now we are mega try harding every game and it's showing up. And even though, like today or maybe other day, we have bad drafts, I think we still win because we are playing better than them on the map and we are also strong individual players.

After MSI, there was a clip of you talking to the team where you pointed out some things you could improve. Are these things you are currently working on?

Razork: That's something that we kinda knew but we had to say. It's better if you are just direct to someone and give feedback even though it hurts a little bit. It's very good so the team can progress faster. I think the first change that you can see the most is Noah (Oh Hyeon-taek). He’s playing way more confident and yes, the fact that he is not using social media, that he's doesn't care much about what people say about him, that's something that is helping him to perform better. But yes, I think in general we are doing pretty good.

When you play games during the split, do you have the goal in mind of performing well at Worlds and does it affect the way you play the game?

Razork: I don't think in Fnatic we have that mentality like "Oh, we are not playing at our highest in regular season". Because LEC teams are actually not that bad. If you actually have a bad draft and you are playing bad, you can drop the game against any team and yes, it's best-of-one. So, I think that's probably the main reason why teams like G2 or us, even when we are playing really strong, we drop games.

So you think that Europe is pretty strong as a region right now, even after you competed at MSI?

Razork: I actually think we're not that bad. We are for sure worse than top LCK and LPL teams. But I feel like medium teams in LPL and LCK are not actually way better than middle teams in EU. But the top tier teams, they are actually really, really strong.

What's your opinion to the difference between you and the top teams in China or South-Korea?

Razork: They are just way better at almost everything. But the main point in my opinion is they always know what is going on the map. And they are very, very disciplined according to enemy spells and what spells they have. They pressure you in a way that they don't have to kill you to get something, they just get control and the moment you make a mistake they will punish you really hard.

In LEC we see a lot of Ivern being picked, but we don't see it as much in other regions. Do you have any idea why?

Razork: I was the first one in this split playing Ivern. And I actually don't know why they don't pick it. Maybe it's because of playstyle. I have no clue. But I feel like every team has their own meta read. If you play Ivern in scrims against a team that you play in LEC and you stomp them with Ivern then they will think about this champ. And maybe if they find success with it, they will start playing it. I don't know if they don't like it in LPL or they just think it's weak. But in EU at least, it's been popular right now. And I actually think it's pretty strong if you play it, the champ is actually not easy. As it seems it's kind of boring sometimes, I think it has a lot of mechanics.

Fnatic plays a lot of drafts where you have two carries and a big frontline. Is this actually something that you do on purpose?

Razork: It really depends on how we draft. Having frontline is really important but sometimes we just don't have one. For example, the game we played against GiantX, we had Renekton as frontline and he was getting one shot. So, I think it really depends a lot, but yes, we like to play with frontline. It helps a lot to make teamfights easier."