For the third time this year, G2 Esports finds itself in the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) Grand Finals, each time reaching it through the playoffs’ upper bracket. After a 3-1 victory over Movistar KOI, the squad now prepares for Madrid, ready to confront their challenges and aim for their first split title of the year ahead of Worlds 2025. In an exclusive interview, Steven “Hans Sama” Liv, the team’s AD Carry, sat down with Sheep Esports to discuss training efficiency, G2’s playstyle, and his tenth year as a professional player.

Are you satisfied with beating MKOI 3-1, despite dropping a game? Are you happy to have qualified to Madrid?

Steven “Hans Sama” Liv: “I'm very happy that we beat them 3-1, especially with how we stayed resilient in game 2 where we were about 10k gold behind. We played better than usual in those situations and ended up securing the victory. Those types of games are always the ones where you need to be really ready as a team. We did a lot of good things.

Game 3 was really hard to play. At least for me, I would have loved the game to last more than 30 minutes. I was a bit out of it after the chronobreak—it felt weird waiting so long. When I paused, it was strange because this hadn’t really happened to me before. Something just popped up in the middle of the screen during a team fight, and then, I couldn’t really do anything.

We bounced back for game 4 in terms of energy; we were still proactive, which was good. The energy wasn’t lacking, though we were a little quiet after game 3, since we waited so long and then lost very fast. But overall, I’m still very happy with the win. I could have done better in the bot lane during the laning phase, but I’m still happy.

You mentioned with TraYtoN that the last two weeks of practice before playoffs weren’t great. How has practice been in G2 heading into this match and now with Madrid coming up?

Hans Sama: Practice went as it usually does, with different draft prep. I don’t think having a great week of scrims means you have the right mentality or attitude to be eager to learn. That’s the most important part. Before, there were many days when we just won a lot of scrims but didn’t actually learn anything. Then, when we went to internationals, we were like, “Oh wow, we learned so many things—we were losing on stage, losing games under pressure, and had no choice but to actually learn because we were just bad.” Those moments are really important for learning.

This week, we learned a few things, but we’re not there yet. We have to reach the right mindset and attitude to actually learn during the week. I hope next week we’ll achieve that. Continuing to learn isn’t easy—sometimes some games are just hard, but you still have to play them, like game three today. You need to play those games to learn something. Still, some days of scrims were good. I remember learning some stuff. I just wish the amount of learning was a bit higher.

This year, you mentioned focusing a lot on improving your champion pool with Fearless. How do you feel about it now? Are there champions you’d like to play but aren’t confident on yet? And do you think creative bot lane strategies, like mages or double support, could happen again?

Hans Sama: I haven’t really played botlane mages in G2. It always depends on a lot of people in the draft, like the jungle pick, the mid pick, and what they pick as well. But I’ve been a pretty good mage player in the past—I was really good on champions like Syndra and Ziggs. There are multiple ways to draft bot lane right now. MKOI, for example, usually take a hyper carry on botlane no matter what. That’s how it felt over the past 10 games.

I’m happy that I’m getting to play a lot of different champions. I played my first Zeri this year. All my Zeri games in scrims were decent, so I was wondering when I would actually pick her on stage, since I used to be bad on the champion. I think I’m better at her now than in previous years, and carried a lot of games in scrims. But I wasn’t sure if the scenario would actually come up on stage.

I’ve also learned Yunara pretty well. I’m confident on Xayah, although today, I had only one good play and then kept getting caught. Playing against Bard and Jarvan IV is actually a bit hellish, and I guess some matchups that play with range are rough too. Some champions I’m very confident on now, while others I still need to work on and train. Every year is like that. There are also a lot of champions I haven’t picked yet, so I hope I’ll get to play them in the Grand Finals.

We’ve heard from the team that this G2 is more controlled compared to last year’s aggressive, chaotic style. Do you think this roster’s more controlled gameplay will help you do better at Worlds? Are you worried that playing controlled might make you feel like a “lite version” of certain LCK teams?

Hans Sama: We definitely have a playstyle that doesn’t revolve around fiestas or fighting from every angle like some other teams. Even though we’re really good at control, we’ve shown we can play all-in comps against international teams. You could say that every top team in the world is good at playing controlled—playing controlled is just one way to play League of Legends.

Sometimes you have to see the angles, and the angles are always different depending on what you play. We’ve learned a lot and know when to be very aggressive. Today, even with our controlled style, we went for a lot of aggressive plays—dives, overloading one side, catching people out. Maybe that can even be part of control; we were looking to play aggressive at the right moments. As long as what we do makes sense in the game, it works.

It’s your 10th year as a pro player this year, which is a big milestone. Are you happy with how your career has gone so far? If you had to retire, would you feel satisfied with what you’ve achieved, or are there still things you want to accomplish?

Hans Sama: Interesting question. I often think about what I actually want to achieve. It’s easy to say, “Let’s try my best this year and see what happens,” but my conclusion is that there’s only one time in life you can have such a great competition, and I feel like this has to be it—nothing else.

I’ve been living for competition my whole life, since I was six, starting with tennis and now League of Legends. My goal is to do my best in League, to improve, because that’s what makes me happiest. Even after 10 years, my conclusion hasn’t changed—I just want to keep going further.

Of course, there’s a lot of stress in this career, but it’s what makes you feel alive. You learn so much, meet different people, and you try to do your best every day. That’s what I love about it, and I want to become way better than I am. Every time I do interviews, I say, “I just want to be better,” and I truly mean it—I really want to keep improving.”