G2 Hans Sama: "In Europe, we are the team that defines how the game is played"

Fresh off a victory against MAD Lions KOI, Hans Sama sits down to discuss the upcoming finals and his recent improvements.

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Steven "Hans Sama" Liv, competing in the 2024 League of Legends EMEA Championship for G2 Esports.

"We’re definitely not at a super high level yet, maybe around 60% of our full potential"

With only one more obstacle standing in G2 Esports' way, Steven "Hans Sama" Liv and his squad are now gearing up to face their long-time nemesis Fnatic, in the LEC 2024 Season Finals in Munich. Having taken down MAD Lions KOI, the AD Carry dives into the current League of Legends meta, G2's inconsistency, bot lane improvements, and the finals ahead.

G2 took down MAD Lions KOI with a 3-1 score today in Munich. How do you feel about taking revenge for your previous loss against them?

Steven "Hans Sama" Liv: "I feel happy because everything we prepared for showed up today against MAD Lions KOI. We did things differently compared to the last best-of-five, like a lot of things, and I believe we countered them pretty well. I'm proud of how my team played, and we had a pretty decent plan today.

Mihael "Mikyx" Mehle predicted a 3-0 win, but you had a bit of a 'content game' at the start of the series. Can you explain what happened there? What went wrong?

Hans Sama: I think their draft might have been better than ours. It just felt hard. We made a few mistakes that cost us, like getting aced and them taking Nashor. From that point onward, it’s just tough to come back. They had like Corki, Maokai, Miss Fortune, Alistar...

Should we blame it on your coaches?

Hans Sama: No, not really. It wasn’t our coaching staff's fault. It was more about us requesting those champions, which made things difficult. But yeah, there was a way to win the game. The plan was to make Gwen really strong, and she kind of was against Maokai but not enough. She kept farming, and we thought she would carry the game. So, yeah, maybe that was a bit of a content game.

G2's performance has been inconsistent lately, most likely due to how long your season has been. It seems like things are getting better now. How would you rate your team's current power level?

Hans Sama: I think that we’re definitely not at a super high level, maybe around 60% of our full potential. I mean, 100% would be everyone being at their prime, you know, like at their peak performance on the same day. That’s something you can obviously achieve, right? But yeah, I think it was a bit back and forth during the season. I do believe we made some wrong decisions regarding the meta, like in some best-of-five matches we lost, we were trying too many things.

We are the team that defines how the game is played, especially in Europe. For a time, no one really were first-picking ADCs, but then we started doing this, and other teams began doing that too. Of course, we switch things around, but there were people who would try to see what we do and emulate our strategies. Before the match we lost against MDK, we saw all AD mid laners getting nerfed, so we thought that going for mages would be better. But it didn’t work at all, and it was a major reason why we lost. We changed things around after that match and I think our read on the meta is much better now.

G2 Hans Sama, competing on Munich's stage during the Season Finals. Credit: Michał Konkol/Riot Games

We've seen Peyz play a lot of Ziggs in the LCK, but we haven't seen Europe pick up on it yet. Are you training that pick and maybe other champions we could see more of in the future?

Hans Sama: Well, for sure, they play a lot of AP champs, and I think they're definitely really strong. I’ve obviously played them, and I'm really good with some of them. When I was in Rogue, my Ziggs was just too good. It just feels like EU wants to play in a different way, a different style of game.

Despite past issues in international tournaments, you had a strong performance at MSI. Heading into Worlds, how confident are you about G2’s performance and your own?

Hans Sama: For me individually, when I go to international tournaments, I feel like we're able to reach winning positions in a lot of games. We obviously like to show people our scrim results, but it’s not just in scrims; I feel like we can win against the Eastern teams. Individually, and with Mikyx, we’ve been really effective. We’ve consistently taken down duos like Top Esports' bot lane and T1's. I don’t think I’ve been able to do that much in the past, but now we’re able to win a lot of games through bot. Being aggressive is important, and you definitely need a clear read of the meta. Personally, I feel capable of beating them. I’m working on a lot of things to improve. I hope some of that will be shown in the games, though it didn’t show too much today.

I mean you still got the MVP right?

Hans Sama: Yeah, I was a bit surprised about that. I guess I was good at my engages. I don’t really play the most flashy champions to carry, I guess. If you play with AP junglers, you need to adapt your style as a botlaner and help them carry. You want to be very ahead and help your teammates. So, I have to play Ashe in those cases and be very supportive, focusing on engaging and such. But still, I think I could have done much better today.

I was a bit happier with my performance in the past few best-of-fives. Usually, I don’t like to watch replays because I think I play really poorly sometimes, but recently my movements have been much better. I enjoyed watching myself a bit more and I feel like I'm learning from it. So, I definitely have some things I’m working on.

Hans Sama celebrating with his team after his team's victory. Credit: Michał Konkol/Riot Games

You’ll be facing Fnatic tomorrow, and there’s quite a history between G2 and Fnatic. What do you expect from tomorrow’s match?

Hans Sama: I expect them to be very aggressive in the early game because they always are. We've learned from how they want to play the map usually. We've played them over and over again, so we know how they want to play, and they know how we want to play. Similarly, today against MAD Lions, we knew what they were going to do, as we've spent a lot of time analyzing them. It was kinda like having a map hack since we know their habits.

For Fnatic, I would expect them to be very explosive in the early game, trying to dive us. In our previous series, I remember for example some games when we were diving each other on different part of the maps constantly. They would try to dive our botlane, then we'd try the same thing, and we'd both fail catastrophically. It was kind of funny.

So do you feel confident facing them?

Hans Sama: Yeah, I feel very confident. I think it's going to be very interesting from the early game.

Do you have a prediction for the series score?

Hans Sama: My mind says 3-1, but my heart says that 3-2 would be a banger. It would be better for viewers, especially with the whole stadium.

Do you have a quick message for G2 fans?

Hans Sama: Thank you to everyone who supports us. For sure, we have been a bit shaky, and we haven't shied from mentioning it. We weren't in our best shape, but thanks for still following and supporting us despite our struggles. We'll do our best to win the finals."

Header Photo Credit: Michał Konkol/Riot Games