G2 Mikyx : "T1 played well, but it's not impossible to reach that level"

G2 Esports support Mihael "Mikyx" Mehle, who was soundly eliminated by T1 from MSI on Friday (0-3), answered journalists' questions at a press conference. The Slovenian looks back at what his team lacked to topple the reigning world champions.

Mihael "Mikyx" Mehle: "Today, the majority of our losses kind of came from just teamfighting. We got pretty decent leads in all the games, and I felt like we were ahead. It just came down to losing a lot of 5v5 fights. I think if we can learn what everyone's role is in a fight, maybe we can start playing better. We noticed that we were really bad at it in Europe already. They were just much better in that aspect. Maybe in a few games, we were also grouping on the wrong waves, but overall, I felt like we were still fine while playing around the map.

Mikyx: Yes, I mean, I would say that the West's last hope is probably still going to be us at Worlds because I just don't have much faith in any other team. I think everyone else looked kind of bad, and I don't think they can actually get on the same level. We at least have some hope if we can fix some of our team fighting and just have a lot more stuff prepared for Worlds.

Mikyx: For sure. Between the West and the East, there's a huge gap. Mostly, I think it comes down to individual prowess in fights. I think it's also where we got to play today. And we can still match it if we have time to actually work on it. Top Esports were just playing badly as well. T1 kind of played well, but it's not impossible to reach that level. I think for the rest of the West, they have a bit more problems than just team fights.

Mikyx: I guess the biggest adaptation was probably in the draft. They drafted a bit better than last time. But besides that, I think not much has changed. Again, they just played better in fights. Maybe it was also easier because of drafts. I guess last time they were more surprised with our drafts. But now they kind of saw a lot of it and prepared the good counters for it. For example, Renata versus Poppy support was pretty tough. And they also lane-swapped that game. In that sense, they prepared a bit better. But gameplay-wise, it was kind of a similar story where we just lost in fights and then lost the games.

Mikyx: We thought that we were just going to be able to play against him, and I think he didn't look particularly insane on those picks. In the Azir game, he was kind of running it. And with Orianna, they picked kind of early as well, which he didn't show as much priority on in the previous games. Our plan was not to target the mid-lane. In game 3, we banned Azir just because it had an escape and it scaled well. When he was on Taliyah, it felt like we could punish it way easier than Azir. Tristana also had a pretty huge lead in that game as well. So I think no matter which champion he played, the game would probably turn out the same.

Mikyx: I guess for tomorrow's match, I'd probably give T1 the win. I think they are a bit better than BLG currently. I wasn't very impressed by BLG's games. They didn't seem that great. So, I think in the end, Gen.G is probably just going to win the whole thing. They look like the best team so far. And I think they have pretty good drafts as well. So, I think it's going to be between Gen.G and T1. I'd probably give the edge to Gen.G slightly, but I could see it going either way.

Mikyx: I'm not sure. I think throughout the whole tournament, I played alright. I don't feel like anyone in particular played great. I think Keria (Ryu Min-seok) played way better today than in our first series. So, I'll put him above for sure. I think I'll probably put myself in the top five, something like that. But the other supports are pretty good as well.

Mikyx: I don't think today's series in particular was an outlier because I still felt like we had good leads in the games. And then, in the end, it came down to just teamfights and execution, which was similar in the other series. It just happened that we played better in the two wins we got and actually snowballed our lead properly. And I guess the drafts weren't as prepared for things like Poppy or stuff like this.

Mikyx: For sure if we had won one more game in that series, for example, the last game when we had the lead, it could probably go all the way. I feel pretty confident that we can still beat any team. Because at least this time around it didn't feel like we got stomped compared to Worlds last year against teams like BLG and Gen.G. Those games just felt like we actually got stomped, and even the game we won. It was like a complete flip. But this time around, I felt like our wins were actually good. And even today, we had good early game leads, and we could have for sure turned them into a victory, but we were just not precise enough."