Karmine Corp secured their first win at the
First Stand 2025 tournament by defeating Chinese representatives Top Esports in a dominant 2-0 fashion, showcasing the strength of the EMEA region and keeping their hopes alive. In a press conference, AD Carry Caliste "
Caliste" Henry-Hennebert and midlaner Vladimiros "
Vladi" Kourtidis discussed the victory and answered questions about the changes made since the first two days.
Caliste, what’s your take on social media this week? Are you shutting them down to fully focus on First Stand, or are you using it to get fan support?
Caliste "Caliste" Henry-Hennebert: "I’m not really shutting down social media. I don’t look at them much during the season when we’re playing. I don’t care about the negative messages because it’s just fans being angry after losses, and I understand that. But most of them aren’t pro players, so they don’t know what’s happening in-game, so it doesn’t hold much value. The messages that matter are the supportive ones—they give us strength and push me to get better.
You just beat TES, continuing G2's legacy from last year. How do you feel right now?
Caliste: Well, I can say that I’m really, really happy. We played well and showed the real face of KC—the LEC-winning KC, not this weird team from the last two days. It would be a bit sad if our run ends tomorrow after beating TES today due to our two poor series against TL and CFO. I’m really happy we won and showed our true potential. I think we’ll keep getting stronger as the tournament goes on. I was also really happy to play against JackeyLove (Wenbo Yu) and perform well. He’s really good, and I hope he comes back stronger.
Eain "APA" Stearns said EU was the 5th region in the world. What’s your response to him?
Caliste: APA loves to talk a lot, but I think he was pretty useless in the BO3 we played against him—maybe not in that last game, though. He’s not being realistic, I think, just trying to banter. Team Liquid was the worst team we played against.
Vladi, you mentioned this week about issues in the mid-jungle synergy. What did you change today to come back this clean?
Vladimiros "Vladi" Kourtidis: We had a big meeting as a team to discuss our problems, and we had two scrim blocks before this match against TES. They were strong teams, but I think we did well, and our communication was very sharp, I would say.
What aspects did you guys work on and discuss to face TES today?
Vladi: As I said before, it was mostly communication between me and Yike (Martin Sundelin). We also had a different draft approach and had a few meetings. We talked about how to play teamfights since they were really bad in the last two series, along with communication. Everything was much better in this series, and I’m really happy.
After beating TES but losing to CFO and TL, do you think Karmine Corp performs better as dark horses, and how did you approach the match today in terms of pressure?
Vladi: I don’t think we’re the dark horse against strong teams only. We’re usually a very consistent team. The last two series were a bit unlucky; we could have easily beaten them. I just told everyone to play without pressure, even if we faced elimination. We have to play with confidence."
Header Photo Credit: Christina Oh/Riot Games
