After defeating their rivals Karmine Corp, the Spanish juggernaut Movistar KOI secured a top-three finish in the 2025 League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) Spring Playoffs. Though the team ultimately fell to G2, it now lies in wait in the lower bracket, just one best-of-five victory away from punching its ticket to Vancouver and the Mid-Season Invitational. In an exclusive interview, head coach Tomás "Melzhet" Campelos Fernández discusses the win over Karmine Corp, the team’s recent struggles, the level of the LEC, and shares his thoughts on the meta.

You've been away from the team for a while — how does it feel to come back, especially now that you've helped beat Karmine Corp, the team that picked you thinking you were the weakest?

Tomás "Melzhet" Campelos Fernández: "It feels fucking great. I had ideas on how to play into Karmine Corp and finally beat them. During the regular season, I'd say we trolled when we faced them. They took the win then, and it looked like we weren’t ever going to be able to beat them. I was a bit jealous when they did so well at First Stand. I mean, congrats to them, but I was so jealous — I wanted to be there in their place. So now, we’ll just keep working to surpass them and get that spot at MSI.

The last time you beat Karmine Corp was in Winter 2024 in a BO1 series. This was your first BO5 against them since your time under the Movistar Riders at EMEA Masters in 2023. Did this match play out the way you expected?

Melzhet: They were a bit cocky during the season, which is normal because they were doing pretty great. I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but I think they have a lot to work on right now. The reason could be because they weren't contested enough and kept winning, perhaps they weren't working hard enough. Still, I think they will come back stronger soon. The match went as I predicted it would go though. We trolled the fourth draft, but well, one failed draft out of four is an acceptable ratio.

How do you feel about Movistar KOI’s current level? There were some internal issues earlier in the split, and the atmosphere likely wasn’t great at the start. Do you feel like things have stabilized now?

Melzhet: Progression, for us, has never been linear. We will most likely fuck up again — you should expect that. That said, we're on the way up right now, and we showed it today. Despite me being away from the team, I was working with everyone remotely, while also doing parenthood stuff. When I'm here, I can obviously do so much more though. It's so much easier to read the environment, sense how the players feel.

I mentioned it before but, before facing Karmine Corp, we had a terrible week. You wouldn't believe it after how we played today. Despite our scrim results, I knew we were this close from pulling it off. I was telling our players the entire week that we just needed to keep working, and that things would maybe click on match day. Luckily, it happened, in a way. I'm really happy now. Also, I want to say that everybody played well, but if Supa (David Martínez García) isn't elected MVP, he's getting scammed. He played insanely well this series.

Can you share more about those scrim results prior to your match against KC?

Melzhet: I guess it doesn't really matter anymore, so I'll tell you — we had around a 20% win rate in scrims this week. It was that crazy. We were losing everything. Still, we were doing a lot of good things, but we had so many troll moments and kept losing games regardless. It helped us work on some things, especially related to our mental and how we approach games when things aren't going well. It showed in our resilience and the way we played in tense moments, when the series was going back and forth. At the end of the day, we were the team that made the better decisions. Sometimes scrims matter — and sometimes they absolutely don't.

You're not qualified for MSI yet, but you're in a great spot. Even if things don’t go your way against G2, you’ll still have the lower bracket semifinals. How confident are you about making it to MSI, and how do you see the rest of playoffs going?

Melzhet: I need to believe. I'm the head coach — if I don't see us making it, that'd be crazy. Still, I think it'll be hard. It won't be a piece of cake. We need to keep working, keep improving, and I hope that our win against Karmine Corp will help us to keep raising the bar. I hope that G2 prepared for KC instead of us, they are a strong opponent, and we need to work hard to beat them. I hope we'll win, be it against them or in the lower bracket, and get that MSI spot.

Before this weekend, many saw Karmine Corp and Fnatic as the best two teams, but now both are in the lower bracket while G2 and KOI are in the upper bracket. What do you think caused those upsets?

Melzhet: In my opinion, all four top teams are really close in skill level. Anything can happen. I don't think it was anything that special. I get why people favored those two over G2 and us, but at the end of the day, it's all about the players and how they show up. Does it really matter if you're the GOAT of the regular season? It happened to Fnatic in the Winter Split as well. You can never be sure who the best team is, and that's good for the league, because we have four strong teams that can compete for first and push each other to improve. I hope it'll help our region do better internationally this year.

Today’s match went to five games with a lot of different picks. With recent changes to AP items, some people wondered if mages or AP champions might return to the botlane. Do you think there are more surprises we haven’t seen yet?

Melzhet: For sure. We are probably missing some crazy shit that’s going to appear in a week or two. We'll have to see how it goes and adapt. It's important to see which of us will keep evolving the most in playoffs, who can get more and more unique picks, because fearless drafts require those. If you get to a fifth game without champions or ideas, you are fucked in this format.

Since the changes to grubs, teams have been reacting differently — sometimes rotating for grubs at 5 minutes, other times at 8 minutes. What are your thoughts on how grubs should be played, and why do teams choose different timings to rotate for them?

Melzhet: Grubs are an even better objective now, in my opinion. You don't need to invest as much time as before as they only spawn once, so you're not sacrificing as many drakes to get them. I don't think any of our teams are utilizing them well in Europe. Even for teams that lose them, as long as you match the enemy and don't lose a tower in the process, you'll be fine. I'd say that it's all about not losing the map too early. It's different in other regions, but I won't speak on that too much.

What are your plans for the next two weeks during the long break after tomorrow’s match?

Melzhet: First, we'll need rest. Of course, we're going to need more work, especially as lower bracket teams will have more time to practice on stage, so we need to be ready and be careful not to slack off either.

Would you like to say a few closing words to the Koisitos?

Melzhet: Thanks for the support. I know that it's been hard for fans with what happened a few weeks ago, but I'm glad that everybody's on the same page now. Please keep supporting us because, even if we have some moments of weirdness, we are always working on trying to achieve the best version of ourselves. At some point, I'm sure we'll show up and win it all."