LYON Inspired on facing G2: "It will be an ego battle for both teams"

It’s North America’s first international top-four appearance in four years, and are the ones carrying the LCS’ flame. After a dominant 3-0 statement win against , the kings of North America are now heading into a showdown against EMEA’s crowned emperors, . With only a few hours to rest and prepare before the match, jungler sat down with Sheep Esports to discuss his latest victory, the importance of mentality and mindset, and his upcoming battle against G2.

Kacper "Inspired" Słoma: “I mean, that was... I wouldn't say it was the goal because I don't really set myself goals, but yeah…

So yeah, I'm happy about that, and we'll see what the next series will bring. It's going to be way tougher.

Inspired: Oh, I'm not frustrated. I'd rather win than lose, so I'm happy about the draw.

I’d really like to face G2, because I think that would be a really fun game and just an ego battle for both teams. So that would definitely be really fun. I also think we would have a higher chance winning against them. Maybe there's a world where they beat so we can face them, but I'm expecting a 3–0 for T1. Maybe G2 gets lucky and takes one game.

It would be funny if G2 beat T1 and then beat us as well… respect to them if they make it happen. [laughs] I’m looking forward to facing them if they beat T1.

Inspired: fought everything against Team Secret Whales, even in the timings where their opponent’s draft was the strongest in the game. TES just disrespected that. They just took every fight anyway, that's why they got outplayed and eliminated.

We didn't make the same mistake. We knew they were going to fight every objective, so whenever we were confident in our chances of winning, we would fight them. Whenever we felt it was better not to fight, we wouldn't. We knew their macro wasn't that great, and they were over-grouping a lot to force fights. I think we abused that well.

We had a good idea of how they play, and I was happy that we got them as our opponents, because I knew Top Esports would have been a more difficult opponent.

Inspired: Yeah, our level is good enough to beat G2 or T1, but we’ll need to not make as many mistakes, and maybe a bit of luck on our side as well. We're not the favorites no matter which team we play, but I don't think there's no chance of us beating them.

The way we've been playing recently, the both of them can definitely make mistakes, and we can beat them off that—we’re quick at punishing those errors right now. Sometimes we're also forcing plays ourselves, so we need to make sure we don't do that and play well if we wanna win.

Inspired: When we play against Asian teams, I know my team is probably worse than the enemy. So I can't play the same way I do in the LCS, because over in NA, I know my team is usually better than the opponents.

You have to know your limits and know how the game is most likely going to go. Against NA teams I usually like to take as few random risks as possible, while here I know I need to make something happen and get some sort of lead or something that will surprise the enemy if we want to have a chance of beating them.

So yeah, I'm trying to take the risks that I feel have the highest chance of paying off, and even if they fail, they won't instantly lose us the game. I've been working on that and trying to find the best angles I can.

Inspired: I mean, I have never won, so maybe my mentality isn’t the better one. The only Western teams that have won are the ones with in his prime.

Here with LYON, especially our mid and bot lanes are playing really well during the laning phase, so it doesn't really feel like we're falling behind really early. Against BLG, lost lane hard against because, obviously, it's Bin.

When I played with , it felt like every lane was on fire, so I didn't really know exactly what to do. But here it feels like I don't have to completely flip the game. I can just play normally and then try to make one good play happen somewhere, and there's a chance we can win.

I think you have to be realistic about your team and the way you can play. Just hoping you're going to win and believing in yourself—that's a bit cope. Know your limits, know your good champions, know the way you can beat the enemy, and then try your best.

Inspired: I was thinking about it, and I don't think so. I don’t really see a series where we lost due to mental block and not just because they were better than us.

Not on Rogue... Maybe on EG in the best-of-one against DWG KIA in groups. I came in with a bit of a loser mindset, but I was still pretty young, so I didn't have that much experience.

On FlyQuest, I don't think I could have done that in any game. And here on LYON, not really either.

Inspired: Yeah, there are definitely some issues with that.

I don't think they actually had a great position during that drake fight. If they had stepped up more to contest it, I think they would have definitely died and lost the game there. They just showed up and instantly ran away. They were just trying to bait us into overextending so they could make a comeback happen, but we didn't fall for it.

The tempo game is definitely something we're working on. The biggest gaps internationally are usually in the support role, even though people don't really think that. Playing support against these Asian teams is really, really hard because if you get bluffed once and lose tempo, you're playing from behind all the time.

You need to be really realistic about how you use your time, your teammates' time, your jungler's efficiency—whatever you want to call it.

So yeah, we're working on that to make sure our support is confident in the game, but also doesn’t just run it down. It's different to be aggressive—sometimes you need to respect the enemy as well.

It's a very tough job to play support against these teams, but I think it's a tough job to play any role against them. They're all really skilled. From my experience, though, support is usually where the biggest gap is. But I think we're working on it really well, and recently the games have felt way more playable than they did in the past.”