TheRock on NAVI’s struggles: "We’ve hit our ceiling. We’re drowning"

Sitting in the middle of the pack, are struggling to find their footing in the 2026 LEC Summer Split after falling to and dropping to a 3-4 record. With an upcoming match against , the team could soon find its playoff hopes on the line as the pressure continues to mount.

In an exclusive interview, head coach Vasilis "TheRock" Voltis sat down with Sheep Esports to discuss the team's stagnation, whether there is still hope for the squad, his plans for 2027 and beyond, and the upcoming clash against Fnatic.

Vasilis "TheRock" Voltis: “Yeah, I’m not sure how to feel—it’s kind of weird. Throughout this entire split, we’ve had good approaches and drafts, but it’s been really hard to execute in-game. We just have so many issues executing in specific scenarios and sequences… I don’t know how to feel anymore.

I don’t know if “annoying” is the right word, but yeah, we always end up doing some things wrong, especially in fights. Again and again and again… it’s been this repetition for about two splits now. It definitely doesn’t feel good—I hate losing. I’m not sure if we’ve necessarily hit our ceiling, but it feels so hard to get better right now.

TheRock: Realistically, not that much. I don’t see the clicks, you know? We kept the same roster in summer for a reason. Even though we explored the market, we believed that keeping the same lineup could lead to them clicking together better. It was sort of a gamble. You either make a change and hope for a new honeymoon period or keep things as they are and hope it clicks.

Keeping the same roster can lead to people feeling more comfortable and honest with one another, but our gamble did not work out. It’s clear that this split, it’s not happening. I would say we’ve hit our ceiling, honestly. I don’t see [this roster] going much further at this point unless, you know, something magical happens, but I don’t believe in magic [chuckles]. I believe in hard work and effort.

TheRock: For now, I’m focusing on making playoffs first. We have two really important matches ahead of us. At this point, we probably have a near-zero chance of finishing in the top four ahead of playoffs, but I don’t really care because, in the end, if you want to win, you have to beat any opponent. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the upper or lower bracket if you have the mindset to win everything.

The more pressing matter in my eyes is that I don’t see us improving at all. We’ve tried many different things to get better, but it’s just not clicking. I’m repeating myself a bit there, but it’s the best way I have to describe how I feel. In the end, though, I was sort of expecting this to happen sooner or later. We’ve built this roster with about three and a half players coming from ERLs, right? Depending on how you see Poby and Parus, I suppose.

I went into the year without setting expectations for the lineup. I wanted us to just give it our all every single split, and I think we’ve shown potential this way. But maybe we actually hit our ceiling really fast as well. In the LEC, you either swim or you drown. We swam for about two splits, but this summer, we’re drowning.

TheRock: Yeah, for sure. He is the tool I want to build around. He’s probably the player I’ve worked the most with this year. I’m happy with his improvement, even if sometimes he’s picking some concepts up a bit slower than I’d expect from him. Maybe it’s not great for me to be doing this, but I compare him a lot to Yukino in my head, since I was coaching him last year and he was a complete rookie too.

For Rhilech, sometimes he picks some concepts up a bit slower, but he does it in a more accurate and efficient way. After one or two months, he will be much more precise in putting the things he learns into practice.

He hasn’t hit his ceiling yet—that I can tell you for sure. He has a lot of room to improve. I think that with more experienced players around him, he could be even better. It’s different learning from a coach like me than it is to listen to a veteran’s perspective. This year, we’re doing the first part; maybe in the future we’ll have that second side as well. If we combine both, he will be much better as a result.

TheRock: My perspective is really influenced by my background—I come from basketball. I suppose I can see their perspective; sometimes scrims are kind of useless, but I think it’s because of how people play scrims. I know some teams play scrims muted or sometimes completely stop scrimming, and I’m not saying it’s necessarily wrong. If your practice is made up of only fiestas and you can’t find ways to go into them with full focus and knowing what you’re working on, then it won’t work well, right?

I remember when I was in KCB, I would sometimes watch the main team’s scrims, and I could see LPL teams forfeiting at like 10 minutes, going like, “Oh, this is a useless game,” and then doing it over and over and over. Maybe it’s more efficient in a way, right?

Personally, I can’t imagine a world where my team doesn’t take scrims seriously. Scrims need to make sense. There should be no random deaths, no random fights. You need to come in with a clear idea of what you’re looking to improve while understanding the theory behind it as well. It can create some automatism in-game as well, right? We have three grubs? We dive top. Things like that.

I want to believe in a world where everyone will play scrims normally and fully try hard. So far, though, I haven’t seen that in my career. There have been some periods in KCB and in NAVI where, like, for maybe one or two months, we’ve had a great track record, but it’s inconsistent.

This is something I want to focus on next year as well. I would like to create a different atmosphere and rules for scrimming. I’m still brainstorming it, but I need to find a way so that scrims are consistently normal and productive—at least three out of five games.

TheRock: I’ve talked about it on Twitter a bit. I was commenting about how I think we should use the practice tool more efficiently. We need to find ways to make it useful. I’ve been brainstorming about drills, besides, like, blitz games of 15 minutes. The best thing would be to have a scrim partner that has the same ideas as I do regarding practice.

It could be focusing on team fighting, early game, or other things. I’m looking more to train some macro stuff, maybe mid-game trigger points as well. But yeah, I think the practice tool could be used in many ways to make training more efficient, and maybe especially with some changes and help from Riot.

Maybe, I don't know, I will give my players cookies after every scrim if they play well, you know [laughs]. Maybe I could create a whole point system. So they get points and then they get rewards so they can try harder in scrims, right?

TheRock: Yeah! This is exactly what I'm doing. Maybe I will—I need to give them more dopamine, honestly.

TheRock: Uh… [laughs]… It’s gonna be a close one, I believe. I just want us to play as good as we can, you know. At this point, I just want us to play as well as we can, and I think if we do that, we will win.”