DSG Sajed: "It is a huge win to show North America's Tier 2 has talent"

The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Lock-In Swiss Stage has been a breath of fresh air for the North American community. The results Disguised have shown during the three weeks of competition have exceeded most expectations set before the start of the season. Defeating a wounded LYON helped the Bakers qualify for the playoffs with a 2-1 record.

Following the upset victory against the Pride, botlaner Sajed “Sajed” Ziade talked with Sheep Esports. He commented on how many jokesters his team has, what Christian “KryRa” Rahaian taught Oh “Callme” Ji-hoon, practice towards his laning phase, and his time being in contract jail.

Sajed “Sajed” Ziade: “It’s for a friend. Her name is similar to Renata.

Sajed: “Mundo king! Mundo king!”

Sajed: We go along with it. He shows his op.gg to our midlaner, and he goes, “Naafiri King! Jayce King!” During today’s game, our midlaner said, “I’m Jayce king now!” It’s a joke between these two.

Sajed: It’s just winter split, which can happen as these are B03s. Both teams were definitely nervous, which is noticeable in our gameplay. This split is so fast that anyone can beat anyone. It is a huge win to show NA tier 2 has talent. KryRa and I are beating world-class players in the jungle and botlane. It’s just early season and winter split, so we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves.

Sajed: Those two [Kim “Berserker“ Min-cheol and Kacper “Inspired“ Słoma] are great players. The level of LCS is subpar at the moment. The gap should be bigger, but I’m not feeling much from the other teams. Still, with the amount of pressure Berserker applies in lane, I can tell he is a skillful player. I think Inspired had an off series. I can’t really comment much as it’s my first time playing against him. I think the opponents played below their usual standard.

Sajed: It’s the first ever organization I signed with, and I got contract-jailed for six months.

Sajed: It’s just the amateur scene. The contracts mean very little, but it was my very first team. I was 16 or 17, and the organization signed two players claiming they were Challenger. I wanted out of the team when I first played with them and found out they were Diamond. The team told me, “You can’t leave. This contract states you have to play for us.” It was a cringe scenario.

Sajed: I didn’t recommend him. When I flew in, chrisyong (Chris Yong), our manager, told us KryRa was likely not making it our debut, so we would be getting a sub. When I asked who it was, I was told it was Kisno, which I thought was cool. I didn’t have anything to do with it. I believe the other people considered couldn’t make it. Kisno is someone I enjoy playing with and who I lived with for a couple of months. He is a laid-back guy. About my time as a jungler, it is my second role in soloqueue. What happened was when I was contract-jailed, I got four of my friends and I jungled. It was mainly for fun, nothing serious.

Sajed: I’m happy we’re able to practice as a complete roster in the same house. Scrims were a little awkward when KryRa played from home. I don’t really care about the results from this split and the next one. Our focus is just trying to improve as much as possible for the Summer Split. Win or lose, as long as we’re improving, that’s what matters. Even if we’re winning and we feel we’re stagnant, I wouldn’t be happy with that. I have been working on a lot of things. Maybe a bit slowly. That’s where my focus lies. I am confident we will be in a great spot as the Summer Split rolls around.

Sajed: I have a notepad with twelve different things from my laning phase I need to work on. I work on something specific each week at my own pace.

Sajed: It’s something I do myself. I work with a retired coach who coached Kyle Danny (Kyle Sakamaki) and Vulcan (Philippe Laflamme) on Evil Geniuses, Dracxyr (Richard Yuan). He is helping me get my fundamentals on the LCS level.

Sajed: I’ll be honest, I don’t consider myself a hard worker. My whole life, I have tried to take the smart way instead of the hard way. I am a little bit of a slacker. Then I started becoming obsessed with League of Legends, so this doesn’t feel like I’m working hard, but doing something I enjoy. My mentality makes me obsessed with improving, so I don’t think of this [playing in the LCS] only as a job.

Sajed: Everyone on the team has a good personality. We joke around a lot. You mustn’t think about them only as your coworkers. You have to build a relationship outside the game because it enables us to speak about the game. My support and I have a good relationship outside the game, so we can talk about anything without feeling like we’re at odds with each other. Super teams fall apart because they don’t build relationships. They let problems build deep inside, don’t speak their minds, and treat each other as coworkers.

Sajed: He is a nice and kind guy. I feel I can openly express myself and he won’t get upset, and I can take whatever he says. I don’t think I have ever heard him say anything bad about anyone. Whenever he mentions a former teammate, it’s always praise. He always sees the positive side of people. I’ll barely hear him be annoyed or upset. He is exceptionally patient when working with rookies. We are building our synergy nicely and steadily.

Sajed: I don’t care about that award. My goal is to compete against Eastern bot laners. I don’t care about any individual awards, because I want to become as good as I can. He might have to look at his team, who he is competing against. If a player from FlyQuest wins the award, I don’t know if he is the frontrunner.”