Shifters secured a much-needed victory by
taking down Fnatic at the start of Week 3 of the
2026 League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) Versus. With the standings remaining highly contested, the Geneva-based organization still trails the rest of the pack but hopes to build on this momentum and secure a spot in the playoffs. In an exclusive interview, midlaner
Ilias ânucâ Bizriken sat down with
Sheep Esports to discuss the teamâs struggles with synergy, his mental health, and the challenges that lie ahead.
After some difficult matches, you managed to secure a win against Fnatic. Having been frustrated by how some games slipped away, can you walk us through what happened today?
Ilias "nuc" Bizriken: "We had a strong start. The laning phase went well, we gained advantages early, forced some flashes, and overall, things went as planned. The first three dragons were well managed, and we were able to develop our snowball while controlling vision properly.
But starting with the third dragon, I felt something started to go wrong. Honestly, even looking back, itâs not easy to explain. There was a really simple situation: I survive top while Taliyah and Pantheon use their ultimates on me, KâSante uses his teleport, RekâSai pushes bot, and then KâSante gets spotted without his TP. Logically, their top side should collapse at that point.
But it didnât go as expected. We were the ones who died, and in game, I didnât understand what happened. We were in a winning position, yet suddenly, in a sequence, everything flipped: we fell behind, and the game slipped away. I think our ideas were right. The problem was mainly execution.
Have you felt any improvement recently, especially in scrims? Many fans talked about your tweets after last weekâs lossesâhow did you experience the period between last week and now?
nuc: Itâs funny, because I think for international fans, when they translate my tweets, they seem very harsh, while in France, they arenât seen that way at all. I was mainly replying to specific people, those who were talking badly and upset after Los Ratonesâ victory. But since I used formal language (âvousâ), some thought I was addressing everyone, which wasnât the case at all. Those tweets were really like talking on stream, with Hiro (Alexandre El Hodebey) or others. They just donât translate. Once read in another language, it doesnât make much sense. It was stupid. People reacted for no reason.
Regarding the transition from last week to now, honestly, it wasnât an easy week. We faced a lot of difficulties. I think it clearly comes from a negative snowball. For several reasonsâI wonât go into detailâthings started going wrong, frustration began to build.
Then the official matches came, and things happened as they did, which caused a small explosion we had to try to control as best we could, just to⊠survive. We were good, then suddenly, we went from good to bad. What I told myself is that we could just as quickly go from bad to good at the same speed.
Were there disagreements about how certain members played?
nuc: Yeah. We have a lot of ideas, but we put very few into practice. That sums up the situation: everyone has their own vision of the game, and we donât always align, so things often fall apart. I think that contributed to our recent problems and generated frustration. People are less willing to accept situations like that. Itâs a dark period for our team. If we get through it, itâs like couples on the verge of breaking up: if they donât split and find solutions together, everythingâs fine. To be clear though, theyâre not breaking up hereâitâs just a metaphor.
Last year, you had similar issues. Why do these problems keep coming back, even though three members from last year are still here?
nuc: This kind of problem exists in all teams. Some manage to agree, put their egos aside, and work together. We struggle more with that, and it slows us down a lot. But Iâm not worried: when the moment comes, weâll be very strong. It really needs to happen soon though. We need to enjoy playing together, have fun in-game. Today was much better than last week. So we just need to keep doing our best.
nuc: The problems I had werenât about anger or frustration. Iâve spoken about this before, but it was mainly anxiety related to health. It started with arm pain: it really affected my ability to play, I couldnât perform properly. Then there were a lot of internal issues at BDS because we still had to change the team just before the Summer Split. We stayed in Berlin for a long time, testing new players, scrimming, and mentally, I was already exhausted. I just wanted to go home and rest. On top of that came a lot of frustration. It was really an accumulation of everything.
Then, during the break, I had a health issueânot serious objectivelyâbut it triggered something in me. From that moment, for almost five months, I thought every day that I had every possible disease. It was unbearable. When youâre in it, you canât really live normally. I received many messages from people experiencing the same thing, telling me it ruined their lives and that they were looking for solutions. I tried to help as much as I could. But to be clear, this wasnât a problem with anger management or anything else. It was purely health-related anxiety.
nuc: No, honestly, I donât care. I know social media. Iâve already gone 0â55 in LEC, been insulted countless times along with my family tree, so thatâs not going to affect me. These are people I donât know and will never meet, so I couldnât care less. It doesnât impact me.
nuc: In the team, he plays the role of coach for our toplaner. Overall, he also helps with game discussions, but his main role is coaching Rooster (Shin Yun-hwan). He helps him think during games, question his choices, etc. Heâs an excellent positional coach for Rooster, but also a friend. Even with the little time Iâve spent with him, I really like him. He has a great personality, is chill, makes you laugh. Iâm very happy to have him on Shifters.
What can we expect from Shifters in the coming days? You still have two matches against NAVI and KC. Can the win against Fnatic help you build momentum?
nuc: This week of scrims, as I said, didnât go very well, and I donât think we learned as much as we wanted. We did learn some things, but itâs difficult in these moments. Todayâs game shows all our problems. We played the early and mid-game very well and got a good position, but we really missed all the timers and didn't play well in general. Despite that, we still got "the carrot" at the end, with the win.
Itâs always easier to learn on stage because itâs more emotionally intense. If we analyze todayâs game carefully and avoid repeating our mistakes, I think the next few days will go very well. Especially tomorrow against NAVI. As for Monday, KC is still a very strong team, so weâll look into tomorrow first. Every day, after each match, weâll do everything we can to learn and improve."