Only a miracle could save
Team BDS now that it stands at a final score of 3-6 after a loss against GIANTX in the
League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC), with the team's only playoff hope resting on a huge tiebreaker scenario to narrowly secure a spot. Sitting down with Sheep Esports, the team's head coach,
Yanis "Striker" Kella, speaks on the team's issues, his feelings after their potential elimination, and discusses the roadmap toward improvement for the Summer Season.
This was potentially BDS's last match of the LEC Spring Season, and with a 0-2 loss to GIANTX, your playoff hopes now rely on a tiebreaker scenario. What do you think went wrong today—and in the split overall?
Yanis "Striker" Kella: "I don’t know. We haven’t been in a great spot these last few weeks, but today we played exceptionally badly. We usually make a lot of different kinds of mistakes, but today it was a whole new kind of mistake that we don’t usually make. We had a better showing against Fnatic yesterday than we did against GX today. I’m not sure if what was at stake got into our heads or not, but we just weren’t there today.
Ilias "nuc" Bizriken and Joel "Irrelevant" Scharoll have both mentioned how inconsistent the team has felt lately. What do you think causes this inconsistency? And as a coach, what do you think needs to change to avoid this happening again, possibly in Summer if you're knocked out now?
Striker: It's a matter of consistency—that's what we lack, right? We’re not consistent in the early to mid-game. And then in the late game, we also have some issues. We had a lot of positions this year when we should’ve closed out the game, and we just didn’t manage to. But well, if we knew exactly why we were struggling, we would’ve fixed it already, right? From our perspective, it was just a lack of pure mastery and skill. Obviously, the less skilled you are, the more variance there is in your gameplay and your showing. That’s why we tried to work extra hard. We put in an insane amount of hours over the last three weeks—and unfortunately, it was not enough.
Credit: Michal Konkol/Riot Games
You mentioned skill being a large issue. Do you think it’s mostly about individual execution not showing up this split, or are there also team dynamic problems? For example, Irrelevant was considered one of the best toplaners last year on SK, but even he admitted he hasn't played at his best. Is it that players aren't performing like before, or are they not meshing well together?
Striker: It's a good question. As you said, when you look at some of the names on our roster, you’d expect more on an individual level. I mean, it could be an issue within our team. It could also be that the league got better individually. I think that’s always the case split to split—so if you don’t improve, then in comparison, you're going to look worse, even if you’re exactly the same player, right?
In toplane, there has been some new players who joined the league this year, and they’ve been quite good. I'm thinking about Naak Nako (Kaan Okan), he's a really good laner. Lot (Eren Yıldız) is not bad at all as well. Those kinds of players just weren’t there before, so maybe that’s part of it. And maybe it’s a mix of both reasons we mentioned. I don’t think it’s only individual, though. Today we played really badly individually, of course, but there were also just pure issues in how we played as a team during the split.
In the offseason, you were vocal about building the 2025 BDS roster with Irrelevant, 113, and Parus—players you chose to help break past the ceiling from last year and reach the results you wanted. Does it feel frustrating now, sitting in this position and possibly missing playoffs, especially since this was your project?
Striker: Yeah, I feel responsible. I feel guilty. I had BDS' trust given to me, and I didn't deliver. It’s for sure frustrating, to answer your question.
Would you have made the same roster choices if you had known the issues that would come up in Winter and Spring? Or do you have no regrets about the decisions you made this year?
Striker: No, I cannot regret anything. You just have to learn from what you do. If you can see the future, of course you're only going to succeed—but that’s not how it works. Competing comes with ups and downs, and for me right now, it’s a down. The only thing I can do is reflect, learn, and improve.
Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games
What do you think needs to happen for BDS to show a better performance in Summer?
Striker: It’ll be about looking back at the split and understanding what we missed—what wasn’t there that stopped us from performing. It’s about being objective. From there, we’ll need to create a roadmap to become a better team for Summer. That’s what it’ll take. As always, you have to think about what you did—what to keep and what to remove. I do believe there are things we need to keep. Some of our games would’ve been way worse if we hadn’t done certain things this split. So those things need to be kept at all costs. We shouldn’t throw everything away just because of the end result. And after figuring out what worked, we’ll need to look at what didn’t—and see how we can replace those parts with new ideas to become a better team for Summer.
Are there any specific positives or negatives you can share?
Striker: I think our approach in most series was solid. We’re also dealing with some limitations right now, because when you’re not performing, you can’t afford to draft the way a top team would. It’s easier to adapt when you’re performing well. We did a decent job of understanding what we could and couldn’t afford. Everyone put in the hours—that’s something we need to maintain. It doesn’t always show, but we’ve put in more hours this split than in any other split, more than any other team I’ve coached. So that part needs to stay for sure. We just need to be more efficient, because even with all that work, it clearly wasn’t enough.
Is there anything you'd like to add to close off the interview?
Striker: I’d like to thank the people who kept supporting us—the ones who sent messages to the staff or the players. I wish we had a better showing in the Spring Split. We’ll sit down together and figure out what we need to do for Summer to be a better team. This result is clearly not up to our expectations. What we have today is underwhelming, to say the least. We’ll do what we need to do to make sure we can aim for our goals and get closer to them, because right now, that’s not what we’ve done."
Header Photo Credit: Michal Konkol/Riot Games
