As
Worlds 2025 looms on the horizon, so does the off-season ahead of the 2026
League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC). Among the many teams rebuilding their operations is
SK Gaming, which opted to go back to the drawing board and
explore options in all roles after being eliminated first this summer. In an exclusive interview, the team’s AD Carry,
Tim "Keduii" Willers, sits down with
Sheep Esports to discuss the off-season, what happened at SK, and the state of the ERLs.
How has the off-season been for you so far?
Tim "Keduii" Willers: "Getting eliminated from the LEC in August obviously hurt. We didn’t get to play a lot of games in Summer. Still, I came to terms with the results rather quickly, so it’s not like it’s been lingering through the off-season.
I decided to make the trip to the LEC Finals in Madrid anyway and took a small break from League of Legends overall. The off-season slowly started as I was still gone, but it’s still pretty early, so there isn’t really anything set in stone. I’m assuming a lot of decisions will be made in the next few days or weeks. Right now, I’m just keeping in touch with my agent and talking with some teams. SK told me about some of their plans and gave me the option to explore my own. We’ll see what happens. Personally, I wouldn’t mind staying in SK Gaming, but I don’t know exactly what they are planning or if they’ve locked anyone yet.
My number one goal for 2026 is to remain in the LEC. I have the level for it, even if this year wasn’t the most successful for me. I really liked my time there. I went in fully expecting it to be hard, but I stayed positive throughout, and in the end, I can’t control everything, right? I knew what I was getting myself into when I joined SK before Spring. I knew we’d most likely end up in a scenario like this one, even if I didn’t expect it to be that bad. I still really loved my time there, and playing or scrimming in the LEC was a really valuable experience. I can only imagine how much more fun it must be to be in a winning team, where it’s easier for you and your teammates to stay happy. This split was really hard mentally on all of us. I really hope I get to experience what it’s like to be in a top team—qualifying for Worlds, having a competitive environment...
Do you think your year in the LEC helped you grow compared to your time in the ERLs, especially considering SK’s limited resources?
Keduii: For sure. Even if I had expected it to be this way, I was still surprised by how competitive the LEC is. Regarding our coach, OWN3R (David Rodriguez de la Torre), working with him felt super different from how I was being coached in the ERLs. I feel like he brought me a lot more than what I was given in the past. Everyone tries way harder here, putting their lives into the game. I didn’t feel that in the ERLs. I’m not saying that my past teammates and staff weren’t taking it seriously, but rather that the LEC is one step above in terms of professionalism. People in the regional leagues aren’t as invested or connected to League of Legends as in the LEC, where it’s the players’ livelihoods.
Many people have a low opinion of SK Gaming. What was your experience like working with the organization, and do you think their public image matches how they actually operate?
Keduii: Speaking from my perspective and the information I had, it’s clear that the team had no budget at all this year. None of us had great salaries, and we didn’t have the budget to hire an assistant coach, which was really bad. OWN3R is really good, but it was hard for him to handle the whole team by himself. Without making excuses, in my opinion, the results of the 2025 season were partly due to having little to no budget. We just couldn’t match other teams that had five or so coaches in terms of structure.
Looking beyond that, I had a really good living experience with SK. The office was great, and so were the apartments—both were within walking distance. The only issue I had with SK was having only one head coach for the entire team. I know that SK’s budget was way higher in past years, and they didn’t really achieve much with it either. I don’t really know what was holding them back.
One thing I often hear about is how SK is behind in terms of fan base compared to other LEC teams. There are a lot of reasons for that. Some of the blame can be put on the organization—they should be in a spot where they can have more interactions with fans in general. At the same time, it’s also about the German scene. There aren’t many influencers, and it simply isn’t as big as the French or Spanish fanbases. Lack of competitive success also doesn’t help.
Overall though, I think people have some wrong perceptions about SK. There’s definitely some criticism that’s fair, but it’s not like SK isn’t aware of those issues or trying to fix them.
Given everything you mentioned, did you feel the 2025 SK project was doomed from the start? There were rumors of internal conflicts and limited resources to fix those issues—was it really unsalvageable?
Keduii: It certainly wasn’t an easy situation to deal with, but honestly, it was handled really badly. As an outsider, it’s easier to point out mistakes and make the right calls with hindsight, but still, I agree. I think SK’s expectations for the original Winter roster were very different from the end results. They tried to do small fixes little by little, but I don’t believe that was the solution.
In that situation, you need to work on fixing the root of the issues instead of the players causing them. You need to make them play and act the way you need them to, not bench and replace them. If you keep changing players every split, you’ll always have to rebuild the team’s foundation each time—get used to each other, understand how each new member works, figure out your strengths as a team. This always sets you back compared to teams that make no changes.
I don’t want to flame SK too much because, as I said, it’s much easier to criticize decisions now that the year is over. It’s hard to judge if you’re not at the core of the project and know everything going on inside the team.
Would SK need to change their approach and invest more in their League of Legends division for you to want to continue with them?
Keduii: I’d definitely prefer if they did, but I would not turn them down to pick an ERL team over them, for example. You can achieve a lot even with a very low budget. When I joined, it was scuffed from the start. The dynamics were already really wrong. What they are doing by going with a complete reboot is probably a smart thing.
At the same time, I believe they should aim more for the long term. If I end up staying there, I hope they’ll listen to my feedback as well. As I said, I just really want to stay in the LEC. I don’t really mind if it’s under SK or another team, but that is my priority. Whoever I commit to, I will obviously try my best to help them in any way I can.
If I don’t get a chance in the LEC in 2026, I’m also fine adapting and playing in the ERLs again. I’m good enough to make any ERL team into a contender that can win EMEA Masters. With the format changes, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad, and I could earn myself a chance to play in the LEC in 2027 then. At least that way, you don’t need to be dependent on the decisions of team managers.
Are there any players you’d like to play with next year?
Keduii: Honestly, it’ll always be my 2024 BDSA teammates. They were a really special group, from players to coaches to staff. The environment in that team was really, really insane. Otherwise, I don’t have any specific names. I usually like getting to meet new teammates. Getting to know people, experiencing their way of thinking—it’s all very fun. If you play with the same people for too long, you stop learning new things at some point. Overall though, I’m fine playing with anyone.
How did you feel about the rumors of the upcoming LEC format changes? Do you see them as positive for European League of Legends?
Keduii: As many have said before, franchising makes the LEC too much about business and less about competitive merit. Unless you are already set in the LEC or have contacts, it’s really hard to get into the league. You simply cannot control if managers will want to pick you up, even if you win everything in tier 2. I thought for a time that if you won enough, you would be almost guaranteed a shot, but then I had to give up on that way of thinking after I couldn’t get a spot despite winning everything with the 2024 BDS Academy line-up. I realized how much luck goes into being given a chance. You need to get people to believe in you somehow.
Going back to the format changes, anything that pushes us toward a more open system where you can actually grind through and earn a spot is a good thing. I just don’t understand how they plan to make it work with the off-season and the way contracts work right now, which run out after the Summer Season ends.
I would have loved to play in the LEC with the full BDS Academy line-up. We were a really, really strong team. We got to scrim G2 a lot at that time, and we had really decent results. It’s probably one of the reasons why some of our players were so interesting to other teams in the end. Our 2024 line-up would have done really well in the LEC. I wouldn’t say we’d have been a top-three team or anything, but I’m sure we would have been better than many of the 2025 LEC teams—maybe even half of them. We were so used to each other. Obviously, I don’t blame SkewMond (Rudy Semaan) for taking G2’s offer, though—anyone who gets a chance like that should take it.
Do you think any current ERL teams could be stronger than some of this split’s LEC teams?
Keduii: Teams have different peaks, and since the ERLs and LEC don’t have the same scheduling, it’s not the easiest to say. Right now, anyone would obviously win against SK, as we completely stopped scrimming after being eliminated. Let’s say two months ago, though—I’m not sure many teams would have beaten us. Maybe two or three ERL teams could have done so. They’d have at least been on the same level as us. I don’t really have names in mind, and well, we were mostly scrimming LEC teams, so I don’t have too much information—I’m mostly guessing.
It’s really hard to judge teams before they play at the EMEA Masters as well. The ERLs have vastly different levels of play. Perhaps the number one team of the LFL could have been stronger than us or NAVI. Being in a losing team also generally means having worse environments and mental state, as well as synergy, which creates a death spiral. Whereas top ERL teams, even if they aren’t as good, have better work atmospheres as they are used to winning. Momentum is a big thing which many don’t understand. When you are a bad LEC team, you still get to scrim people in your league, but you’ll lose a lot of games. We had about a 30–40% win rate in scrims at best. You can lose a lot of confidence from that, and then, if you end up facing an ERL team, you’ll go into the match with no confidence, while they will have plenty and can even come in cocky.
Having spent most of your career in ERLs, how do you view the current state of the ecosystem, especially after LVP gave up the Superliga?
Keduii: One huge issue in my eyes is how different every league is format-wise. It’s really hard to follow as a viewer. Interest in the leagues was spiking before Ibai (Ibai Llanos Garatea) and Kameto (Kamel Kebir) got their respective LEC spots. People will always prefer watching the LEC over ERLs, simply because it’s the top league in the region. I’m not sure what needs to change to fix the current issues of the system. Perhaps the last few years were a bubble due to influencers participating, and it just popped; maybe we are now seeing what real interest in ERLs is like.
The leagues as they are currently are not fine. Riot is trying to address this through the upcoming LEC changes, but at the same time, I don’t believe Riot has done the best job at helping the leagues. We’re getting promises that Riot wants to put more resources into ERLs, which sounds nice, but I’m not sure how much we can rely on this, considering they haven’t helped ERLs in a long time. It was mainly the leagues and teams themselves trying to plug holes in the system to keep it from sinking. Hopefully, with Riot’s help, the leagues will get better again, but there will always be a need for influencers to join them to keep things interesting for viewers.
Should the ERLs focus more on creating an entertaining product for viewers or on developing talent for the LEC?
Keduii: Well, you can’t simply drop the viewership entirely, because otherwise, why would teams invest and pay us to play? We need sustainability for players to do this full time and make a living. Right now, that’s already not really the case in ERLs. It’s a huge issue, which also leads to fewer new players coming in. If you can’t earn money from playing, then why would you try to become an esports player and go through years of play for a small chance at making it to the LEC?
Right now, some people can still make a living from ERLs, and I hope salaries won’t go any lower than they already are. You have to find ways to bring new players to the LEC and make a more straightforward path for good players to get a shot. The best-case scenario would be the return of relegations, but that doesn’t work with franchising."
Header Photo Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games
