Team Liquid stumbled on Saturday, January 24, when they lost 0-2 in their
LCS Lock-In debut series against
Cloud9. The six-time regional champions had a promising start during Game 1 before Cloud9 made a comeback, and a lackluster Game 2.
After dropping to the 0-1 pool on the Swiss Stage, Head Coach Jake “Spawn” Tiberi spoke with Sheep Esports about a complicated week of preparation, missing Park "Morgan" Ru-han's light-hearted nature, and marrying two different playing styles.
Samuel "Spookz" Broadley told us about coaching responsibilities in Team Liquid, but we'd like to hear from you too. How are coaching responsibilities delegated?
Jake "Spawn" Tiberi: "We need some consistency in our drafts and reviews. These tasks are best done in person, so that is Spookz’s responsibility. My focus is on setting the culture, delivering feedback, highlighting key aspects of the game, providing adequate in-game training, and encouraging players to stay active. I am culture and performance, while Spookz is in-game and strategic coaching. In the past, we had a lot more cloudy communication between the coaches. Reignover (Kim Yeu-jin) was the strategic coach, but I would still draft from time to time. We have separated these roles more clearly.
This was an action-packed week for Team Liquid. The end of the North America Tag Team and lingering visa issues. How was your preparation with substitutes and the arrival of Morgan?
Spawn: This week was a complete mess. Morgan arrived around 30 hours ago. Although we had only one day of scrims with him, it’s fine since we already knew how he would play from our boot camp in Korea. We had been using three different subs: Zamudo (
Frankie Lin),
Horder (Chris Feng), and Philip (Philip Zeng). They were all doing a great job during scrims. This year will be long, so we will try some things and get on the same page. We showcased our work during Game 1. We were overaggressive, but I'd rather be overaggressive than underaggressive. In Game 2, we threw at first
crab, so it’s complicated to demonstrate what we’ve been working on. Having a hard week is not an excuse for how we played. We were still confident coming in, but we got outperformed by C9.
You've been apprehensive about setting goals for Split 1. What is your mindset for Split 1 only?
Spawn: My mindset is simple: we’re on a different pace this year, and we need to improve at playing a dynamic brand of
League of Legends. Spookz likes to say, ‘We’ve all just came out of the womb’. We need to build a foundation and learn to play together. We tried flipping a switch to become a forthcoming team
after the KeSPA Cup. If we end up winning the split, it’s a huge bonus. We are focused on becoming a top team, but I just don’t think we’re a team that will smash everyone, as you saw. We need to learn to play together. My goal for the next two to three weeks is to demonstrate that we can play a skirmish-focused style, allowing Yeon (
Sean Sung) and Quid (
Lim Hyeon-seung) to play the way they want.
You’ve mentioned Spookz and Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in were learning to be on the same page. Will Team Liquid mesh after this dynamic is figured out?
Spawn: Absolutely. Spookz has learned the game from the lens of a shotcaller like River (Kim Dong-woo). I have talked and learned the game from CoreJJ’s lens. Ever since my days at TL Academy, where I called Yeon up, I knew how that iteration of TL wanted to play. We’re trying to marry Spookz’s jungle-focused style with our bottom-centric style to create a joint vision. I can’t be close-minded and tell Spookz, “Core is right. Let’s play the way Core wants”, because we lost to 100 Thieves last year. I also walk over our style and tell Core, “We lost to 100 Thieves, so Spookz is right”. There needs to be a compromise in these relationships. There have been positive signs. Josedeodo (Brandon Villegas) during game one showed how explosive we can be in the jungle. We assign resources to Yeon and Quid, but we need to integrate them. We need to put in the work to tick all these boxes.
How have the different backgrounds of your new players adjusted to Team Liquid’s vision?
Spawn: Morgan loves the freedom and creative liberty provided by the difference in how North American teams play the game. In the LCK, mistakes are punished, whereas in the LCS, not making plays is punished. He is enjoying the challenge of turning his brain off more frequently. Meanwhile, Josedeodo fits like a glove. Personality-wise, I think they love being in America. The city is beautiful, they’re looked after by TL, and they’re kind of the fun of the team. Having a great guy like Morgan around the team was something crucial we missed these two weeks. He is really a great guy to be around.
Does it matter to you who you face next week?
Spawn: It doesn’t matter as we’re focused on us. Even facing Cloud9, we were focused on how we needed to play the game. We just played the best team in the league, and whoever we face after today is going to be slightly worse than them. We need to stay motivated with our sight on our goals, and a better Team Liquid will show up next week."
