SR Fudge: "If we clean our teamfighting, we can beat the other teams in the bottom half [of the league] for sure"

As the end of the 2026 League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Spring Split regular season draws near, the bottom half of the standings is on fire. Eager to find their second win of the season, faced in a match that could force a three-way tie at 1-4 for fifth place, with the eighth-place team creeping close behind.

It was not meant to be for the Rebels. Though they pushed FlyQuest to the three-game limit, the final result spelled a 1-2 defeat. Following his game against FlyQuest, Shopify Rebellion’s toplaner, Ibrahim “" Allami, sat down with Sheep Esports to discuss ’s creativity in planning the early game, the result of facing the other toplaner named Ibrahim, , his current LCS toplane tier list, and how his ideal gameplay looks.

Ibrahim “Fudge" Allami: “Anivia top has been meta for the past couple of weeks. A lot of people have been playing it, including me. I wasn’t expecting Gakgos to blind it because it’s more of a counterpick, so I haven’t practiced much against blind pick Anivia top. I didn’t really know what I should play, but Gragas sounded pretty good to me, though I haven’t played the match-up before. I thought the champion was good in the game. Anivia top can be a lane bully during the early game because of her strong trading power. She usually struggles to side lane, and it’s more of a teamfighting champ thanks to the utility provided by the Wall during fights. I was really surprised to see him blind pick it, but I think it’s safe to do so. Anivia has a lot of wave clear when she reaches level 6, excels when being weak side, you have the egg in case the enemy tries to dive you, you can wall off the minions so the wave is on your side to keep yours safe, and its general trading in the early game is really strong. Anivia top is not bad, but I think that game should be pretty good for us in terms of draft. My champion was strong in that game, and we were in a good spot thanks to Ezreal being ahead. It was unfortunate, I think I played scared in teamfights, and didn’t look for enough angles to get on FlyQuest’s carries. I think it was the third dragon when I misplayed, and missed my ultimate when I was looking for Bard. Anivia top was good, and I think it’s a good pick, but I think it was a let-down for me in my teamfights’ mechanics.

Fudge: I think the new Arcane Comet is not bad in Gragas because the damage is higher, which allows you to poke better around the level 7 timing when Q has a couple of points. I don’t think Phase Rush is a great rune against Anivia specifically because you don’t want to E forward that much. Anivia can kite you, so she won’t give you any good angles to go in, so you want to poke with Q and then use R to throw her into you. I don’t think the matchup would have shifted too much, and I don’t know if I would have taken Phase Rush with Gragas this game. It’s an option, but AP Gragas against melee champions is a little bit worse because you can’t go Phase Rush. I think Comet is really good on Gragas against some of the range match-ups you play it into. I haven’t really played this match-up, so I don’t know if there’s a different way I could have played it to have a better spot. I did get behind like ten cs, but I think Gragas is a good change because of the change on his W’s damage reduction. I think the champion got a pretty noticeable buff in late-game teamfights because you’re pretty tanky even if you go the AP build. I like Gragas as a champion.

Fudge: That’s crazy, I did not know that. I did know Gakgos usually lost on tank champions. I do remember that stat. I don’t think he is bad at tanks, but maybe his teams need him to play a side lane type of champion. I think Gakgos is pretty good, but I don’t think our laning phases were super important during today’s series. The second game that we won, I got quite behind on the K’Sante versus Rumble match-up after we took some 3v3s, lost, and then lost another 2v2 on the toplane. After that early game, it was pretty rough, but the general laning phases were whatever. In the Gragas versus Anivia game, I was focused on farming, and then we went to the teamfight stage. In the K’Sante versus Rumble game, we took some fights that maybe we should… we can’t because we don’t have the damage to kill through Shen’s ultimate. The third game I was playing Sion versus Jayce, where I was losing the early game. As the game progresses, I’m able to tank his damage, and I play for teamfights. It didn’t feel like we were playing skill matchups in the toplane today. The match-ups were slightly even because we played teamfight champions, but I do feel that Gakgos is generally a good player in the laning phase. I don’t think he has many bad champions that he plays. He plays all the champions in the toplane, and he plays them relatively well. He is just an all-around player. There’s no clear weakness, and there’s no clear, “he is really good at this style,” in my head. I feel he is an overall solid player. It’s interesting because I think that last time, when he first joined, he was definitely a little bit worse. He has improved quite a bit, so props to him for sure.

Fudge: For me, honestly, looking at it from a pure gameplay perspective, I am in B Tier. I think I’m not good individually. My laning phase has gotten slightly better, specifically the early laning phase when compared to the start of the split. I don’t think it’s very noticeable, at least on stage; it’s been quite bad. I would put myself in B Tier based on my stage performance right now. I think that maybe Kyeong (Kyeong Gyu-tae) would be in B Tier as well, probably. I would put Park (Park Ru-han), (Park Seung-gyu), and maybe in S Tier, in terms of overall gameplay. I do think that after playing against all three, Morgan is the best of them in terms of pure laning. It also depends on what champion he is playing because he is a bit better on the Renekton and Gnar-type champions. Maybe more so Renekton, and he plays Sion well, too. These three would be my S Tier. The rest I would put in A Tier. I would say Photon and I are the bottom two toplaners currently in terms of stage performance. I wouldn’t say Photon is bad either, I think the rest are kind of… maybe (Niship Doshi) as well in B Tier too. I think everyone is okay. I don’t think there’s a clear bad toplaner or a clear bad player on the role, and that’s why the competition on the role is pretty high. Especially that there are what? Five Koreans? You’re playing against good toplaners. You can’t mess up because everyone is at least good. It’s fun, but it’s also hard, and that is how I like it. It’s going to be interesting to see how the Castle’s move to LYON goes, if that does happen. I don’t know if it’s going to happen. (Jett Joye) might be coming back and seeing how he plays. That will be fun.

Fudge: That’s true! We’re going to be Australian buddies.

Fudge: This is a hard question. As you said, I tend to be hard on myself, especially when I feel like I didn’t play well mechanically. Whether that’s the laning phase or in teamfights, I don’t know what ideal looks like in general. I would say that the ideal depends on each game, but for me, my team fighting has been subpar. Lane phase was okay this week, but in previous weeks, it’s been pretty bad, and I think most of my focus has been on the laning phase. For me, making sure I have a wide champion pool and I understand the matchups so I can play them to a good level is key. For example, if I’m playing Gragas into Anivia and I go down five to ten cs early game, I can slowly catch up because my champion is slightly better in the side lane. Or in Sion versus Jayce, I go down ten cs, and then I get good trades at level 7 once I have boots. These kinds of things, I need to play well mechanically for, and that’s my ideal. In teamfights, especially in Game 1, I was very indecisive. One thing my coach told me after Game 1 that was helpful for Game 2 is to play teamfights like it’s solo queue. I should play my mechanics like it’s solo queue because I was playing too much with my team instead of looking for the mechanical angle. I hesitated, but the advice helped me a lot in Game 2. Even though I got behind, I played pretty well in fights. For me, mechanics on my certain champions is what I need to improve, and teamfight angles. I need to improve my awareness when certain teamfights are in a good position, and where to go. If that improves, I would be pretty happy. Honestly, I don’t know if I would ever be satisfied with my performance because there’s always something I can do better. I’m still pushing to improve because I hate losing. I need to win before I’m okay.

Fudge: I think in terms of game performance, there’s not much that separates [us]. I do think that our early games are really good. Most early games, we do well, especially on stage. If you watch some of our losses, we play well in the early game. We have good early game planning, and that can become a lead if we play well in fights. Our jungler is really good at making early game plans. Contractz plays the early game well and knows how to create advantages. If we can acquire a lead and clean up our team fights and mid-game, I think we can beat the other teams in the lower half of the league. I don’t think the other junglers are taking the risks and are as proactive as Contractz. He likes to do a lot of stuff that, I wouldn’t say it’s cheese, but it’s somewhat aggressive. I think it usually works on stage because many people aren’t thinking of as many variables as he is. I think that’s our big advantage, our early games are good because our jungle pathing is pretty good. We need to clean our teamfighting. If we clean our teamfighting, we can beat the other teams in the bottom half [of the league] for sure.”