KCB Hazel: "I personally felt a bit burned out"

have already gone through several competitions after just a few months into the year. Invited to LEC Versus, the team then dropped back to ERL to play the EMEA Masters and finally start its season in LFL. Despite a rather shaky start, the team regrouped to finish their regular season with six victories.

Before facing in their first playoff match this Wednesday, the team's AD Carry, , reflected with Sheep Esports on the first months of this already busy season.

Costin "Hazel" Pestrițu: “I would say confident, to be honest. I don't want to leak anything because my team would hate me, but we had a very good day of scrims today. The results are not something you would expect from an ERL team, let's just say that. We are pretty confident.

Hazel: We kind of knew what the level was going into LFL because we played EMEA. I think it was just a matter of playing too much. I myself personally felt a bit burned out. I was not really happy going into the official, but after losing the official, which, to be honest, we didn't think was the biggest challenge, we got the kind of reality check. And because of that, we managed to bounce back pretty quickly. But I think it was important to have a loss at the start rather than later. That's for sure.

Hazel: One thing that kinda showed in both series was my inconsistency because before the BIG games, like against Barça and the DMG series, I think I did pretty okay. But as soon as we played against more experienced players who played simpler drafts, it just kinda showed that sometimes I don't really know what to do. And even if I'm given resources, I still struggle if I don't feel it. So that was the clear issue for the BIG. I needed to be a bit more vocal, and I tried to fix that going into Misa, but as a team, we didn't really click that day. I don't think it's like an insane revelation, considering how we played. I also think that this game was a very important reality check because I myself felt pretty confident going into it. But I think that if we did win that series, I probably would have had my ego up in the sky. So I'm kind of happy that we lost in a way because it keeps me humble and it keeps me down to earth.

Hazel: Going into week 3, we had a performance meeting where we talked about what was on our minds because it was kind of necessary. We felt like people had bottled up emotions and feelings that were unresolved towards teammates. And I think it was possibly the best decision we made the entire split because I did get blamed a bit, but I think it was well deserved. After we had that, everyone individually got their feelings off their chest, and then just instantly started playing better. And because we gave feedback to each other, it also allowed me to see what I need to improve from my teammates’ point of view. It just worked instantly, so the improvement was visible pretty quickly.

Hazel: Aside from a couple of mistakes that were pretty dumb, like in the Vitality.Bee game where me and just didn't really talk in level 3 and then I just walked up and died. Aside from that, I would say the improvement was pretty visible. One of the issues that came up was that I would get frustrated pretty easily from situations in the game, and after I was reminded how much it can impact my teammates, I stopped showing it as much and my team was able to focus better and play better as a result, I guess.

Hazel: I figured it would be higher, but I said something similar about the LEC as well. It's kind of weird because coming from Div2 or just in general lower leagues, in solo queue, LFL or LEC players really like to talk down on you. So you get the idea that the LFL or LEC is crazy high in terms of level, and it's unattainable to the average Challenger player, right? Because that's how they make you feel. But after playing against them for a while, I really don't think that the level is that high.

There are some exceptions, like some teams, such as Solary who are performing, and the others are kind of inconsistent. That's all I can say. Because I remember back in Div2, we would play warmups against LFL teams. Some of them were going pretty well, and we were just winning. So I don't think the level was that high like last year, and this year is kind of the same.

Hazel: Absolutely. I'm confident in what my team can do. I think that we have a little bit more experience playing against LEC teams because of our split in LEC Versus. And to be honest, it's kind of hard to play against some teams because they don't really want to scrim us. But I think we can do pretty well against Solary. I'm not really scared of them. I played against their ADC two years ago, so I know what to expect. We scrim against them quite often, so I'm confident that we can play well against them.

Hazel: My idea so far is that, as I said, in two months I'll graduate from school. After that, it will kind of be summer split already. So I'll use the summer split as my first full split, focusing on League. Because until now, there have been periods of time where I didn't have school, or I didn't go. But it will be the first full split where I will not be tied down by school.

Hazel: So far, from what I'm thinking, I think I'll take a couple of years off from school and see how League goes. I was thinking that I'll give it my best for one or two years at the very least. And if I make it to the LEC or a very high-tier LFL team that can win the EMEA Masters, then I'll just keep doing League. But otherwise, I'm not really sure what to do in university yet. I do want to go. But I think that taking a couple of years off and focusing on my League career right now would be the best choice, and then finding out what I want to study later on.

Hazel: It's kind of the same as last year. When I was in KCBS, I asked for advice pretty often. Whether I got it or not, that's a different story. Sometimes I did, sometimes he forgot to reply [Laughs]. But I try my best. We do some scrims with KCBS, and we do some scrims with KC LEC. It's kind of going around, I would say so. Every team is trying to help each other, mostly because we're forcing each other to help in a way. But if the KCBS players ever DM me, mostly because he's an AD Carry, we try to give each other advice. For example, a couple of days ago, I asked him about AP Ezreal because I know he's good at it. I remember some time ago, he asked us for 2v2, things like this. We're trying to help each other, but it's not like people go out of their way. You have to be proactive, you have to ask as the academy player.”