After losing their first match at a
VALORANT Game Changers
Championship since 2023,
Shopify Rebellion Gold answered questions from the media in a post-match
press conference. Head coach Loic
"effys" Sauvageau and in-game leader Melanie
"meL" Capone reflected on structural issues, calling, and mentality, balancing humour with honest self-criticism as they shifted their focus toward a lower-bracket rebound, and other topics.
Questions for Melanie "meL" Capone
Your last match against Team Liquid was very different, you were going through a difficult time. How does it feel to face TL again now, this time in a completely different state of mind?
meL: "Facing Team Liquid this time, I feel that both teams, ours included, have evolved a lot. On their side, I felt that their calling on Haven was excellent. She was calling exactly when to make contact, exactly when to execute; her calling on Haven was genuinely impressive, and I could really feel that in the server.
Seeing how both teams have changed over the past two years, I’m actually grateful that I was able to sit here and play at full health and experience that level of play. Even though it is a loss, it is still valuable to have that experience while being healthy. Obviously, we lost today, but I would much rather be alive and walking around than extremely sick and feeling terrible, like last time.
In terms of calling and strategy, what do you think is most important to work on before the next match?
meL: It’s a bit cliché to say, but we really need to focus on our own game on attack. That has always been a recurring theme for us. On Haven attack, I definitely want to take a lot of accountability. I think I was a little naive in some of my calling, especially around ultimate plays. They were clearly prepared for many of our ult setups, which were quite linear, and they had specific plans ready for them. They played very well around our ultimates, and that is something I was a bit naive about. That part is on me.
On their other maps, I feel a lot of our problems came down to micro decisions. Even on Haven, there were three or four extremely unfortunate rounds that were decided purely by micro mistakes. That mattered more than anything else. I also don’t think we fully played our own game.
On Sunset, we only really started doing what we usually do towards the end of our defensive half, not at the beginning. Early on, we were making plays that we simply do not make in practice. It is very important for us to replicate what we do in scrims when we are on stage.
Effys mentioned this is your first LAN loss, but not your first experience losing this year because of VCL. How do you think those previous losses help you now to turn things around, have a stronger lower-bracket run and lower final, and hopefully still secure a third trophy?
meL: "A great man once said that even losses can be small wins. You know which great man said that?
Faker (Lee Sang-hyeok).
Jokes aside, this is a much-needed reality check for us. Our tournament was going a little too smoothly, and we had been going unpunished for some habits that we normally get punished for in scrims. This will definitely serve as a wake-up call, a reminder that these issues are real and need to be addressed.
As you said, we are not strangers to losing. Of course, we are upset, you can see that we are not exactly celebrating right now. But once we get past the initial emotional hurdle in the next few hours, I think we’ll be fine. We just need to look at the series objectively and adjust what needs to be fixed, in the same way we did earlier this year in VCL NA, tweak things, identify what has to change, and implement it."
Photo by Moon Suwon/Riot Games
Question for Alexis "alexis" Guarrasi
KC were the first team to take a map off you at this Game Changers Championship, and Shopify Rebellion was your next match. Do you think losing that map to KC affected you in any way going into today’s series?
alexis: "No, I don’t think so. There were definitely some gaps in our Haven that we felt we had fixed for this match, but then other issues appeared. Every team will exploit one gap, and then once you patch that, another one appears and a different team will exploit that instead.
I don’t think it affected us, especially not mentally. We weren’t particularly bothered, because we still won the series. It was more like, “Oh, they think our Haven is bad, but actually it’s pretty good… or maybe it isn’t that good after all.” A bit of a roller coaster."
Questions for Loic "effys" Sauvageau
Do you think you lost this game simply because they were shooting faster than you?
effys: "There was a bit of everything going wrong. For us to lose a game like that, a lot has to go wrong, honestly. Of course, there is the pure shooting aspect, but most of it was just us trolling in a way, almost like a form of COVID, to be honest. There are many things we could have done better that have nothing to do with how fast we press mouse one. That is what we will have to reflect on tonight, because we need to reset quickly: we have a best-of-five tomorrow. So yes, a lot had to go wrong for us to lose this game, and we kind of managed to do all of it. It was a combination of several factors.
How many hours of VOD are you going to make the team watch tonight?
effys: It will be spread out among several of us on the staff and the team, to be honest. But I’m not too worried about it. Most of the time, when we simply play our own game, we naturally play better. So the less time we spend overanalyzing, the better it might be. We are not going to overthink it. The most important thing for us right now is to reset, because we have never lost on GCC before. I think what really matters at this moment is that the team stays together; that will be more valuable than any VOD review we could do."
Header Credit Photo: Christina Oh/Riot Games
