Weeks go by, and life continues to look good for
. After securing its fifth consecutive victory during the latest
LEC weekend with wins over
and
, the team remains at the top of the standings with only one loss. Every player on the roster currently appears to be in excellent form, and Vitality are increasingly establishing themselves as a potential top-three contender.
Among the players performing well is the team’s jungler,
. The Lithuanian player spoke with
Sheep Esports about his team’s current momentum and what lies ahead for them in the coming weeks.
What’s your first feeling after this game?
Linas “Lyncas” Nauncikas: “I feel good. I think everyone was kind of tired today. I felt it throughout the games. Maybe because of the intense schedule, I don't know. We had three scrim days, two match days, and long match days. So yeah, honestly, all of us felt kinda fried throughout the games. But I'm happy that we came back and didn't drop a random series to a worse team.
As you said, you had some trouble in the first game. Do you think there was a bit of tiredness or maybe laziness after beating G2 yesterday?
Lyncas: We made some silly mistakes, like getting caught a bit. But I also think the draft was kind of hard to play, especially from jungle, because it's like three no-prio lanes; they have a stronger jungler. It felt like we didn't have many options compared to game 2 and game 3, where we could actually fight them, and we had a prowling. So yeah, I think that was the biggest difference. But also, in game 1, some tiredness felt like it as well.
It remains your fifth victory in a row, including wins against NAVI, G2, and KOI. Can we say that everything is going as you expected so far or even better?
Lyncas: For sure better than we expected (laughs). I don't think that if you looked at our schedule, you’d say that we would be 5-1 after these six matches, where we play almost all the top teams. I wasn't thinking we would do worse either; we were confident, but 5-1 is for sure very, very good, and we're very happy.
I mentioned your game against G2 yesterday, where you beat a team that is the biggest in the region since the beginning of the season. Would you say that so far it was your best game since the beginning of the year?
Lyncas: Probably, yeah. I think we played decently. We showed some very good teamfights. Game one and game three were quite hard games, and we managed to win those, especially game one. I was very happy with how we managed to play out the game once we fell behind.
You almost secured a spot in playoffs after two weeks of competition. Does the atmosphere feel a bit lighter now that this objective is most likely reached?
Lyncas: I don't think it's lighter, because if we end up as fifth or sixth, it would be a big disappointment, so I don't think we should be too happy. Of course we're happy with the result, but the minimum aim is to be top four. So we start in the upper bracket, and we have a second chance in any case. Right now, with how we're going and our schedule, we still have
,
and
to play against. I think it's very doable to win all those games and to be first. Of course, depending on how KC and others do.
To talk a bit about your progression. It seems like your team is much more at ease and comfortable in the mid-game than during LEC Versus. How would you explain the progression in that part of the game?
Lyncas: I think
improved a lot on his mid-game. That's the biggest improvement that he did from last year's summer and LEC Versus as well. He got much better at mid-game and transferring vision and stuff. He’s just a very good addition to the team. He understands the mid-game very well, and he pressures the map very well as well, when he has to do it. Same with
. So I think now we just improved on mid game overall as a team and we have sidelaners that know how to play the map well. Those are the big differences.
Last splits it seemed that your team had kind of “Naak Nako dependence”, as he was always standing out as the player with great games even in losses. This split so far, it seemed like you all had your shining moments. Would you say you improved in using the strengths of all your teammates?
Lyncas: We are all quite strong individual players, everyone in this team can carry, and we also show it today. I think Naak didn't have the best series, and then botlane was doing very well, and mid jungle was also good. So the thing is just that we don't really rely on one guy, even though Naak has been performing very insanely. Everyone can carry in this team and that's a very big and good thing to have.
You’re in your best form since the beginning of the split. Where would you rank yourself now among other LEC junglers?
Lyncas: I don't know, I think I'm at the top, but I don't really care. People ask me this often, but I don't really compare myself to others. Like it’s on the fans and stuff to do that. And they can do it, I don't really mind it. I just try to do as well as I can and improve. So I'm just stronger and stronger, and I think I've been doing very well so far this split and this year overall.
The only team that you didn't beat yet in a series is KC. Would you say that you have more problems with them than with the others?
Lyncas: We had some issues in that series (first game of the split), but I think they were just overall a little bit better in that series. I would say that our main opponents and the ones that we have to beat are just KC and G2. Overall, for us, the harder opponent is G2, and then KC, because we're quite similar to KC, and I think that the next time we meet them, we will do better and we'll win. But G2 is just stylistically harder for us.
On the opposite of some teams that will have lot of games to play during the Roadtrips coming in, you only have three series to play left until the beginning of the playoffs, which will be in May. Aren't you afraid that the lack of official games would be a kind of nerf to you before starting the playoffs?
Lyncas: It might be. For sure, the scheduling is quite weird. I think that this might happen, but we'll try our best not to slump in performance. The other side is that we played six series in three weeks, and it felt like, at least this week and today, we were quite frightened from the schedule with two back-to-back days of officials and a lot of scrim days. But at the same time, if you look at someone like GIANTX schedule their schedule is really weird.
They will be playing two games next week, then they will not play for two weeks, and then they will play in Madrid for the last week.
Lyncas: Yeah, that's completely crazy, right? You don't play two weeks, and then you have three matches against the three strongest opponents on a Roadtrip. Even though our schedule is weird, I think we don't have that much to complain about when you look at them, for example.”
