“We are so much better when we work under pressure”, KWK’s Toumes and joeyscags after LES promotion

Winners of the promotion tournament for the LES, Spain's League of Legends league, Sheep Esports caught up with Joey "joeyscags" Cupp and Tomáš "Toumes" Svoboda, Kawaii Kiwis' support and mid laner, respectively. The Spanish club won all three of their series, each by a 3-2 scoreline, and should therefore compete in the LES in 2027.

In the interview, Toumes and Joeys reflected on their run through the qualifier, including their three Game 5 series, their comeback from a 0-2 deficit against Falke Esports, the strength of Spain’s amateur scene, and their approach to competing against more established teams. They also discussed Kawaii Kiwis’ support throughout the run, their historic promotion, and what the roster could achieve in the LES.

Tomáš "Toumes" Svoboda: “For me, it's like we work well under pressure. If we are one game away from losing the whole series and the whole split, we lock in, and everyone on the team just locks in. Bruno (Bruno Llaó Borrego) is locked in, everyone is locked in. We are so much better when we work under pressure. So I think that's the main turning point for us.

Joey "joeyscags" Cupp: “We play way worse against worse opponents. We are super, super bad at just stomping worse teams. We don't really excel at that. I remember the day before we won one of the CTs, we dropped a game versus Vikings and we almost completely lost. And then the day after, we 2-0'd UCAM, 2-1'd Oxygen, and it was completely fine. In the open qualifiers, it was the same thing. We lost to Guinea Pink and then we almost lost to what, DPT or something? I don't know, something crazy. And then the next day we 2-0'd VVV, 2-1'd Oxygen again. So I think when we play better teams, we for sure excel and lock in more and take it more seriously.

Toumes: I mean, the thing for me is that, as a foreigner, I don't know the players. I have no idea who they are. Actually, it's easier for me to play players I have no idea who they are because I play under zero pressure. If I know the players, let's say we played against Mentos (Alexandros Papadimitriou) and I know that guy is good, then I play like I'm scared, you know? But the other guys, I don't know them, so I'm just chilling, playing my game, and I think it's easier. Also, I feel like there's so much support even in the lower leagues in Spain. They have so much support, and I think it's just great to play there.

Joeys: For me, this is my first year competing in League. I've competed in MOBAs before. I've played Wild Rift before, and I've played some other MOBAs before. I've been competing since I was like 13 in other things, but never in League. And so I don't know any of the players. I have a friend who plays in LFL2. LFL2 is quite strong, but I cannot really compare any of the leagues. I cannot compare how good the Spanish Division 2 is compared to any other division. It's really, really hard for me. I'll say the level is higher than I expected when I first joined. But at the same time, like what Toumes said, a lot of times our coach would be telling us, "Oh my God, watch out for this bot lane," or "watch out for this mid laner," or "watch out for this top laner," whatever. And to be honest with you, I always told him the same thing. No disrespect to any of the players, but I don't know these guys. They're not Caps, they're not Faker. So I watch LEC, I watch LCK, but I don't watch Division 2 Spain. So I'm not gonna give people respect who haven't deserved to have any for me. And so that kind of helps. Other players are like, "Oh my God, I've been playing against this guy for three years. I have a complete mental block." I'm like, "Well, I don't know this guy, so let's just play."

Toumes: The main thing is that they had Mentos, and that guy is so good. I have respect for that guy; he played so well. I think as a team they might not be as good as we are, but they have strong individual players. For example, the Mentos guy—I wouldn't be scared to say that he was gapping me. He is really good, but I think as a team we know our strengths, and that's Bruno. I just pick my Twisted Fate, I just pick my Ryze, I just pick my Taliyah, and I play around Bruno, and that's how we win the games. I don't need to 1v9 the game to win the game. I just need to play around with something that we know is strong, and that's Bruno in our team. Also, between the games, when we played Game 2 and lost, we were like, "Okay, we didn't expect this." The Mentos guy is so good. He played Ahri and he played Sylas. And at that point we said, "We need to shut this guy down somehow." And that's where Game 3 comes in. They played Locke, Vi, and Camille. It was obvious for us that I'm the guy that's going to be targeted a lot. But Camille is getting outscaled like crazy. So I just played safe; I just scaled. We outscaled them; we are chilling. So he lost his Locke pick, and then we banned Aurora and Akali, I think. He didn't really have a chance to turn the game around. If we ban this guy out and he's not turning the game around for himself, they are not winning. Because I know that my top laner is gapping him, Bruno is smashing that guy in jungle, my bot lane is stable, and I will be fine. And that's how I think we turned the game around, the whole series basically.

Joeys: I think as well, in the first game I played Seraphine, in the second game I played Milio, and I told Erlo (José Alberto Lozano) after the first two games—because I've always told him I'm always down to play whatever—but there are certain series where you get kind of a feeling for the vibe of it. I just felt like I couldn't get wards down and couldn't influence the map enough. So I told Erlo, "Game 3, try to give me a melee champ. Melee champ or Bard, anything that has roaming power, that can influence the map more." And I think it made the game way easier because I was free to do my own thing. Sivir was super self-sufficient, so I can just roam. I got a roam top or whatever. I think our early game went pretty well, and it just kind of settled down. I think as well, when we were playing the first two games, we had some way worse losses than that. Those two games we lost yesterday, maybe they ended decently fast because we kind of accelerated a bit, but we had a lot of good plays, and we've had way worse losses than that. I think our losses against Guinea Pink were way worse than that, and I think even some of our wins against Guinea Pink were worse played than our losses against Falke. So I honestly still had confidence in it.

Toumes: I think the thing is, we were the underdogs, right? And we went 0-2 into winning two games, and there's Game 5. In draft, we're like, “Bruno wants to play Kha'Zix”, and I'm like, "Okay, I will pick Twisted Fate. It's gonna win the game because they are under so much pressure.” We are under zero pressure. We are the underdogs. We are not scared about losing. We just play the game and we have fun. And I knew that if I play Twisted Fate and I play around Bruno, he will win the game. And that's how I think we won the game overall. They were scared; they were under stress. Neeko was getting caught; people were getting caught. And that's how we win the game, I think.

Joeys: I think as well, we picked Alistar-Jinx 1-2, which is like... I mean, you cannot think of a... I mean, it's not a good lane. But a lot of things were out, and I also feel like their bot lane was... I think their bot lane is really quite good, maybe, but they were under a lot of pressure. And I think I went into Game 5 and I thought, "There's nothing really that they can pick to accelerate the game super fast." We didn't really get pressure in lane a lot because I think there is a lot of pressure. Like, I feel like if I have to play a pressure lane in Game 5, it's also super hard. I feel like putting the onus on them — you have to make those plays, and you have to make the early game to put even more pressure on them, because they already have so much pressure. Even more pressure because they now have to get a lead early game. They have Tristana mid, we have Jinx with Alistar and Sion, and we have so much scaling. Kha'Zix is running around like a little freak. And the second thing with Bruno, like, the guy played, I think, 12 unique champions out of 15 games. I mean, I've been telling this a lot to the coaches: just let him play whatever. Stop trying to force him to play whatever LCK plays. If he has a pick in his head, just let him pick it. I think that goes for everybody, but especially for a player like Bruno.

Toumes: For me it's like... an enemy toplaner is my ex-teammate, and I had so much fun in these games. I just wanted to enjoy it. Even though I played under pressure, because I knew I'm playing into Mentos and that guy is just so good, I was just enjoying the games, and I wanted to win. But I lowkey felt no pressure, even though the enemy Midlaner was 10 times me. But we are just like... We are playing around, Bruno, we win the game, and I think it does feel different because I also think it's the first time that a team from the CT actually qualifies to LES. So it feels like we actually made history here. We are the first team to do something like this. Like, we are an amateur team that beats a pro team in the first division, and that feels so good. It's actually... I can't even say how it feels. After the games I was jumping here, my friends came in here; they were just so crazy for it as well. I can't even say how it feels. It's so good.

Joeys: For me, it's like, I don't really know how crazy it was. When I was actually told that we're the first team to do it, I didn't know. I had no clue. I thought this was kind of a regular occurrence, that a team kind of makes it because, I guess, relegations happen every year. It felt super cool. We've always had that in sports for me as well, like playing basketball. It felt like we were playing a league above, and we were trying to take their place. It felt like when I was 12 years old and I was playing basketball and we were playing at those tournaments. It felt kind of the same. It was super, super cool. And we got to play against some great players. I think that's also really cool. I actually knew some of the players. The day before, I was telling my friends who I was playing against. I didn't know Falke, but I go to their LoL pros, and I'm like, "Fuck me", but it felt really, really good to beat some players that have some backing behind their name.

Toumes: I mean, I've been here for like a whole year. Joey joined a bit later, but I'm here for like more than a year now, I think. And I've been in a lot of teams. I played Czech League, the Hitpoint, and compared to Kawaii Kiwis, it’s so great here. The coaches like Shoto and Erlo (José Alberto Lozano Duarte) are great people. They will try to work with you, they will give you everything that you can. There's nothing to ask for more. I'm legit happy here. It's the best organization that I've ever been to, for sure.

Joeys: I think the support is amazing. I think it's the organization as well. Shoutout to Erlo, shoutout to Shoto , shoutout to our manager, shoutout to the people getting us scrims. Everything is going quite smoothly, I'd say, in that way. But it's also the whole fandom behind it. I did not know that there was that much support. I was not aware. Because when I first joined, I'm playing Div 2 Spain League, like, how many people could really watch? I'm like, "What the hell?" I got so many people on Twitter telling me congratulations and so many people in the chat and whatever telling us good job. I'm going to solo queue and people recognize that you play for Kawaii Kiwis and blah blah blah. They're giving me good luck. "I used to play it, I used to compete against them. I know this player," whatever. So it's a lot of support. And then I want to say one thing: shoutout to Erlo. I've had a lot of coaches in my life, even when it comes to sports, other video games, whatever. And I think he's very open-minded and he listens to his players a lot. I think that's a great trait in a coach, especially when it comes to drafting. Even, let's say, the Malphite pick was not the greatest, it somehow worked out, or the Kha'Zix, or whatever. Or we picked Yasuo B1… But shoutout to Erlo, he's really a great person. He listens to his players a lot and supports us a lot.

Joeys: I think it's hard to say. I think our ceiling is quite high, but the thing is our practice has not been the best and it's been pretty inconsistent. Even though we've been taking it super seriously, of course, we're not taking it as seriously as other people. We're scrimming BO3s, we don't have a crazy hard schedule. We're scrimming maybe two or three times per week, if we're lucky. That's honestly a good week if we get two or three scrims. Sometimes we're scrimming once per week or even... We just played officials or whatever. It's honestly hard to get back sometimes because everyone has a pretty busy schedule. But I think if we're able to keep the synergy and then practice, just be able to practice more, honestly the sky's the limit.

Toumes: I mostly agree with Joeys. We are scrimming maybe sometimes two days a week, three games. In the first league, Barça or GIANTX or whatever, they are full-on paid, they are playing every single day, let's say five games a day, and they are fully tryharding. I think if we would get to that level where we actually scrim every day, five games, and actually try hard, then I think we could get on that level. But it's hard to say. You never know. It takes some time to get on that level.

Joeys: Yeah, I don't think it would be immediate. That's the thing that I think. It's not going to be overnight. I don't think we're going to be the best team at LES if we don't have a chance to put in a lot, a lot of work.

Toumes: First of all, I think there should be a huge shoutout to the casters. I don't speak Spanish, but when I watched the stream back, I'm like, "Holy, it's so hype." I don't understand a single word, but it's so hype. I think that's the first thing that we should mention: the casters. That's excellent. Second of all, when we won against VVV, I opened Twitter and there were like hundreds of people congratulating us, saying, "Yo guys, you are crazy, good job." I go into SoloQ and there's a guy like, "Oh, you play in Kawaii Kiwis. I played there as well. I hope you win in relegations." And I'm like, "Okay, that's so nice," you know? There's so much support. I actually never experienced this. I played only in Czech League and here in Spain. In Czech League it's totally dead. That league is dead. But here it's so much support. I played Benelux as well and I feel like I did that as well a bit. But here it's so great. I have to give it to these Spanish people. They're great. It's actually crazy for me.”

Joeys: Everything Toumes said, I agree with. I would like to say for the run, I think it's just something beautiful. You hear it again in life, in sports, in anything. It's just a miracle run, the underdog story, the Cinderella story. And I think you can't really lose hope and you have to believe. I would tell my team every single day that we have to believe. If we don't believe it, we have no chance. And it just starts with that. It's just like staying together during losses. We would have a talk, a long talk before every single game and try to unite everybody and be on the same page. And I think that's just what sports is about. That's what esports is about. That's what life is about. It's just manifesting it, believing it. And then in the dark moments, when things are looking really tough, when your back is against the wall, you look to your left, you look to your right metaphorically and you see... "I've got some warriors with me, you know. We can fucking do this." So it's just like, it's a good story, you know?”