MKF 13 ahead of LES finals: "We’re going to piss-stomp Heretics"

’s academy roster has been one of the standout teams in the LES this summer, and after a dominant split, the team is now preparing to take the stage in Madrid for the finals. For , it will be a new experience, with the 20-year-old ADC looking forward to playing in front of a large crowd and embracing the pressure that comes with it.

Speaking to Sheep Esports, 13 reflected on ’s improvement throughout the year, the impact of ’s arrival, and the team’s time in Berlin alongside the LEC roster. The young ADC also discussed his experience scrimming against LEC teams, his ambitions of reaching the LEC, and why he believes he could already compete for a starting spot at MKOI.

Ahead of the finals, however, 13 had a much simpler message for : he expects a 3-0.

Zayan "13" Tareau: “I’m very happy to have this opportunity to play in front of all our fans. It’s super hype, and we’re all very excited to play. It’ll be the first event for some of our players—notably and me.

I’ve thought about how it’ll go, but I think it’ll be okay pressure-wise. I would say that I like this kind of stress, this kind of pressure… having to show off when it counts, in front of so many fans… It hypes me, so it makes me play better, I think, more than it makes me stressed.

The fact that we’re the only MKOI roster at the event doesn’t really affect me. We’re all focused on what we have to do. We don’t care about anything else. Our goal is to be as perfect as possible and focus on our game so we can bring back another title. To have this opportunity to win it in front of so many fans, it’s even better.

13: No, it's completely new for me. I only did one event— the LES 2026 Kick-off Tournament—but it was very small. It was a small room, and we were on stage, but there were a lot fewer people than here.

I consider myself quite extroverted at events like this. I like to go crazy on stage. If there are good plays, I get up and scream. With , we're going to scream as soon as there are good plays and when we win.

13: French players are beasts. That's why we're performing. We added a second French player, and it led us to winning everything. It's the power of France.

13: We're at a stage where we can reach a very high level if we play the way we're supposed to play. We can beat any team in the ERL. We scrim a lot against the LEC, and it's going very well every time when we play at our usual level.

The arrival of XnS has done a lot of good, whether it's the environment, the dynamic of the team, or the playstyle. There was a big change when he arrived. He brings a big voice too. He's very active, whether in-game or outside of the game.

We should have won in the spring, but there were complications. More than in terms of gameplay, I think we played a lot less well. But I don't think we played so badly that we couldn't win the title. We choked during semifinals. Against UCAM, we had a lot of problems in scrims, how the team felt, etc.

This summer, we all feel very good. We are all confident. We all know how to play, how the others want to play, how the team works, and what makes us a good team. We are all on the same wavelength.

13: Yeah. In winter, we lived in Madrid. We were in an apartment for the first split.

For the Winter EMEA Masters edition, we all went back home and played online. It was a difficult period. I believe that's why we didn’t perform. If we had played from the Madrid offices, we would have performed a lot better. We reacted badly to losses since we were inexperienced and lost our mental.

But now, we've been in Berlin for two and a half weeks. We played the summer playoffs here. Everything is going very well. The results are very good. Unfortunately, our jungler isn't here due to visa issues, but even with him online, everything is going well.

13: It's quite different from when we were in Madrid. Firstly, we have the beast Mathias, our chef. He makes us meals every day. He's amazing. He's the MVP.

But yeah, we have easier access to the main team. We can talk, we can scrim, we can review things if we need to. Even with the players of the main team. For example, we can do 2v2s with and . We can talk about matchups, that kind of stuff. It's cool.

In terms of coaching, and Melzhet's way… personally, due to my temperament and personality, it's not the kind of coaching that I like the most. But he does a good job and it works. It's good to see how he does things and to get out of our comfort zone when we're used to less intensity and authority.

But that aside, since the beginning of the year, our academy coach, Jorge "Disgrace" López, has been in touch with Melzhet and the main team. He helps the main team a lot. He talks a lot to Melzhet. They have a lot of interactions with us. Melzhet watches all our scrims since the beginning of the year. There has always been a lot of communication between the main team and us.

13: I'm fine. It's life. Sometimes it's harder in terms of performance, what's going on outside the game, life in general, but we're well surrounded for this kind of thing. We're well looked after.

The staff takes a good look at how we're feeling, if we're under stress. I'm still in touch with Nuša Klepec, who is the psychologist and mental coach of the LEC team, and she helps a lot. We also have our own staff that helps a lot, so overall, I'm handling things well.

13: I’ve just learned about it. It’s super hype. It aligns well with our goals, which are to win the EMEA Masters Summer. We’re all very confident. If we play the way we usually do when we scrim, notably against LEC teams, we can win it all. We’ve been working hard on fixing our issues and, I think that by the time the tournament starts, we can achieve a really good level.

13: Overall, I focus on being better. I think it's better than focusing on a destination. I tell myself that the better I am, the more chance I will have to reach my goals. I want to go to the LEC, go to Worlds, etc. To achieve that, I just want to focus on my level and do the best I can, day after day, to improve.

If you ask me, in two years, I'll probably be in the LEC. At least, I hope so. I think I'll have more than the level I need by then.

For 2027 though, it will depend on our performance at the EMEA Masters. It will depend on how much I improve. This is the last month of competition. I will give my all to have the best possible level, whether in EMEA Masters or this offseason, to have the best possible team next year.

13: Well, what I meant when I said that I expected myself to be in the LEC in two years is that I think it'd just be crazy if I didn't get a shot by then. I'll easily have the level to compete for the best AD Carries in the league in 2028.

By January, considering the recent months in which I’ve been able to scrim against LEC teams, experience EMEA Masters, and train with high-caliber players, I think I’ll already have the level to play in the LEC if I were to receive an offer for 2027.

But I'm still young, and I think that it's better for me, and that I let myself have the choice to say yes or no depending on what offer I get. I think that a very good offer in the ERL can be better for longevity of my career than a bottom LEC team.

If, for example, I were to join an LFL team that wins its league and then the EMEA Masters, that can be more valuable in terms of visibility, how much you improve yourself, and on an individual level, than a bottom-team LEC, where you just get whipped, and you don't have much control over what happens.

13: Overall, my mindset will always be to focus on my performance and improve, no matter where I go. But I can tell you from reliable sources that even now, I could contest the starting AD Carry position at MKOI, in terms of level and performance in scrims.

13: We've done a lot of them since we've been in Berlin. Unfortunately, there were some things that happened outside of the game that we couldn't control, so we had to cancel some blocks. There were also two scrims where some of our players were not feeling well, and we weren't really in a good state to practice efficiently.

But overall, we’ve scrimmed a decent amount. Not a ton, but still a lot for two weeks. The results have been pretty even, I'd say. Still, to be honest, we didn't scrim LEC teams at their prime. For example, MKOI is a team that, in scrims, is less strong than in officials. It’s been the case for a while now.

And of course, LEC teams are known to tryhard less against ERL ones. No matter the level of the LEC team, they often take it less seriously. For MKOI though, given their performances and how they were in a bad state, I think they had a mindset of trying hard and doing their best because it's important for them.

I’d say we provide much better scrims to our main team than some LEC teams in terms of level and how we play, without giving out which teams I’m talking about.

It's been great for us to scrim them. Even if they're at their prime or not, tryharding or not, they're much better players individually and in terms of experience than all the ERL teams. They punish a lot of things that any ERL team wouldn't punish in scrims. So it makes us see the mistakes we make that we didn't notice when no one was punishing us for them.

I saw say in your interview that even in LEC scrims, teams were not punishing, so you can imagine that in ERLs, it's even worse, since the level is lower. People just don't play, or do random things, and don't really punish mistakes.

13: When I started playing, it was . I watched him a lot because I started playing after he won Worlds. He was insanely good.

And now, since I’ve started playing competitively, I watch a lot of . I think that since his time at Gen.G, he's been the best ADC in the LCK. I still find it crazy that they benched him. But yeah, I review his games a lot, when he was in the LPL, when he was at Gen.G, and now at T1. He plays really well, so I watch him a lot.

13: We're going to piss-stomp Heretics. They are so bad. We'll 3-0 them on stage. I don't even know why they're in the finals. They should have been utterly destroyed by UCAM if they weren't chokers.”