It’s North America’s first international top-four appearance in four years, and
are the ones carrying the
LCS’ flame. After a dominant 3-0 statement win against
, the kings of North America are now heading into a showdown against EMEA’s crowned emperors,
. With only a few hours to rest and prepare before the match, jungler
sat down with
Sheep Esports to discuss his latest victory, the importance of mentality and mindset, and his upcoming battle against G2.
You're guaranteed a top-four finish at MSI already. How are you feeling?
Kacper "Inspired" Słoma: “I mean, that was... I wouldn't say it was the goal because I don't really set myself goals, but yeah…
“It would have been disappointing if we didn't finish top four.”
So yeah, I'm happy about that, and we'll see what the next series will bring. It's going to be way tougher.
You had to beat and TSW to reach the top four. How do you feel about your run so far? Are you maybe a bit frustrated that you didn't get to face one of the stronger LCK teams?
Inspired: Oh, I'm not frustrated. I'd rather win than lose, so I'm happy about the draw.
I’d really like to face G2, because I think that would be a really fun game and just an ego battle for both teams. So that would definitely be really fun. I also think we would have a higher chance winning against them. Maybe there's a world where they beat
so we can face them, but I'm expecting a 3–0 for T1. Maybe G2 gets lucky and takes one game.
It would be funny if G2 beat T1 and then beat us as well… respect to them if they make it happen. [laughs] I’m looking forward to facing them if they beat T1.
Editorial Note: Luckily for the King of the LCS, his dream came true not long after recording this interview.
How did you feel about the way TSW played? Any thoughts on their level?
Inspired: fought everything against Team Secret Whales, even in the timings where their opponent’s draft was the strongest in the game. TES just disrespected that. They just took every fight anyway, that's why they got outplayed and eliminated.
We didn't make the same mistake. We knew they were going to fight every objective, so whenever we were confident in our chances of winning, we would fight them. Whenever we felt it was better not to fight, we wouldn't. We knew their macro wasn't that great, and they were over-grouping a lot to force fights. I think we abused that well.
We had a good idea of how they play, and I was happy that we got them as our opponents, because I knew Top Esports would have been a more difficult opponent.
Do you think your current level is enough to keep advancing through the bracket and beat your next opponents?
Inspired: Yeah, our level is good enough to beat G2 or T1, but we’ll need to not make as many mistakes, and maybe a bit of luck on our side as well. We're not the favorites no matter which team we play, but I don't think there's no chance of us beating them.
The way we've been playing recently, the both of them can definitely make mistakes, and we can beat them off that—we’re quick at punishing those errors right now. Sometimes we're also forcing plays ourselves, so we need to make sure we don't do that and play well if we wanna win.
LYON is known for playing a slower, more controlled style. You've also said before that beating LCK and LPL teams comes down to not falling too far behind early. How much influence do you personally have on your team’s game plan?
Inspired: When we play against Asian teams, I know my team is probably worse than the enemy. So I can't play the same way I do in the LCS, because over in NA, I know my team is usually better than the opponents.
You have to know your limits and know how the game is most likely going to go. Against NA teams I usually like to take as few random risks as possible, while here I know I need to make something happen and get some sort of lead or something that will surprise the enemy if we want to have a chance of beating them.
So yeah, I'm trying to take the risks that I feel have the highest chance of paying off, and even if they fail, they won't instantly lose us the game. I've been working on that and trying to find the best angles I can.
You've often said that you don't like setting expectations for international tournaments. That's quite different from many Western players, who talk about and believing they can beat anyone. How do you view the importance of mentality against LCK and LPL teams?
Inspired: I mean, I have never won, so maybe my mentality isn’t the better one. The only Western teams that have won are the ones with
in his prime.
“You need to have some sort of delusion. You can't just think the game is lost no matter what, but you also need to know your limits, and I think that's what I'm decent at right now.”
Here with LYON, especially our mid and bot lanes are playing really well during the laning phase, so it doesn't really feel like we're falling behind really early. Against BLG,
lost lane hard against
because, obviously, it's Bin.
When I played with
, it felt like every lane was on fire, so I didn't really know exactly what to do. But here it feels like I don't have to completely flip the game. I can just play normally and then try to make one good play happen somewhere, and there's a chance we can win.
I think you have to be realistic about your team and the way you can play. Just hoping you're going to win and believing in yourself—that's a bit cope. Know your limits, know your good champions, know the way you can beat the enemy, and then try your best.
Looking back, do you think you would have done any better in the past if you had been more "delusional" in your confidence?
Inspired: I was thinking about it, and I don't think so. I don’t really see a series where we lost due to mental block and not just because they were better than us.
Not on Rogue... Maybe on EG in the best-of-one against DWG KIA in groups. I came in with a bit of a loser mindset, but I was still pretty young, so I didn't have that much experience.
On FlyQuest, I don't think I could have done that in any game. And here on LYON, not really either.
“I don't really have regrets about having that type of mindset—just being realistic.”
LYON is still a relatively young roster, and there are still some coordination issues at times. For example, in Game 3 today, Team Secret Whales still managed to contest objectives despite being far behind. Are tempo and vision still areas you're working on?
Inspired: Yeah, there are definitely some issues with that.
I don't think they actually had a great position during that drake fight. If they had stepped up more to contest it, I think they would have definitely died and lost the game there. They just showed up and instantly ran away. They were just trying to bait us into overextending so they could make a comeback happen, but we didn't fall for it.
The tempo game is definitely something we're working on. The biggest gaps internationally are usually in the support role, even though people don't really think that. Playing support against these Asian teams is really, really hard because if you get bluffed once and lose tempo, you're playing from behind all the time.
You need to be really realistic about how you use your time, your teammates' time, your jungler's efficiency—whatever you want to call it.
So yeah, we're working on that to make sure our support
is confident in the game, but also doesn’t just run it down. It's different to be aggressive—sometimes you need to respect the enemy as well.
It's a very tough job to play support against these teams, but I think it's a tough job to play any role against them. They're all really skilled. From my experience, though, support is usually where the biggest gap is. But I think we're working on it really well, and recently the games have felt way more playable than they did in the past.”
