SHFT Trymbi: "We're a human after all, so it's not easy to keep your cool all the time. We're not robots, sadly"

Shifters’ support Adrian “Trymbi” Trybus spoke with Sheep Esports on Sunday, during the second week of LEC Versus, after the team's second match against Team Vitality. After the organization’s rebranding, the squad has had its ups and downs, and the recent loss hit some players hard. Trymbi shared his thoughts on the challenges the team has faced so far and how they are working to improve, after a 0-3 week.

Trymbi shares more on the team’s communication and coordination, how they are learning to play together, and what he has brought from his experience in other regions. He also discusses preparing for playoffs and his thoughts on the LEC’s new partnership with Movember, giving insight into both the competitive and personal side of professional League of Legends.

Adrian “Trymbi” Trybus: "In the match against Vitality, we didn't give ourselves much room in the early game. We got snowballed on quite a bit. The fight that happened should have never happened, pretty much. And I think because of it, the games are obviously harder when you're behind, when you have no lead from the early. We managed to come back a little bit, get some more chaos, and try to get the outplay going, which is nice. Something that is needed, especially for the yearly stages of the season. But definitely it got a bit harder when we had to group up, and then it just turned out that we had different approaches as to how to play. It just got messy later on.

Trymbi: I think it takes time because we have a group of people who have quite a lot of ideas and options to play. We're still a new group of people, even though the top side has already played together, they played for what, four weeks only in last Summer. So definitely a team that is new still right to the league, and it'll take a while to make sure we realize how we want to play or get the proper ideas going. Because definitely there are a lot of ideas, but we don't really have clear plans as of now. And it does hurt us quite a bit, especially versus teams like Vitality that like to scale a lot, and if you don't have a good understanding of how to do it or to be more mindful about it, it's very easy to give leads away—and that's something that's been bothering us definitely this week.

Trymbi: It's just realizing who we are as players on stage. Of course, we have the rookie who has been playing amazing and we need to also figure out how to play around him more. We have players who still need to get some experience on stage. So I think it's all about figuring out who should be the one calling, or just overall who has the better ideas.

As of now, it's still a bit of a freestyle where we still try to figure out what's the best way to do it. I wouldn't say I'm the one who's calling everything. I think I'm more like—I'm trying to make sure we stay on plan, and we do what can be the best for us all, figuring out what the enemy wants to do. But it's also about the teammates and how they play us want to play as well. If I'm calling everything, then it's just going to be bad overall in my opinion.

So I think giving people confidence and getting those wins, the important ones would be nice because definitely this game (against Vitality), even though it was a bit tough at first, we still managed to pull off a nice comeback and we didn't really manage to sneak away afterwards, even though we probably should have with the lead we got.

*This interview was conducted before the game against LR, that Shifters eventually lost.

Trymbi: I mean one of the more important things for me in LTA itself was the culture difference that was there. The kind of big waters that I put myself in and the fact how different it can be and how perspective and ideas are just, they can vary so much even depending on where you are actually. So I would say it's important to understand every player that you have in a team—that's one of the main lessons.

I think understanding the players you have and making sure that the actual, not even game plan, but overall just the style of the team is pretty much based on what they can provide. If you're just going to bring five players and try to just make them play the way you want to, it can work of course depending on what talent you get, but it's not really truly the League of Legends people like to watch and enjoy.

The most important, it's the players actually understand what they're doing and as well find the joy in it. I would say that too is important. And in Brazil it was a bit more evident I would say, especially in other teams.

When I saw—and that was something that was nice to see—that even though the games might not be clean and, of course people said that the macro is worse or whatever, but sometimes you don't win off, especially games against Asian teams, you don't win off based on macro. I feel like they're pretty much superior when it comes to macro games. So it's all about understanding what you want to do and how you want to do with certain terms and that's something that I did enjoy in Brazil and I think in LEC we also have of course themes and styles. But don't think, I wouldn't say it's much prevalent, I guess that its shining a little bit more in CBLOL.

Trymbi: I mean when it comes to that, honestly, I'm generally happy that such thing is actually a thing because right, thoughout might my time in LEC, there's been of course up and downs and definitely I had times where I had to look for opportunities or support from outside because back in the day—I mean it was not that long time ago, it was 2021 when I joined. But still there were times where you truly didn't have someone who could help you with that or the people didn't feel right for you.

It's always like—you work with people at the end of the day. So I do think that at least making it aware, I'm not sure exactly was the right partnership going to be just yet. I don't think it was announced yet exactly what's going to happen, but would be lovely to make players aware of what is important. Just realizing that at the end of the day it is a job and it's a job that not only is your hobby, but it's so exhausting. And I would say the public face that you need to keep definitely makes things hard sometimes. We're a human after all, so it's not easy to keep your cool all the time. We're not robots, sadly.

I wish I could be robotic when it comes to emotions, but I'm not, and I would be happy to see the impact that it's going to do this year. I would love to see some options given to players. I think it's important. I know now a lot of teams obviously have their performance coaches, psychologists, and everything, but I know for sure there's going to be some people that they'll need the external help and I'm happy with the fact that at least the LEC is looking to at least showcase the importance of this topic."