MKOI Supa on being underestimated: "If people won’t respect you, then you need to force them"

Though still trailing behind, is on the rise, now riding a two-match win streak in the LEC 2026 Spring Split and looking to maintain that momentum ahead of its Madrid roadtrip, as well as an earlier matchup against . With ambitions of qualifying for MSI and reestablishing itself at the top of Europe, the team is steadily finding its footing.

In an exclusive interview, Sheep Esports sat down with AD Carry to discuss the team’s recent victories, his individual improvements, struggles with autopiloting and dopamine overconsumption, and how he deals with doubt.

David "Supa" Martínez García: “We’re ramping up. We started the split slow, but we’re getting better and better. Even if we had tougher matchups before, I still think we’ve been performing better regardless, and it showed against and . We’re taking a lot of good lessons from our matches, and I’m happy because both individually and as a team, we’ve been doing much better every week.

Supa: I’d say that I had a really good level by the end of the LEC Versus. I think I played the best I ever had around that time—it was sad we couldn’t beat in the end. This split, I started slower, especially when it comes to my laning phase. I’m doing better now, and honestly, I’m really happy. I think I’ve been showing a lot of improvement and that I’m able to keep things together on stage more. If I keep improving like this and perform more consistently, we can win the LEC, and we’ll be in form to compete internationally.

Supa: We’re all human, it’s normal and it happens. For me, what helps the most is to remind myself that, no matter what, good players don’t end up without teams or opportunities. If I get eliminated, if I don’t perform at my best, what is there to do? I just have this mindset of playing the best I can, execute my plans, and if I lose, look into why it happened and fix it. Honestly, if you take a proper look into fixing issues as they arise, you will always bounce back.

I’ve got the experience that allows me to trust myself and follow these plans, and it has always worked. I can understand that people can be affected by slumps mentally, but I’m a really confident player, and I know that if I work well, I will play well. There is no secret.

Supa: No, for sure not. Every year, I’ve been getting better at understanding a lot of concepts, both inside and outside of League. The thing that makes me really happy and motivated is that I’ve reached a point where I don’t think I’m lacking anything mentally, and the only thing I’m missing is pure League of Legends. Obviously, you will always keep improving mentally as the years go by, but yeah, for me, that’s beautiful.

During previous years, I was way more nervous, and I struggled a lot more with things outside of League. So yeah, the player I was two years ago is far from the same as today.

Supa: I need to be more consistent in thinking about how games are won the entire time. That means no disconnection, no autopiloting—you are thinking up plans from the first second to the Nexus explosion. I feel like sometimes, if I don’t prepare well mentally before a match, I forget these things. I need to put more care into preparing before every single game.

There’s a lot more to improve but, as a second example, I think I need to be more ready to fight and join my team. I need to have this vision of when random fights can occur and be ready to join first. Those fights, especially in the jungle, can happen a lot in the current meta. I need to be better. I think overall I’m really good in fight setups when I’m allowed to plan, but I struggle with fights around jungle right now.

Supa: Yeah, for sure. I was using TikTok a lot last split. My psychologist and performance coach told me that if I stopped using it, my performance would be better. I started to learn about dopamine, listening to podcasts, and I feel it helped a lot. I’m a person that, if I put my mind to do something, I just do it. It’s easy for me.

So yeah, I’ve been trying to fix this. It’s not that easy—it doesn’t just disappear in a few weeks. It’s something you need to put care into every day and, well, it’s hard because I’m from this generation that’s been very connected to platforms like TikTok. Controlling your dopamine is really helpful. When I cut out the excessive intake of it, I feel a lot better, but at any point it can get worse again if I don’t control it.

Supa: It’s a good question because I thought that myself the other day when I was reading another interview. When I read things like that, I just think to myself that these people don’t understand League of Legends. Maybe I’m just crazy, maybe I don’t understand League myself, but I feel like we put a lot of time in MKOI to make sure we understand the game at a pretty deep level.

People just disrespect us, they don’t see League of Legends the same way as we do. Honestly, it gives me even more motivation. If people won’t respect you, then you need to force them to do it. It’s a great opportunity to force everyone in Europe, and then make the world respect you. won the world’s respect in international events. I want to win that respect as well. Honestly, I feel very motivated by doubters. I’m so hyped to kick out of top six again, and I really hope they pick us in playoffs so we can eliminate them.

Supa: Every match from here on out is super important if we want to lock in top four. You know, it’s not impossible that one of us, G2 or MKOI, randomly trolls and finds themselves in the lower bracket through a fifth or sixth place finish. That would mean a really difficult bracket and could lead to either of us not going to MSI. Everyone prefers to be safe and go through the upper bracket. If you’re a good team, it’s a very weird look if you don’t make it to MSI.

For myself and for the team, we are treating every match as a final now. will be a final, today was a final. We need to beat both KC and G2 so we can be sure of locking in top four.

Supa: I mean, if we don’t go to MSI, it’ll be a failure for MKOI. We need to improve with the few weeks we have ahead of us and be ready to head to MSI.”