I can't start this interview without congratulations, because what you've achieved as a player and what your team did this season is incredible. Is it the moment, when you can say you're gonna win Worlds?
Firstly, thank you very much. I don't want to think about Worlds final or how we're gonna win this tournament. I want to focus on each game as they come. For now I think Europe is gonna win Worlds - be it us or FNATIC. Still I'm focused on group stage and our scrims before the tournament.
You can be the first team to win both regional splits, MSI and Worlds
No team managed to do that yet, though RNG got close last year. They won both splits in China and MSI, later they lost against us though, so I hope we can be the first team in history to complete this "full run". One of the reasons why no one did this before may be because at Worlds a lot of teams like to surprise their enemies and it's hard to prepare for them.
A lot of experts say that even though you won almost everything possible, there's still this feeling that you're not showing your full potential. How is it - do you feel you're playing to the best of your abilities?
For sure we can play better than right now. When Worlds starts and we'll be able to compete, but also scrim against teams from all around the world we'll for sure get better. Different regions have different styles, we'll be able to take something from them and add to our game. Additionally you can also learn a lot just watching certain players. I'm excited for Worlds, but also for what we can learn during our bootcamp and the tournament. Last year we qualified as a 3rd seed and we were totally different team during gauntlet, different team during play-ins and different team during the main stage.
People say you're a team that dictates the meta. Do you feel you affect the entire scene more than Korean or Chinese teams?
I don't know if we have more impact than other regions. I've heard people in China attack Europe, they see us as players that just fight without reason and int a bit. We think China is a very strong region, but sometimes they fight for no reason, and Korea is very calm. Right now I think we can beat everyone. We've played against iG, RNG and SKT and since we managed to beat the latter, and they're the #1 seed from Korea, then we can probably also beat teams like Griffin and DAMWON. I'm not sure about FunPlus Phoenix, when it comes to China. They look really good and I'd like to play them. I didn't play against them yet, so right now I don't know how we'd play it out.
You described how other regions play, how would you describe your team? It seems like G2 is playing very aggressive style.
We're a very aggressive team that's not afraid to take risks. Thanks to this our games can be really stompy and finish in 15-20 minutes. But we also can lose some games, as you've seen during the MSI for example. I think during the bootcamp we'd want to chill out with the aggression a bit and take less risks. Not like we want to change and start playing completely differnet style, but I'd like to play a bit slower and wait for opponents mistakes more often instead of taking the risk myself. Fact is, on that level not every team will make these mistakes. Obviously there's a chance they will, but there's also a big chance we will help them with our overaggerssion.
You say you'd like to play slower. For years you've been called the "First Blood King", but split by split your FB% is getting lower, what happened?
I think it's more about how the game is played. League of Legends changed in the last few years. It's not always benefitial to just go kill someone, when you can do something else on the other side of the map and win the game because of it. There are situations when it's easier to gank toplane, because it's only 1 enemy champion there. Usually toplaners have to play the lane pretty aggressively to win, however if you get kill top while your bot or mid lose, because they don't have the pressure from their jungler it can go really wrong. Especially if the enemy jungler is there. I understand the game better now and I prefer to play for the team instead of showcasing myself as the "First Blood King". I'd obviously like that title to stick with me though.
G2 is the best team in Europe and one of the best teams in the world, that much is obvious. But what became obvious is also the fact, that people put you as one of the best players in the world. Do you feel any pressure because of this?
Personally I don't care in the slightest. It doesn't matter what other people think about me. It's been like this for the last 2 or 3 years. Back in H2K I already knew I can play better, but sometimes you as a team just don't play that well. Obviously I don't want to put the blame on my colleagues from H2K. As a five we didn't work well enough to win something. Back then people often messaged me "why are you streaming, you should practice more". I already knew back then, that it's not true and I shouldn't take it to myself. Right now the messages are different - people say I'm the best jungler in Europe, that I will do well at Worlds. I try to look at myself, my play, my team and I do what I can to make us better.
Streaming doesn't affect you?
I treat it as an investment in my future. I know I won't be pro player for the rest of my life, so in the future I'd like to become full time streamer. That's why I started streaming only in English recently, I feel there's more potential there. Here in Poland people like to watch the clown fiest and "hihi-haha" instead of the good gameplay. I personally like to watch what's funny. I'm not always funny, so I understand that people may prefer other streamers. Obviously I put my team first, it's not like I'm thinking only about my stream. I have 3-4 days when I stream playing SoloQ, because I'd play SoloQ anyway, but during the stream I can focus on the gameplay while also entertain my fans and viewers. It's different with YouTube. There was a time when it was hard for me to record anything and I had to force myself to think about it. Recently it comes much more naturally. It's not that hard to find an hour once a few days to record something and put it on youtube. I think pro player can easily handle all of it. Caps and other G2 players started doing it recently too. Caps has his own youtube channel and often streams because he also sees a lot of potential in it. Not only for some additional money, but also to prolong his career.
Do you sometimes think, that soon your career might be over?
So far my career has only gone upwards - I was in ROCCAT, later in H2K and now in G2. Obviously there's been a lot of ups and downs. First year in ROCCAT was better than the second one, same in H2K. Finally I joined G2, where first year was worse than the second one. We won two titles and MSI, but you never know what happens next year. Maybe G2 decides I'm too old and they'll take a new jungler that's younger than me and has a lot of potential to learn the game. Maybe I won't be able to agree on a contract with G2, and maybe something totally random happens. A lot can happen. It's not like I think I'm gonna stop soon, it's more about insurance in case something unexpected happens. Right now I still want to play because I feel like I'm still good. It's been the best year of my career so far and it'd be dumb to leave now. On the other hand there are players who're not able to climb higher, so they decide to leave after good years. If I won Worlds I'd have incredible year behind me, where I won everything possible. Maybe it'd be good to walk away on that kind of high, instead of playing and going down from that level.
What changed in you? Last year you've reached semifinals at Worlds, it's a big success but now you're aiming for more.
I think we play better as a team and we all trust eachother. I learn from my team and my team learns from me. Because all our players are insanely talented I don't have to worry about helping someone. I play more for myself. If I can lead the early game, I can leave the rest on the shoulders of Caps or Perkz. We have different mentality compared to my previous teams and during each BO5 I feel like we're getting stronger with every game. When we find ourselves in the situation when we're 1:2 down, we already have picks ready for game 5, so if we win game 4, the 5th one is free. I've never had that kind of atmosphere in the team before. I think my success is in huge part thanks to my teammate and I hope they think the same about me.
For some it would seem strange. You're a real all-star team, all of you have strong characters and wants to stand out. You, Perkz and Caps seem like very energetic guys. Was it hard to mash all these personalities together?
We're all similar so it's really not a problem. There are situations when we don't agree on something about the game, but we always come to some agreement. There are also moments when we're mad at eachother but we leave it behind because we have to win and be the best. We've had some days when scrims were incredibly bad, perhaps because we were too full of ourselves, that's why we played worse. Perhaps we thought we're the best, so we didn't care about scrims as much. I obviously hope it's not gonna happen during Worlds and we will always try 100%. Not everyone can see what kind of problems G2 have, even though there's not a lot of them.
You said that if you win game 4, you're confident that you'll also win game 5. FNATIC forced you twice to play the full series, why is that?
Perkz has that meme about us, that game 1 is a warmup and we're not playing too well, that's why we often lose these. However I don't think it's that. I think our drafts in game 1 and 3 were... average. I'd say picking Kled blind, when they countered us with Jax twice was kinda pointless. We also didn't have good matchups mid and bot. To be honest, good draft is like 75-80% what decides who wins the game. If you have good draft it's very easy to win the game. If the drafts are even then both teams have similar chances, but on the highest level if one team manages to outdraft someone, then I think the game is over right there. I wouldn't say FNATIC outdrafted us in game 1 and 3, but they had the adventage, just like we did in game 4 or 5, maybe even game 2.
Is there something that surprised or disappointed you during the summer split?
The biggest disappointment was the way we treated scrims sometimes. The biggest surprise was probably how hard the games against FNATIC were. Personally I thought we're a little bit better. Most of the mistakes we made came from our preparations, I hope that part is gonna get better during the bootcamp for Worlds. Obviously FNATIC improved a lot, I'm actually quite shocked how much they did since the spring split.
You talk about bootcamp for Worlds. Will it be standard SoloQ, scrims and practice or do you have something special prepared?
Practice is gonna be very standard and nothing will change compared to our usual routine in gaming house. The only difference is gonna be that we'll stay in London. We're going there because we didn't want to go to Korea for 2 weeks, just to come back and be jet lagged. By staying in Europe we'll be able to scrim with the teams from play-ins and also other good teams like FNATIC. The mood during our bootcamp should also be a bit different, we'll be in different place and not our gaming house. These are not gonna be the same days we usually have in our gaming house, enviroment will change. Everytime I've gone bootcamping to Korea, and I've been there 5 times already, the mood changed.
Is there something - a team or outcome - that you're scared of during Worlds?
One thing we can be kinda scared of is a tough group. We believe in our BO5, but in BO1 everything can happen. For example if we get a group with teams from China, Korea and then some team like Clutch Gaming, then making it out is not gonna be that easy. Obviously it's not something we're worried about, but it can make things harder. We look only at ourselves and it doesn't matter who we have to play. If we're good enough to win worlds, then we'll beat anyone anyway.
Are you looking at other EU teams in FNATIC and Splyce?
I don't look at them at all. Obviously I wish the best for other EU teams and if we were to meet them after groups then I'm all for it, but we're focused on ourselves. We're kind of allies and I wish them the best, but for us it doesn't matter if they make it out of groups.
For some time we can see on yours or your teams social media all kinds of banter, memes etc. Even after getting fined for Wunder's photo you're not changing the tone of your posts. Is it only kind of "social media game" or do you work to keep the image of "league's cool guys"?
Me and Wunder like World of Warcraft a lot, he played it non-stop before playoffs. One day before the FNATIC game in Athens he was also grinding. Fine came not because he played the game, but because there was a photo of him playing it on Riot's PC, it's not allowed. And it's not about being the "cool team", we just don't care what others do. If Wunder wants to play WoW all day, then I trust him enough that he'll be the best toplaner and will play well on stage. If he needs that to cooldown, get some break from the League and chill then he's free to do so. We often go out to eat dinner, watch movies or just leave the gaming house together to get closer as a team, but we still play a lot, probably more than other teams.
We've mentioned already that current season has been very good for you. Do you feel fulfilled as a player?
Worlds are something that I always wanted to achieve and every player would say, that he wants to win there. Worlds are the biggest achievment in League of Legends. My attitude didn't change, even though I have 2 titles of the LEC champion and the MSI title. It's not like I'm just sitting on the coach and think about it in any way. I don't play soloq and think about others "oh, you are bad because I won three times, so you're worse than me". I have the same attitude I've always had. I still want to be the best player and I hope, that we'll show that together with my team during Worlds. Can we win? We'll see. I feel confident, but I also don't want to claim we'll win for sure because you never know what happens.
Moving away from Worlds - do you have any goals for the next season already?
We didn't think about next season, even in the slightest. Right now only Worlds matters.
And I hope you can win and prove you're the best team in the world. Anything you'd want to say to your fans?
I'd like to thank my fans for supporting me and G2. I hope you'll keep doing it. We will show our best side at Worlds. I'd like to apologize for not streaming in Polish currently, but I want to focus on streaming in English. Like I said, more people can watch me, since I also have fans abroad. The English I use is very simple, so I hope my Polish fans will keep watching and supporting me. It's not like I left you or something!
