APA: “Man, our team this year was so fucking trash to each other.”

Q: In a TL vlog, you seemed to already know that you wouldn’t be with the team for 2026. How has it been processing and preparing for your next team? 

APA: I don’t think it was tough to palate. It wasn’t easy, but it was something that I expected. [But still] something that I didn’t want to happen. 

To give a brief timeline, [right after we lost in August], we have our meetings with Dodo the day after. TL was super transparent with everything – they said, “We’re probably not gonna continue forward with you, but there’s still a chance. So we’re gonna go away for a month and A. Take a break, but B. Discuss within ourselves what’s gonna happen and what we actually wanna do for next year.”

So, I took a month off. I went to my brother’s wedding, was home for a little bit, chilled. And I came back in October. So the start of this month is when everything started to happen for me. I had another meeting with Dodo, and he was, as I said, super transparent. He just came out and was like, we’re not going to continue with you. We’re going to let you explore options elsewhere. We’re going to keep you under contract, but you can explore options elsewhere.

And yeah, that’s kind of that. But TL is honestly one of the great orgs. I mean, maybe I’m just naive and I don’t understand other orgs, but I’m still living in their apartments. I’m still using their office — if you watched my stream earlier, I’m still at the TL office. I still have benefits to their food because they have a chef that cooks twice a day for all the office workers. I’m still eating most of my meals from the chef.

All the perks of being on Team Liquid are still there, even though I’m not going to be here in a month or whatever. They said whenever I can find my next team is when I’ll have to move out. They’re very nice about it.

Q: How has that search gone? Because you knew for sure in early October, but before that, you were probably already thinking ahead. What’s your mindset like when looking for a new team, especially since this is your first time actually choosing one?

APA: Yeah. The offseason for like Academy way back three years ago was definitely a fake offseason. I think I had like eight Academy offers then, back when Academy was still a thing. I was just like, “Team Liquid is probably the best.” I just chose the best org I had. 

Yeah, so I didn’t really do much until I had the conversation with Dodo. And then once he told me, he said [Team Liquid] would reach out to teams for me, but I didn’t really trust it. They probably would’ve just been like, hey, this guy’s free, rather than actually trying to sell me to the team. So through friends I knew, I tried to [reach out to] the GMs for teams. 

It’s not technically public yet, but I’m talking with Curry. Curry’s my agent now, and he’s helping me out through the offseason as well. Honestly, the first thing I did was schedule a meeting with Curry because of Impact. Me and Impact obviously knew even before the meeting with Dodo. So I was talking to Impact about helping me get an agent, so he hooked me up with Curry. 

Literally the first thing I did was just reach out to GMs. It was just like a blanket message like, Team Liquid allowing me to explore options going into 2026. I’m going to be a free agent. I would say like 80% of the teams I messaged reached back out to me, but I reached out to a lot of teams. I reached out to all NA teams and all EU teams.

Q: So you’re seriously considering LEC?

APA: I mean… You know, I’m a competitor. I want to win. If my EU offer is the best offer, why would I not take it over something else?

Q: What’s your process for filtering out options? What kind of team or coach are you looking for? Are there lessons from TL that shape what you want next?

APA: No one specifically. Obviously […] there are better orgs in every league and there are worse orgs. That’s just how it is. But no one in particular. Like I said, I just want to win. So at the end of the day, I’m probably going to choose the best roster that I think suits me as a player. Of course, money is a factor, but if offers are the same, I’m definitely going to try to go to the best roster. So it’s generally just my biggest criteria — if I think that roster can be good, that’s probably the roster I’m going to choose.

I’m not saying I’m getting showered with 20 offers or anything. A few of the conversations [I’ve had have] been fruitful with the GMs I’ve talked to so far. So whatever comes of it, I’ll look, talk it over with myself, and message people I know who’ve either been on that team before or worked with those people before. Just like, “Hey, what’s it like working with this player?” and go from there.

Q: Impact’s considering coaching — have you talked to him about following him to the team he could end up coaching for?

APA: I haven’t discussed it with him too much. I think Impact has a great mind for the game, but from my conversation with him [around] two weeks ago, I do think he wanted to stay more as a player than a coach. But I’m sure he’s not going to want to go to, you know, an eighth-place LCS team just to keep playing. So if it’s like eighth place LCS or [coaching], he’d probably take the coaching option. But I’m not sure. I do know he wants to stay as a player, based on what offers he gets, only time will tell. 

Q: TL has locked Quid, who they were pursuing heavily. You had that meme tweet about it. Can you clarify that and share how you feel about Quid joining TL?

APA: Yeah, I even reached out to him and told him — and our conversation was short — but I said, “I don’t know what offers you’re considering, or what they actually are, but I think TL is a great org. If things are similar, you should probably go to TL. They treat you great. My life has been pretty easy the past few years living at Team Liquid and, for better or worse, I’ve enjoyed it.” “”

So like, if anyone were to come here, I’m happy for him. I wouldn’t want just some random LCK Challenger mid to come in and take the spot, so if anyone, I’m happy it’s him.

Q: How do you think your community reputation compares to how people in the scene view you?

APA: I think my community perception is pretty bad. I had nothing but time, so I’ve read a lot of stuff that’s happened over the past split. I know a ton of people were blaming UmTi when he was on the team, and then once he left, they needed a new guy to flame so it was like me and Impact. I know to the community, we’re not that good, but I’ve said this before: I’d be happy to work with literally all of the members I’ve worked with on Team Liquid. It’s just that as a full roster, we weren’t compatible. 

Like I said, I think the community perception [of me] is bad, but I honestly still believe I can be a top three mid. I don’t think I showcased that this split, and maybe a little bit of last split. But the first split of the year I was top two, honestly. I would say top two. I think me and Quid were top two mids. Then last year, I think I was always a top three mid except for the start of the split. So like, I still think I’m fucking good. And even if I end up on a lower tier team, I’ll do my best to elevate.

And a lot of what I’ve taken away from this year is just how to become a better teammate. Because man, our team this year was so fucking trash to each other.

Q: You’ve said you’d work with everyone again, but would they say the same? How did the team dynamics really feel by the end?

APA: I know people would be willing to work with at least some others. To be completely honest, I’m not going to name names, but some people really didn’t like UmTi on the team, for example — especially this year. Not as a person, but as a player. But the reason I say that is because as people, I really liked my team. I still message a lot of them pretty often. Honestly, Core is really the only one I don’t message much, and that’s mostly just because he’s a decade older than me and we don’t really have much in common.

He’s got a wife, he’s a homeowner. I’m playing League 18 hours a day and watching Worlds when I’m not sleeping. But yeah, I’d say I talk to everyone else relatively often — Yeon was in my stream earlier, I talked to UmTi the other day. [Would] everyone say they want to work with each other again? Probably not. But I think they’d be willing to work with most players again.

Q: Spawn said things were going well in scrims before summer, but later described the team environment as one of the worst. How do you see that?

APA: I think even last year when we were a good team, we didn’t have the best environment, but we were so good that we could just ignore things. A lot of last year’s baggage carried over. When the whole thing with UmTi started happening — dealing with mental health stuff and underperforming at the same time — it just became a never-ending spiral.

Q: I wanted to ask about FlyQuest. What do you think went wrong for them, since it sounds similar to what TL went through?

APA: I think things like that just happen to really good teams. I even said earlier in the split that it seemed like FlyQuest was kind of falling apart. You could tell based on scrims and everything that they were losing trust within each other. They’re still five good players, so they made it work — same as we did last year — but you could tell it was a ticking time bomb. It sucks that they ended up mental booming at Worlds and underperformed their expectations, but it happens to a lot of rosters. Look at half the Chinese teams this Worlds, you think BLG didn’t mental boom too?

Q: Is that something you’ll consider more when choosing a team — like finding a good environment or “power of friendship” team?

APA: It’s certainly something to consider. I think a lot of what I’m thinking right now about offseason and game theory is that League is such a team-based game right now that even standout performances are hard to carry. For example, Viper game two versus Gen.G – I actually think he had an insanely good Ziggs game. They could have won the game at certain times, but I still think he played insanely well and they still lost.

So as a team, you need to have the same idea about the game, and a lot of that comes from being able to have conversations. If you’re friends with a guy, it’s much easier to have a conversation than when you fucking hate him.

Q: Do you want to say anything to your fans or to fans of your future team?

APA: I’m definitely staying in tier 1, that’s the teaser I’ll give. To be honest, I don’t know where or even which region yet. The only thing I do want to say is I hope this offseason NA talent gets more chances. Talking with other teams, I’m realizing what they’re putting in for their rosters, and fuck man, there’s not a lot of NA players. Even if you look at mids, if I go to another region like LEC, there’s genuinely a chance there will be zero NA mids. That’s sad to think about.

I hope more NA rookies get chances—whether it’s mid laners or anyone else—and not just one-split chances like ScaryJerry got. Or Yuuji, honestly. I think he’s good, but he’s considered an import, which really screws him. He’s competing against import slots every team wants to fill. So yeah, I hope NA rosters pick up more NA-native players. 

Of course esports is a competition, we have to win, but only one team wins. Only 2 teams are going to MSI, 3 teams going to Worlds. That’s a lot of slots for NA players.

Transcription help from @midjglsynergy

Header Image via Riot Games