Q: How are you feeling about that performance?
Rigby: In both games, we had points in the game where we had to fight away and then wait — the power spike was changing. In those situations, I think like we were still being so confident, it was basically the biggest mistake.
We think we’re stronger, [but] we had all the information [to know better]. So we could have made the right decision, but in the game we just felt like we could win those fights.
Q: Has Lira’s experience helped with that?
Rigby: He knows [the game] well — when looking at the map, [analyzing conditions] Lira’s still good at that. But laners are giving information like “Oh enemy is stronger than me” or “Enemy can move first,” or something, but he hasn’t been a player for five years. It’s hard for him to actually be the decisive figure.
[That said,] with the information, we should be able to like judge apart from Lira too, but it just felt like we wanted to fight when we shouldn’t have, right? There were clues that we shouldn’t have fought, and just traded on sides. That was like the biggest thing for game one. The main review was about [how] if you’re behind in the situation you can just swap it back — give one objective and swap it back. Then get our tempo next timer.
In the second game, [we were always] just trying to match the lanes as we wanted. Our tempo got delayed, and after that we just wanted the wave. […] I think generally, today’s first two compositions are not that easy to execute. Even though it’s just a good composition with all 5 of our champions, it doesn’t have special interactions with the enemy’s five champions.
It’s because we have to fit into jungle’s champion pool — we have a specific amount of jungle champions we’re comfortable on at this point because there was limited practice. Those were the champions that were played today and we built around those champions. That was the best we can do, and I mean there’s a lot of improvement we have to show. And there’s the first time playing on stage too. […]
And [since Sheiden couldn’t play this week] Lira has been playing six games because he needs enough practice. So Sheiden [will need] more games for next week too. So that’s also the situation.
Q: So what’s the situation with Sheiden’s arrival?
Rigby: Like Lira and him were like splitting scrims and then we don’t know when he’s gonna arrive but he’s gonna lack scrims too. That’s kind of the hard situation that we’re in right now. [We have to] do our best to figure out the best [solution].
Q: How do you feel about DSG (on match day vs TL)?
Rigby: I mean, it is just what it is — Visa issues are not about an in-game issue. We just have to solve it as fast as possible. There were a lot of processes that had to be done. Yeah, so, not really thinking about [DSG]. Today was kind of good, but kind of bad. […]
I’ll have to go break down the games because I saw the second DSG game [after we arrived], and there was so many big [problems] in our games too. But I think our teamfighting proved the point, because like whether [despite being] so behind the game, we managed to win fights.
We were only understanding our comp in fights, not how to play the comp out in general. But, I mean, every opponent’s the same. If you play well, we’re gonna win. If you play bad, we’re gonna lose. I don’t think it has like something special to do with DSG. There could be like some draft advantages, [though] with Abbedagge’s champ pool.
[…]
If you’re just looking at DIG and DSG, I think we are a favorite and able to win it, but it’s really hard to make in-game decisions because members are changing. It’s kind of a hard situation to [operate] as one, and I think that should be our goal regardless of who our opponent is.
Q: Even with Sheiden, the team won’t have a veteran leader on the roster. How do you plan to address that?
Rigby: Right now, even LPL, jungles are like full clearer, which means their [power level] is important, and then they fight with their item advantage. Level 6 spike is really important in this meta, but Lira is in a situation where he can’t be confidently decisive, because of his break. And then he’s playing with a new team and it’s a strange mindset to start as a coach and move on to be a player.
Sheiden on the other hand, he’s the one clicking the [engage] button no matter what when he sees the angle. When Sheiden’s in, he gets to read the situation from Lira [as his coach], we have a pretty high chance of getting to a better place. The past scrims, it’s just everyone inting from time to time. That’s rotational, so our results aren’t that bright.
But we understand the constraints that we have, Lira had to get comfortable on the champs he plays, teamfight practice, objective macro, and the last should’ve been him making crucial calls on what to do — but that’s not something you reach in two weeks of practice. And when Sheiden’s playing he has to learn the same thing too.
Q: Thoughts on streaming scrims?
Rigby: FLY and TL have the same roster they did well with last year, so if they’re consistently opening scrims for other lower teams to learn from that and get better from that, I think that makes sense. The biggest reason to do that is for the fans — from the fan perspective it’s good to have, but it’ll depend on how each team feels. […]
Actually we’ll have to see [if teams will do it], because of [for example] all of the information in laneswaps, like ward placement. They’re open, because they think other teams can learn from that. But what about lower bracket teams? Their point doesn’t stand for lower bracket teams. If they’re just constantly playing TL in scrims and it’s just the two strongest teams in our region open scrimming and sharing info, I get the idea that they’re bringing up the region — you should watch and learn.
But if they’re scrimming DSG or us, because they’re just a better team at this point, they just shit on us regardless [and we give up info]. So then the point doesn’t stand. I don’t know what their intention is, but if their intention is to make the whole region better, it needs a little bit more adjustment. If it’s just for the fans, it’s completely fine.