FLY Massu: “Me and Busio, we’ve been pretty consistent throughout our two years… I think our relationship is very authentic.”

Q: I like the fits you guys have going for Worlds. How are you feeling?

Massu: Pretty good. For our fits, yeah, I mean, our designer never misses, so it’s hard to look bad when she’s making this merch.

And how we’re feeling — we came to Korea about 10 days ago to get used to the jet lag and kind of just boot camp for a bit. And it was pretty good. I think all of us pretty much got over the time zone difference while staying in Korea. So we had a pretty good head start there.

Q: How are scrims going? You guys have been just smashing Gen.G 5-0 every block, right?

Massu: *laughs* I mean, of course, they don’t even scrim us anymore.

Our scrims have been pretty decent. They’ve been honestly pretty even. We played against a lot of different teams and the outcome has been pretty even most of the time — like win three games, lose three games, or go 2-2, stuff like that.

I feel like we’re not losing too hard, but we’re not winning too hard at the same time. We’ve been decently consistent.

Q: Domestically, people feared that since no one could push you to be active early, you guys are going to have to learn that pace of play really quickly during the bootcamp. Is that something you felt or is that all just outsider chatter?

Massu: I think most of the time, if you’re not really keen or very knowledgeable about the game or a pro player, it’s kind of hard to see the small things that happen in the game.

And even though I do think sometimes, for sure, the sentiment is correct — we are passive and we do tend to wait for the enemy to make a mistake sometimes. Usually, if the early game… we don’t make it explosive by diving, taking kills, or being super bloody, usually, we get advantages through having prios in some lanes, keeping that tempo, and then getting control over the map and we slowly get a gold lead that way. So it’s not like we’re AFK at all in the early game, but it is true sometimes we are passive when I think we are stronger than the enemy team.

And that’s of course something that you have to face when you come internationally, because the confidence of these teams is very, very high. And when they think they are stronger than you, they will just smack you in the face and it’s definitely something to learn from.

Q: Assemble a team of Worlds players to defend against the other 80 in a zombie apocalypse. You’ll get prep time.

Massu: It’s not like you really need someone to make some tactics for the 5v80. I feel like —

Q: Maybe they can come up with a weapon, create something.

Massu: That is true. I mean, a weapon — this is going to turn into a complete massacre.

[Top] Alan [Busio] is pretty jacked, but I can’t see him hurting anything. So I think he might be useless. I’ll go with Bwipo. […] He’d be a good first pick.

[Jungle] Tarzan has a big frame, yeah, but I’m thinking between him and Oner. I might have to go with Oner.

[Mid] Zeka’s pretty jacked and he’s also pretty built, so I feel like he could handle maybe like 10 players on his own.

[Supp] And then support — I think I’ll still take Busio, even though he might run away from the fight, I think it would be good.

Q: Assuming language isn’t an issue, which player (from another region) would you like to go on a dinner date with?

Massu: Yeah, I’ll say Viper.

Q: Viper? He’s your favorite player, right? Is that who you want to face most in Swiss?

Massu: He’s one of my favorite players for sure. And I would love to face him again — we played last year at Worlds and I feel like I’ve gotten much better since then, so I would love to go against him again. He’s just a very good player. Also, you know, a dinner date would be fun because you said language barrier is not an issue, and I already thought of him before that because he’s also pretty fluent in English from what I heard. And you know… he’s a handsome guy.

Q: What do you think of CFO and G2 relative to your level?

Massu: I haven’t watched much of CFO in their most recent split. Of course, I saw a lot of them at MSI. They’re for sure a pretty good team. I think they use their six-man roster pretty well to get some good draft advantages, and all their players are good — but especially their mid-jungle is very good. Their mid laner is very aggressive and he seems to play every lane on a knife’s edge.

They’re pretty strong for sure, and G2… they look way way better than they did at MSI. I think Skewmond and Labrov have improved quite a bit since the last international, so they’re also a much stronger team. Their team play has gone way up as well. Hans Sama’s in good form, so I think they should also be quite the strong team. I would place them pretty close to us.

Q: What’s going to help your romance/bromance with Busio be stronger than other major bromances, like Guma/Keria or Rookie and TheShy?

Massu: That’s a good question. I mean… Rookie and TheShy, they’ve been together for what — seven years? Like not on the same team together, but yeah. I feel like, you know, me and Busio, we’ve been pretty consistent throughout our two years. And I feel like even after the honeymoon phase went away, we still like each other.

I think our relationship is very authentic. I don’t know about the other teams, I haven’t been keeping up too much with their posts — I don’t know what’s happening. So I feel like we’ve got the authenticity.

Transcript edits by @delfidotwav