FLY Massu: “We were beating everyone as much as they were beating us in scrims. We were doing pretty well.”

Q: Does this feel like three horrible losses to you too? To me, this feels like such a brutal loss.

Massu: Yep. I mean, I feel very similar. We lost some very winnable games, I think. I mean, I hate the cliché of saying it or kind of.. discrediting the opponent, but I think we did actually just lose to ourselves, so it feels extra bad.

Q: It feels different than the GEN series. Losing with a Kalista draft, throwing ultra late, playing that Game 5 draft…

Massu: Yeah. I mean, especially Games 2 and 3. You said we got nailed in the Kalista draft, but I really think that’s a game that should be very easy for me to carry — I think I just played really bad. I think me and Busio together, we didn’t play so well.

And then Game three, we had some mistakes when we were in a good position — then we came back, and then we just messed up the end angle, which feels so bad.

Game 5, honestly, I think there were too many disasters for me to know how it would have [gone]. Like, I lost my cleanse and my entire health bar level 1. And then we had the top 4v4 where we got aced pretty much.

Honestly, that game, if we went into 1 item, 2 items even — or even slightly behind — I think we would be way stronger than the enemy team. It just feels bad that we’re making such costly mistakes.

Q: Can you visualize moving on from a loss like this?

Massu: I mean, for sure, I have to — and we have to, as a team — get over this. We have to use this MSI and really, like, learn where we were short, learn why we are making these mistakes, learn the reason behind our decisions, [and make] more accurate decisions.

It really hurts right now, and it really feels like shit. But I think it’s honestly just the loss [we needed] to take.

For me, [this MSI] really gave me a lot of hope [because] of how beatable every team is — and how far we’ve come from last year’s Worlds. So I think if we just continue to improve, and we take this loss—

Q: You don’t think the tilt’s gonna hit you? This feels like a loss that leaves anger/regret/tilt under the surface for ages.

Massu: I think that just depends on your teammates, [and] their personalities.

I think if everyone, like, secretly hates each other now — or everyone was, like, blaming another person for the loss — and then we don’t talk about it, we don’t review the games, then … of course, that’s bound to [cause] an issue. But that’s just not the team we are.

That’s just not how we are as teammates or players. I think we’ll talk about the issues that happened, talk about why it happened. […] And I think that will just help everyone process everything and kind of know what to do moving forward.

Q: I really liked your Gumayousef tweet, and you performed really well individually that day. But a lot of people feel you haven’t lived up to your expectations from Worlds. Are they just wrong? Is it a champ thing? Are they lying to slander you?

Massu: I don’t think anyone’s lying. I think people just have different perspectives and opinions.

But I think I played decently: I don’t think I played good, I don’t think I played like shit. I think at Worlds, I played just a lot more flashy hyper carries. 

I played a lot of Kai’sa, a lot of Kalista; I’m bound to get moments where I take over the game.

I think I’m a better player than I was at Worlds, so it’s hard for me to say I played better at Worlds — because I don’t think I did.

But this meta is just like, I’m playing a lot of Varus. I’m playing a lot of Ezreal, Senna, Jhin. All these champs are, like, champs that are able to control the game and make it easier for your team to play. They’re not exactly champs where you’re just gonna get into a teamfight and then come out with a pentakill, and it’s gonna look super cool.

It’s just champs where you set up control, you take control, you poke well, you hold zones, you push waves and make sure [to deny] vision, and then you go around the map and try to make plays — which is different from playing Kai’Sa, getting into teamfights, and kind of killing everyone.

Q: Busio alluded to this. Did you really — in your heart of hearts — think you could win this tournament?

Massu: Yeah. Of course. I had a big feeling that we could win this entire thing. […]

I would say it just depends on how you handle these kinds of things. When we first came to MSI, when we first came to scrim international teams, the first few games were super hard — we were getting stomped pretty hard in the first couple days.

And then, after that, your confidence comes from knowing yourself, knowing your level, and knowing that there’s a lot of room to improve — and then it also comes from performing. So when we scrimmed Gen.G, when we scrimmed T1, when we scrimmed AL, all of us were doing pretty well.

We were doing well individually, and we were doing well as a team.

We had no reason to think [we couldn’t] beat anyone — because we were beating everyone as much as they were beating us in scrims. We were doing pretty well.

Q: Is that a different mindset than last Worlds? The feeling that “We’re good enough to actually *be* the best team in the world”?

Massu: I think so. I think last Worlds — I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself — I was still pretty inexperienced. I think I was still, honestly, not very good, and I had a lot of stuff to get better at.

Whenever we played against the best of the best at Worlds, we did get stomped regularly. So at that time, it felt like, “Wow, they’re just so much better. It’s kind of unreachable.” 

But then, as this international happened, as I’ve been watching throughout this entire year and [noticing] my gameplay … I think we have a lot of potential as a team, as individuals — I think we’re just a pretty good team.

And we still have a lot of room for improvement, so that’s what gives me a lot of hope. That’s what changed my mindset [compared to] Worlds.