LYON Dhokla:”It’s frustrated [vibes], but you need that frustration over the course of this split — because we want to win.”

Q: Maybe I’m wrong, but this feels like a fairly palatable loss, all things considered. Am I wrong? Was today a brutal loss?

Dhokla: No, I don’t think this is a bad loss at all. […] We all made pretty small mistakes — I mean, I made pretty big mistakes, [so] outside of me.

I don’t think the series was particularly that meaningful, in the grand scheme of things. So for me, I’m not too concerned about it. It sucks that we lost, I feel like I just threw so much. I’m not necessarily concerned, because I just will fix that over the course of the split — it sucks that it happened, but yeah.

Q: How are vibes after the First Stand loss, returning to the LCS?

Dhokla: Vibes are fine. Just I mean, [it’s] after the loss just now, so that’s why they’re [just] fine. It’s just … I’m frustrated. We’re all frustrated with ourselves, in terms of just the mistakes that we made.

Just [for] myself, I just made it way too easy every time they’re like overloading on a side. I just died without really putting any resistance up, [which] gave them like free gold when they really don’t need it.

So I think we’re just frustrated with ourselves, but these are fixable mistakes — easily or not, [they’re things] we’re going to have to work on. So it’s frustrated [vibes], but you need that frustration over the course of this split — because we want to win, so we’re still [pushing] ourselves.

Q: Have you seen the narrative around LYON’s vibes and culture, especially about Inspired being toxic? It’s pretty disconnected from what I hear from you guys — where do you think that comes from?

Dhokla: I don’t necessarily know where it comes from. I mean, people have their own image from the FlyQuest documentary, but from my experience with Inspired in general, I feel like he’s probably the best teammate you could possibly want. 

[Inspired is] always tryharding, always critical of every mistake, and very objective — he doesn’t sugarcoat. It’s, like, really easy to [play]. That’s exactly what you want in a teammate. He tries hard every single time, very objective oriented, understands why we’re losing clearly and then points it out. Yes, he comes across blunt, but it’s not really a big deal. Like I would much rather have this than like any passive teammate that doesn’t necessarily say any issue that’s wrong in the team.

I’m so happy because every issue gets addressed immediately, and there’s nothing to really worry about — it’s like, “Yeah, we’re just going to talk it through [for the] next play.” And then yeah, there’s frustration along the way, but that’s going to [happen] with every team.

I just don’t understand where this perspective comes from. Team environments aren’t supposed to be [only happy] —  you’re trying to win, and sometimes you have to be uncomfortable to win. That’s totally fine and understandable, at least to me.

Q: Do you feel like you guys have evolved your style over time? Is that because of meta changes or just getting more comfortable with each other?

Dhokla: Yeah, it’s really game-by-game basis. There’s [nothing more to it] — if it looks good in this situation in the game, [you pick it]. You just have to be objective about like what’s good in the game at that current moment — draft wise, invade wise, gameplay wise.

It’s just [about identifying] what’s good in the moment. You have to be able to adapt on the fly. That’s just how you want to play League optimally. Whatever you guys see from that, then that’s what we’re trying to do, and there’s just not much more to it than that.

I’ve been asked this before, and at First Stand — I don’t really know what you guys want me to say. We’re playing it. If it looks good, it looks good. It’s just that simple. If it looks like the right play then we’re gonna go for it.

Q: People often put players into playstyle boxes, and flexibility feels really important internationally. I think people want a sense of how much time you’re spending honing that flexibility, as a team.

Dhokla: I mean, it’s… Again, if it looks good at the moment, you’re gonna play it. I feel like I’ve been playing for a while now — I can play most champs to a high level and it’s not necessarily complex to figure out [how to pilot] a certain champ. It’s really not that hard if you’ve been playing pro for forever.

So it’s like everyone can play these champs, it’s just people’s comfortability [and] willingness to do it. And that’s like a personal thing. That’s an out of game issue.

Q: Coming back from First Stand, have you gotten a sense of team strength? Which teams are pushing closest to the top right now?

Dhokla: I don’t know, we haven’t scrimmed every single team. I don’t think we’ve scrimmed DIG yet — [or] C9, obviously, since we played them. I don’t know, coming after First Stand I’m just really focused on ourselves. I don’t necessarily see any opponents or teams as a threat [that] we’re gonna have to strategize against [in order to] them to take them down. It’s really just like … Just play well.

Like this game, I just made so many mistakes — and we should have won Game 2 if I wasn’t so far behind, probably. Because I just gave such a [clear] way back into the game.

That’s probably what I’m gonna focus my time on, just like why I messed it up. It’s not necessarily [about] who we’re playing against and shit like that. We just need to do better individually for ourselves, so we can [become] the best version of ourselves. It doesn’t really matter who we play.

Header Image Credit: Riot Games