SEN Goldenglue: “We played worse than we should have, considering our condition.”

Press Conference after SEN’s loss to C9 at the Americas Cup

Q: What happened today?

Goldenglue: Well, we lost. I think the games were, what do I say? Let’s say … muy malos. My god, those are pretty bad games. Like, I feel like both teams didn’t look very good. I think both teams looked very sloppy — I think we looked obviously a little bit worse.

I think as a team, we played a bit more connected today, but individually there were a lot of errors and a lot of people getting picked. We have a lot to improve on, I think.

Dayos: I agree with everything that Grayson said. I think that obviously we’re not very happy with the result. I think that regardless of who won today, if we showed this level of gameplay versus FURIA tomorrow, we were going to lose.

I think, you know, obviously it sucks on our end, but for the hope of NA, I hope that C9 are able to show a better performance tomorrow and for ourselves to take the lessons we learned today and be a lot stronger and be better for the next split.

Q: How would you rate your experience in Brazil so far?

Goldenglue: Yeah, this is my second time coming to Brazil because I was here last year.

Honestly, I always had a pretty good time last year. I’m having a really good time this year. I think the food is really nice and I think the people are especially friendly. So it was a good time, and I’m excited to come back whenever we make it back here for whatever next event.

Dayos: I mean honestly, I love Brazil. I’m Filipino, and Brazil reminds me a lot of the Philippines. I haven’t been back home for almost 10 years now. So many things are similar: People are really friendly, the traffic is crazy, [and] when we were driving back home we saw a tree on fire. And I’m like, “I’ve seen that too, back home” — so it feels very familiar.

Yeah, just what he said. And I think the food is really awesome. I post the photos online.

It’s really great. The people are really nice. I’ve been to the LCS [arena] before on Immortals, and the experience compared to here is, like, way different. In between the games, a FURIA fan came up to me. and he gave me a Pokemon card from his own collection. It was really heartwarming. So even though we lost, I’m like “Oh, I got a Pokemon card.”

But yeah, I love it here. It’s really great.

Q: What do you think changed on the team since Wednesday?

Goldenglue: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’ve been asking myself the same thing.

Because when we played on the first day, it would have made the most sense to look like shit — with jet lag and all the travel. But the first day, we played pretty well. So it almost felt like we had a delayed onset.

I don’t want to blame it on jet lag or anything like that, but I do feel like people’s condition was a little bit worse. I think one or two players started to feel like they might have a cold.

And I think just some of [us are] just adjusting to being on the road and traveling. And I think that, from a mindset perspective, people were a bit more rigid and a bit more stressed. I’m still trying to figure out exactly why that is, but that’s kind of what it felt like to me.

Dayos: Yeah, I agree. I think when you compete internationally, the first hurdle is always how do you make yourself most comfortable and show your highest level.

Funnily enough, when we first arrived, we were probably our most comfortable. And then as the days went by, we got worse sleep, maybe people didn’t eat that well.

I think it’s an important lesson for all of us, including myself — I felt like, as the days went by, I was a bit foggier in the brain. That could have resulted in some poor draft decisions or anything along the lines of that.

And then the second part, I think competition requires a lot of stress and durability. Not to say that this is the reason, but when FURIA beats C9, it’s really easy for us to feel confident, right? Because we haven’t played FURIA ourselves, and we’re like, “Oh, C9’s really playing poorly.”

And then we play FURIA, and then we lose — […] now the stress compounds, right?

You start second guessing the picks that you believe you’re good at. You start second guessing the things that you believe you’re good at. And when that happens, you need to reach deep down and go, “No, we are good at these things.”

But I felt like we were shaken. And when you’re shaken, you’re going to look sloppy. And we looked really sloppy on stage.

Q: Did this tournament help teach you how to compete against international competition?

Goldenglue: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s really good that we’re able to get this experience traveling and playing in international competitions as a team. We are a new team, and I think everyone’s expectations of us were [below] top three.

So I think it’s really good that we got to see how people are when they’re under more stress, and so we can have better solutions going forward. [Now], we kind of know what to expect out of how people are going to react to the travel and playing versus [new teams]. So I think there’s a lot of valuable lessons to be learned for everyone. I am very happy that we got this opportunity.

Dayos: Yeah, I agree. I think every region has their own best team. And that best team kind of dribbles down in terms of what they teach.

For example, North America. I think everyone agrees that Inspired is the best jungle in North America, right? As a result, a lot of the junglers play like Inspired here.

To be honest, I don’t know what makes LOUD that good, but I would say FURIA and Red Canids, [as] top two and three, [have] a lot of aggression, a lot of confidence and showiness. They’re kind of styling on you — that’s how they’re able to win their games.

For us, it’s like, “Okay, now we know what it looks like. Even though the setup isn’t that good, the situation around isn’t that good, if you just step up and you take a lot of space, the enemy team will make a mistake.”

If you play versus China, maybe we’ll learn how they handle the early aggression.

If you play versus Korea … GG! Just joking — if you play versus Korea, we’ll [also] learn a couple of new things. So yeah, really happy about the experience.

Q: What did you learn about the team’s strengths and weaknesses moving forward?

Goldenglue: I’ve learned that I think we’d be pretty inconsistent with keeping our sleep regimen and our lifestyle regimens when we travel.

I will say it’s kind of hard for me as well because I think there weren’t very many opportunities for me to get outside and walk a lot — because we were just practicing so much as we got here, and [I couldn’t] get my daily vitamin D.

I think everyone kind of felt the same way. I don’t want to go into the specifics exactly, but I kind of saw how the travel affects our team, and who gets more stressed […] from that kind of stuff. Going forward, I can now make a plan for those players, so when we travel we need to be doing things like this two days before we travel.

We kind of already did that, but now I got to see who followed it, and who I need to put more attention to — in order to make sure that they follow our travel regimen.

Dayos: Honestly, I forgot the question. Can you say the question again? I forgot. I’m so sorry. When I was listening, it made a lot of sense. And then I was like, what am I supposed to say again? […] 

I think one of our team’s strengths, and our performance coach David says this all the time, is that when we try to learn something, we learn it. And I think one of our weaknesses is that when we learn something new, we forget [the previous thing].

So I think, next split, it’s all about making sure that when we do learn something, it’s bone deep — and we maintain it going into the other weeks, even when we’re trying to understand other things.

Because I think it’s very easy to say that Sentinels, as a team, is very strong and that we have a lot of potential. You guys have seen us at our best, but you’ve also seen us at our worst, and it goes up and down.

Goldenglue: I think I actually misheard the question as well when I gave my answer, but I agree with what Dayos said about strengths and weaknesses.

I think one thing I’d like to add is that our strength is our ability to play together as a team. And I think one of our weaknesses is — it kind of coincides — [our individual play]. I really want us to focus more on our individual gameplay, and make that the focus for next split.

Q: How has Sentinels changed since arriving in Brazil?

Dayos: I think it helped a lot. Like I said earlier, you just get punished differently.

I think that in our own region people were very rigid in the early game, and as a result it was pretty mathed out. But here when we played versus Brazilian teams, they were more willing to do different things.

I also think that there’s different draft priorities. You learn a lot about what champions they think are strong, and we can also look at how strong these champions are and be willing to play them ourselves.

Specifically for Red Canids, I would say the main thing that we learned was… What was the main thing we learned from Red Canids? Oh god, it was so long ago. Even though it wasn’t that long ago, there were so many games.

I think the main thing that we learned from Red Canids was the importance of connecting.

Because Grayson said earlier that as a team, one of our biggest strengths was connecting — but I think versus them, we weren’t doing that great of a job of it.

So it’s like, “Okay, why was this not happening versus them?” — then we tried putting emphasis on that going into FURIA, like “Right guys, we need to play more connected.”

Then I think versus FURIA we had a lot of individual mistakes. So it’s like “Okay, well this is kind of awkward now.”

FURIA showed us the confidence. I talked about it in the last press conference, like Tatu going in and out [of fights].

I guess mainly [it comes down to] how we handle stress.

I think FURIA, when they were in stressful situations — because some of those games they were very close to losing — I felt like someone on the team kind of stood up and became like a superhero.

But with our team, when things were becoming hard, we were looking at other people to be the superhero. Sometimes you just have to step up and make something happen, and we didn’t really have that in those moments.

I think every time we’ve played against a Brazilian team, there’s always someone who tries to go for something that makes it happen. So I would say Brazilian teams taught us that we need to play better individually and look for those moments.

Goldenglue: I think playing against the Brazilian teams, one thing that I liked from them was I don’t feel like they followed the same meta — they’re kind of down to play what they think they’re good at and like combos.

I think they pulled out the Yasuo-Rakan one game. They banned Poppy for it.

I think they also prioritize things differently. Like FURIA, they prioritize Ashe-Seraphine really highly. We kind of copied that too, from playing Ashe-Seraphine today.

So I kind of like that they focus on what they’re good at and what they want to do, and they don’t really care that much about the meta. I think that’s something that I’m going to try to take back to North America.

Q: Where would you place FURIA relative to the LCS teams, considering that C9 and SEN have unanimously played worse — and had worse condition — than in LCS?

Goldenglue: I feel like… I do kind of agree with the sentiment that we’re definitely not at our best. Normally when we travel for internationals, we usually stay for at least a week before [the tournament] and get our jet lag over.

But we did play a good first match versus Red, so I think it is a little bit cope.

I think we played worse than our condition is, if that makes sense. Like we shouldn’t… we played worse than we should have, considering our condition.

If FURIA were to be in North America, I think they could be top four. They play to their strengths, and I think they kind of know their identity as a team — and I think that’s pretty strong. Right now in North America, us and Team Liquid are still trying to figure out their identity as a team. I think C9 and Lyon are the two teams that have, to me at least, the strongest identity as a team.

To me, FURIA have been together a while and they know how they like to play together — I think they could pretty easily make top four.

Dayos: Yeah, I agree with Grayson about how condition is cope. Guys, we’re playing a match. Everything that leads up to a match is within your control. So if your condition is bad, then maybe you should have done something better to put yourself in a better situation.

Because of that, I think it’s fair to say that FURIA in this tournament beat the third best LCS team and beat the second best LCS team — tomorrow they have a chance to do it again. If they do that, then I would say that just makes them top two or top three. If you’re asking like “Okay, let’s send FURIA to LCS and see how they do,” it’s kind of hard, right? Because that means they’re practicing differently, maybe they also have to travel — it’s just too many details.

But if we’re talking literally about what happened in front of our faces, that’s what happened. And on the topic of C9 playing worse, it’s true. But the thing is, in a season, you are not going to play your best 100% of the time — no team in the world is playing at 100 percent all the time.

But the best teams are still the best teams for a reason. I think that’s a lesson that they’re going to take, and it’s a lesson that we have to take.

Actually, is Worlds in North America this year? […] So it’s a lesson that other people have to take, because we’re going to be in North America and it’s not going to be that bad. But you know what I’m saying. So that’s it.

Header Image Credit: Riot Games