SR Contractz: “I always thought Bvoy was a toxic player before I joined the team. […] But he’s like, the complete opposite.”

Q: That was brutal. How do you deal with the emotions after such an unplayable series?

Contractz: It’s a pretty bad feeling. You feel like you didn’t even play League of Legends today. Like you just couldn’t breathe. Game 1 specifically, I don’t think we planned for their invade well enough.

I knew that they couldn’t invade topside, but I wasn’t really thinking about the Poppy coming to kinda fuck me over, so I didn’t really prep my bot lane well enough to cover me. She just hoarded me in my jungle for about a minute and a half. It was really cringe.

Q: After that, it’s just miserable for you.

Contractz: Yeah. After that point, it’s just recovery mode. They have very strong lanes in Taliyah and their bot lane, and they can kinda just keep applying the pressure. Pantheon getting an early 6, now he has pressure on the lanes. It’s a rough one for sure.

I was able to kinda stabilize after like, level 9, level 10. But at that point, I felt like I didn’t have any room to do anything in the game. It’s pretty hard.

But Game 2, I just kinda played really bad. I had a pretty decent advantage level 6, but I just misplayed the invade timer on bot. And then once we get triple killed versus their comp, it’s kinda cooked.

Q: Talk me through the choice behind the Kha’Zix. Isn’t it hard to play there?

Contractz: It’s just purely to abuse the jungle matchup. Kha’Zix is completely hard-winning one-on-one against Viego, and applied with a supportive mid laner like Galio, you can kinda just live in your jungle. I think the game would have been completely different if I played that level 6 timer better, if I ever got that lead.

But once you fall behind, especially versus those champs, it’s hard to play. It’s true that the Kha’Zix doesn’t have much value into the Sion lane, especially with Jayce. But I was hoping that we would just get a big enough advantage from mid-jungle to make it not really matter too much.

Q: In your Player of the Week interview, you talked about scrimming against Yuuji. You never played against him in NACL right?

Contractz: I’ve only played him in scrims a few times, handful of times.

Q: What did you think of his performance today?

Contractz: He played well. Like I said in my interview, I think I said he’s just very stable, low risk. He knows his role, and he’ll play to it. He’s not gonna make crazy plays for you, but he’ll make the solid, consistent play.

I think that’s what he did today, and he plays teamfights well, he plays skirmishes well. So yeah, he played well today.

Q: SR’s doing well, but how scary is the FLY matchup?

Contractz: I’m excited. I think the last time we played versus them, we gave them a good challenge. I mean, I respect Inspired a lot. I think he’s the best jungler in the league by far — it’s gonna be a hard one for sure.

I mean, they’ve had our number pretty much ever since [they’ve] been in the league, I’m not gonna lie. […] It’s always good to prove people wrong and beat the top dogs, so I’m looking forward to it, no doubt.

Q: “Inspired is number one,” is what everyone says. What is he doing better?

Contractz: Inspired just doesn’t really make many mistakes. He consistently makes solid decisions and just never really gives angles or puts himself in danger, and he’s just always playing the map very well.

He’s very meticulous, I guess. Methodical. […] He just really knows his role in the team comp no matter what champion he is. He could be playing a carry, he can play fights well, he can push his lead.

If he’s playing a facilitator, he knows the role of getting his team ahead. He just knows the win condition of the game always, and he plays to that very well — which most other junglers aren’t as consistent with.

Q: Any fun stories recently with the team?

The guy is just a complete troll and complete memer, and I just really wasn’t expecting that. So I think that’s the biggest surprise of Shopify so far, ever since I joined — just how funny of a guy Bvoy is.

Q: Going into playoffs, what’s your team strategy to align with eachother? Team massage, team spa trip, something like that?

Contractz: *laughs* That would be nice. It’d be relaxing. But no, I’m not sure. I think we’re just gonna try to go back to the basics because […] I think we’re disappointed a lot in ourselves for how we showed today.

Just because it feels like the last week of practice has been kinda so-so, I think maybe we thought we could take it easy, myself included. And I don’t know, today was kind of like a reality check, and we really need to focus on our fundamentals.

I think we got really loose after we won and started kind of forgetting the baby steps of things, and just need to go back to the basics. Like counting numbers, playing for tempo, all that jazz, because I think we were lacking a lot of that today.

Q: 100 Thieves have Riven and Naafiri in their draft versus DSG, so they’re doubling down on the ‘just out-teamfight them and get the win’ strategy.

Contractz: Yeah, [just win] your lane, get gold, get resources, and just fight better. That’s that comp.

Q: What’s your draft read on game one of 100T versus DSG?

Contractz: Well, honestly, these comps are kinda not bad. Pretty competitive. I think 100 Thieves’ comp can definitely fight a bit more just because DSG have Ziggs.

So I think if 100 Thieves play well around their numbers and don’t get kind of baited by looking for angles that don’t work into getting abused by Pantheon ult or Taliyah ult, they’ll be in a good spot. […]

[100T] can fight. They just need to fight around their numbers well, which I think they actually do, generally.

Q: Can you make a jungler tier list?

Contractz: I mean, Inspired is S. I think after that, […] there’s no real order. I feel like it’s just a soup of junglers. They all have their moments, and they all have their strengths. […]

And then I think B is gonna be like, [Yuuji], Oddie, Sheiden. And then I’ll put Exyu in C.