SR Damonte: “Honestly, [I’m] not scared at all, because there’s going to be zero expectations for us to win.”
Q: What’s changed for Shopify? This sudden improvement is such a surprise — and it’s a different style than you played with Palafox, too.
Damonte: Yeah. Well, in our series today, like you mentioned a different style — you could definitely see that in Game 3. We’re picking like Skarner-Azir, which is very slow compared to, I would say, when we had Palafox, and we preferred a lot of diving comps or aggressive comps. And then the biggest change, like you said, was Zeyzal. Zeyzal just gives us a voice of direction that isn’t Contractz.
Before, how our team would always function was that Contractz was our main driver, and if Contractz was having a poor game, he’s not the best at driving the game from behind. So a lot of our team would feel directionless when Juan wasn’t having a good game.
So I think that’s why you would kind of see, “Oh, Shopify could be good if they play like this. And then they’ll point to a game where Juan is having a great game and we look cohesive.” But now that Zeyzal here, it feels like Juan can focus on himself a lot more, and Zeyzal spends a lot of his time directing the game, which was not really there when we had Ceos.
I would say that’s the biggest change that Tristan brings us: a decisive voice that can, ahead of time, decide what we’re going to do.
Q: Realistically, what level do you think this takes you to?
Damonte: I think where we’re at right now, we just really need to be better than Sentinels and FlyQuest — we kind of feel that we are in the middle of the pack right now. I would say we struggle a lot versus Team Liquid the most in practice.
Q: You and everyone else.
Damonte: Yeah, it feels like Team Liquid right now are just, like, the best team by far.
Q: Until Inspired gets here.
Damonte: Yeah, pretty much. Team Liquid runs the house [until then]. So like right now we’re just trying to make sure our level is good enough to beat Sentinels and FlyQuest, because that’s realistically where we’re at in the standings.
Q: Are you still putting yourself below C9 and Lyon?
Damonte: I think C9 are more consistent than us — for me, the way that I see C9 is they’re basically the floor of the top 3 teams. I don’t think they’re gonna be ever better than Lyon or Team Liquid but I don’t think they’re gonna be worse than Sentinels or FlyQuest, generally.
Like I think the highs that Sentinels and FlyQuest can reach are higher than C9 but I think C9’s floor is high enough to consistently be better than those two teams, and us, right now.
Q: I’m surprised, people are pretty low on SEN right now. Higher ceiling than C9?
Damonte: Well, I think Sentinels, that’s fair to be to say, I think Sentinels are very similar to C9 in a lot of ways. To me, Sentinels are a miniature C9, so I would probably retract what I said about their ceiling being higher.
Q: I can see FlyQuest’s ceiling being higher for sure.
Damonte: Yeah, FlyQuest can peak at second in the league, I think, honestly. I think they could take Lyon or TL on a great day for them. But…
Q: Having two great days back-to-back is hard.
Damonte: Yeah. When I see FlyQuest, it just feels like they haven’t improved at all, on … just the chaotic gameplay that they put out. It feels like they don’t know how to press the brakes, really. I would say that’s kind of [the level] I feel like we’re at.
Q: Do you think there’s something to be said about Game 1 DIG? It was an issue for them even before they got Dardoch, and hasn’t gone away.
Damonte: I feel like they didn’t adapt very well in draft, to be honest. Like Game 2… They gave us a super good Sylas angle. Like that might’ve been one of the best Sylas games I’ve ever seen in pro play. [He] had Alistar ult, Gnar ult, Varus ult, which are considered like three of the best ults in the game for Sylas.
And then the third game, they picked Vi and we just instantly went like Skarner, Azir — a scaling comp — and then they gave us Kalista Renata on 4-5 against the Vi. It just felt like Game 2 and 3 were … not [fully] decided from the draft, because I think the Game 3 especially was winnable for them. But it just felt like the adaptability that they showed was kind of poor.
Q: Vi into Kalista, Renata, Anivia, and Skarner is brutal actually. Dardoch can’t play the game.
Damonte: Yeah, Game 3 was really tough for them. […] If you really dissect that game and go watch it back, Dignitas just starts ARAMing at a certain point because they feel like they can’t play. They realistically couldn’t play because we got the first dragon, got the second dragon, got grubs — like, they just got slowly suffocated.
Q: What happened to Zinie? He got way better — is it just “Damonte coaches mid laners and they start smurfing” once again?
Damonte: Well, I give a lot of credit for Zinie’s improvement — we actually hired a new coach. If you know who Selfie is, he’s an old school mid laner from Europe.
Q: He was on C9 for a bit, right?
Damonte: Yeah, he was positional coaching C9 for a while. For Split 3, we hired Selfie to positional coach Zinie. So I could spend more time focusing on big picture things. Those two have been working together nonstop and they have a great relationship.
I’d say a lot of, like, lane phase things that Zinie has improved on was through Selfie. And then, you know, I think this is the eighth month that we’re working with Zinie — [in terms of] mid game macro, he’s finally starting to come around and understand why the movements happen in mid game that need to happen. At the start Zinie just didn’t understand why and when and where he needed to be at all.
Q: As I understand it, LCK CL develops talent with a purely mechanical approach; players really struggle to adopt macro when they move to TIer 1.
Damonte: I feel like the culture of LCKCL and even like Korean solo queue nowadays really doesn’t benefit smart play. I mean, this might be a controversial take in general, but Korean solo queue, I feel, has devolved into just complete chaos all the time.
Versus, like, when I went to Korean solo queue in 2016 for the first time, it felt super serious, super, “Okay, we’re all gonna try to play like Faker in this region.” Nowadays it just feels like when I watch LCKCL, it’s just ton of fighting.
And then like, like you said, through watching Quidd, watching Zinie, [and] Saint, the way these guys play, it’s obvious that they have insane talent with their fingers, but then the way they think about the game is lacking.
Q: I wonder what would’ve caused that. Is it just the balance of the game changing over time?
Damonte: I heard a lot of Korean kids actually play Valorant now. So maybe the player base is … I almost think it’s culture, a culture thing. Like, it’s just changed a lot.
And even like another example of this because when I when I first scouted Zinie, I thought it was interesting. Like, “This guy doesn’t play like Chovy.” I thought all the kids would want to play like Chovy, but [they] have their own unique playstyle now. He has all these weird champions he wants to play all these like fights. He wants to fight. It’s very different.
Q: If Zinie’s major weakness is map pressure, I’m surprised Galio’s been such a key pick for him. He’s playing it a lot.
Damonte: Well, Galio is … I would say it’s a sort of a bandaid champion for players who lack macro understanding, because of how his kit works. It’s easy to wave clear, it’s easy to group with your ultimate, it’s easy to play safe and not get punished.
In a lot of ways, I think Galio is just an easy champion to pilot in the mid game. So I feel like for him, we spent a lot of time picking up Galio and I think it actually taught him a lot of how to actually play midgame.
But at the same time, it can build bad habits because you can get away with a lot of poor movements on the map just by grouping with your R, grouping with your TP, or it doesn’t matter as much to miss a side wave.
So it was a conscious decision to get him on this champion to help him understand midgame stuff, but at the same time, you gotta rip the bandaid off eventually, because you can’t just play Galio every game. And you gotta understand how to sidelane on champions like Azir.
Q: To put it cleanly, how scared are you about going to Mexico? Those three teams should be pretty terrifying, no?
Damonte: Honestly, not scared at all, because there’s going to be zero expectations for us to win. And I feel like, well, what is our score now? We’re 3-1 this summer.
Q: You’re pretty much locked for playoffs.
Damonte: I mean, I feel like it’s perfect for us because I think … there won’t be high expectations on us — and Zinie probably just played the best series today that he has the whole year. So I feel like if Zinie’s confident and our team is confident in him, then we can go into those games and just do our best and win or lose.
It feels like there’s not much of a punishment, I would say, because it’s TL and C9. […] It should be great for us, honestly, no matter [if we] win or lose, because the pressure will be low and the team has more hope now than they have probably the whole two years I’ve been here.
Q: Also, Fudge has quietly been, like —
Damonte: Amazing.
Q: Really good. What’s your opinion of where he’s at as a top laner right now?
Damonte: I think Fudge is super consistent. Like without Fudge on our team, I think we would struggle a lot more. He kind of is like a rock. I think compared to the other top laners — the best top laners are probably Morgan, andI think Dhokla is really good as well, but he’s pretty inconsistent compared to Morgan and Fudge. […]
Yeah, like Fudge is just consistent. Like I would say Thanatos and Dhokla have higher highs and lower lows. I think Morgan is probably the best top laner in general for like consistency and how he gains advantages. But yeah, Fudge just like … Whether he’s ahead, whether he’s behind, he just always plays the same, he always communicates the same. And I think it’s just really impressive that he’s able to do that.
I feel like he’s grown in the two years that I’ve been here — when I first joined, I feel like he was more fiery, like he would get angry at things more often. And now he kind of feels like he’s more zen and more like, “This is the game state and this is what I need to do.”
And he’s been really dialed into learning his matchups and just playing matchups. He’s been doing one-on-ones constantly. I feel like he’s just super locked in right now. And what I keep telling Fudge is, like, “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. Just don’t lose the groove that he’s in.”
Q: I asked him about the potential return of Fat Fudge, and he said he’s been a little less healthy as he grinds the game again. Maybe Zeyzal and Fudge can just be two giant intimidating men on stage, no?
Damonte: True. We need the tank Fudge to come back and the tank Zeyzal to come back. Zeyzal’s even down a hundred pounds, but maybe that’s helping.
Q: Wow, he’s down a hundred pounds. That’s insane. He does look great.
Damonte: Don’t know if he wanted me to tell anyone that, but yeah, he looks great. He looks great.
Header Image Credit: Riot Games
