SR Palafox: “If we stop getting sick, [our chances of making Finals weekend are] 40%.”
Q: Sigh of relief after beating DSG?
Palafox: We had four scaling lanes — top is losing, jungle is losing early, I’m losing early, and I’m not sure how bot is. I think bot is also getting pushed in early game too, because it’s Alistar.
The onus is on them to make any plays, but by by level five or six, Ryze was already losing push the entire lane. We got first dragon, gave grubs. We got second grubs. I think we played some macro parts pretty bad, but by pretty bad, I just mean we could have pushed an advantage against a team like DSG, as opposed to just waiting to scale.
But, at the end of the day, […] our only big mistake, I felt, was the the river fight, where I’m walking down river with Alistar and Jarvan, and Rakan’s on a flank. Xin Zhao’s underneath Ryze flanking too. So, after that, in-game I said “We should just always go through mid, because that way we’re not gonna get give them natural flanks like this.” And then the game looked pretty clean, I think.
Q: Other than the the botched MF dove after Atakhan, right?
Palafox: It wasn’t botched. We’re getting summoners — or we’re trying to get summoners, we’re trying to get ultis. And then on the next round, we get tower as well. But… it’s definitely a little bit botched. Like, we don’t all have to die there. […] We got MF for it, [at least]
Q: What was the Ludwig buff like? Did you feel his strength coursing through you?
Palafox: Maybe. Me and Contractz are a little bit under the weather this week. You could see it — he’s wearing his hoodie. He’s not feeling well. I’m not really feeling 100%.
Like, this is the first time this has happened, but I can’t really focus that well. Like, everything’s a little bit blurry. Even with my glasses on. It’s very weird. So it was just harder harder to focus today. But having Ludwig in the studio was nice.
Q: How are the vibes? Results have been shaky.
Palafox: Like, keeping it real, I think our games against C9 and FLY were extremely close, and a lot of us were upset after the C9 loss, but we’re definitely in position to win these games. We should win these games, so it’s not that bad.
When we lost against Fly, I was a little bit more upset. Like, I was a little bit more … “Fucking we should not be losing this game.” […] I mean, no exaggeration, when we had that one team fight on mid, and then Fudge was chasing Galio and died to him, we should just get Baron there, and the game should be over. There should be no more game after that. Our comp is just better at that point.
Q: So are you power ranking yourself above LYON? Are you in that “elite top four”?
Palafox: I actually think LYON — it’s kind of weird, but I I swear LYON is how I feel like TL was. LYON is such a good team. […] I would say that LYON feels to me stronger than TL, stronger than potentially C9, potentially stronger than FLY, [potentially] stronger than 100T as well.
[…] They have really good games, right? And they play in a very stable way, I feel, with some random plays that make them good, if that makes sense. And I think Saint is very good. Obviously, today, not the best showing, but compared to every other mid laner — I’ve been running all the other mid laners in scrims — Saint is the hardest
Q: Do you think Abbe is the worst mid in the league then?
Palafox: 100%. This dude picked Ryze and then proceeded to scale on him and not dive any sides. So…
Q: Do you think DSG/Abbe have a chance in promotion/relegation?
Palafox: I haven’t really watched any of the NACL teams. This is kinda just going off my own bias of LCS versus NACL, but there’s usually a pretty big gap for a reason, you know?
It’s like the coaching staffs are better, the infrastructure’s better, even if you have worse individual players. A lot of the time if you are a superstar at NACL, you will move up because people will recognize your talent, but there’s really not that [many of those]. I’d say it’s more likely that they they win, but they could lose. You never know.
Q: How would you rank that top 6 you alluded to?
Palafox: It’s not really [necessary] to make a tier list. I don’t think anybody’s rank one. Nobody’s good every single game, […] I think one through six can literally win. One through six can all beat each other. Bo5’s will tell more. I think teams like FlyQuest will have an edge in a Bo5 fearless because Bwipo has, counter picks, Quad has Cassio, and Inspired has random picks. That’s literally what will make them better in in Bo5s. But talking strictly Bo1s, there’s no team that’s better than another right now in 1-6.
Q: Any fun stories with the team?
Palafox: We went to karaoke the other day, that was pretty fun. So we just all sang. I realized that [Reven] and Bvoy are actually pretty good singers. They really get into it. It’s pretty funny. […] Sam is good at singing eighties music.
Q: What’s your go to on karaoke?
Palafox: I like rock music. I really vibe out to it. But I honestly if I start drinking, I don’t really care. […] I really like Queen. So we all kinda sang along to Bohemian Rhapsody.
Q: What are your odds of making finals weekend, in your view?
Palafox: If we stop getting sick, 40%? […] Fudge got sick. I got sick. Tanner was sick. And our our coach was sick. Now me and Juan are sick again.
Q: Maybe you need the G2 international strat to bubble completely.
Palafox: I feel like that’s a little bit much. You know? Just don’t get sick, forehead.
