Q: How’s Korea?
APA: Good so far, [it’s only been a short time] — we did have to stay in Brazil for three extra days for Team Liquid content. Then we went home Wednesday or Thursday after finals, so three days after. Then most of the team went to LA for five days.
We had some time off, not [fully] because we were still grinding solo queue, but just not fully on. Then we got here two days ago — this is our second media day after a full day media day yesterday.
Q: How’s the team condition? Any jet lag?
APA: I think me and Yeon’s conditions are good, because we stay up all night before going under the plane, and then we sleep all the way on the plane. So we never have jet lag.
For the other people who cannot do that, I think they’re suffering with jet lag right now. […] It just means that a lot of the first few days are just getting used to the schedule — like I said, we scrimmed yesterday. We scrimmed five games, 8 AM to 1 PM. By the time we [finished], we weren’t really improving off the scrims, more so using the scrims to stay awake.
You could tell the energy in the first game was like, “Okay. We’re tired, but we’ll give it a go.” And then in the fifth game, we’re just fucking mumbling to each other. We’re such low energy. We’re all mentally fatigued.
Even though I’m [personally] not struggling with time zone difference, we woke up yesterday at 8 AM to go to media day, and then we were scrimming until 1 AM. We’re all just egregiously tired on top of the time zone gap.
Q: I know you spent the birthday on the plane, but did you do anything to celebrate?
APA: [TL] got me the ice cream thing, which is pretty cool. Team Liquid posted it on Twitter. It was just like an ice cream sandwich. That’s literally it. I spent the birthday flying for 12 hours.
[Editor’s note: That is clearly not an ice cream sandwich]
Q: What are your thoughts on facing Vladi?
APA: When I’ve scrimmed European teams, and their ID wasn’t Caps, I thought they were all quite terrible. Last time I checked, his ID was not Caps going into this tournament, and he is from Europe.
So I’m just connecting the dots. *laughs to himself and starts motioning with hands* Just like: Not Caps. European.
Q: You weren’t impressed by his LEC finals performance?
APA: I actually do think Vladi is not bad. I think him and Yike are probably the two best players on that team. Of course I was joking about it, but I can’t overlook them. I still have to play really well.
I think he’s a weird rookie, because you’ll see a lot of rookies come in, and they’re super flashy [and active]. But then he’s the opposite. He’s actually extremely stable. Maybe it’s also just the way KC plays. They’re a very slow team: Hit that dragon, hit that Rift Herald.
Q: Did you watch the LEC much?
APA: I’ve been watching, I watched the finals. And then I’ve been watching a lot of the KC games recently. […] I watch all LCK games just in general, and then when there’s no LCK on I’ll watch whatever LPL games on — or if it’s like a really good LPL game.
And then if there’s *really* nothing on, like [during the] Lunar New Year a couple of weeks ago, then I was forced to watch LEC because there was nothing good on. But generally I don’t watch much LEC. This is the first time I’m watching like KC all year.
Q: Are you planning on sticking around in Korea after First Stand?
APA: I don’t think we have time for a bootcamp. I think tournament ends three weeks [before split 2]. If you want a break, there’s no actual time to bootcamp.
What I imagine we’re going to do after this tournament, is we’re going to go back, do our own thing for a week, and then get back to scrimming.
Q: Does burnout concern the team? It happens with MSI teams consistently.
APA: Just think about last year. We didn’t really have a burnout, did we? Of course we didn’t win summer, but we had an insane summer run. We went undefeated in early season. We won both upper bracket matches.
Of course we lost finals, but I don’t think we really had a summer slump.
Q: You didn’t see Worlds as a slump?
APA: I think in reality, thinking back to Worlds, I don’t think we actually had a team slump. I just think individual players, including myself, didn’t perform well in certain games. The first two games versus the Chinese teams that we faced in Worlds, i think were actually incredibly winnable.
And then individuals made mistakes. I made mistakes. I flashed into a wall. That’s probably the only one I can remember off the top of my head.
A lot of individuals just made really dumb mistakes. So it wasn’t really like a [team burnout] thing. It was just like, “I fucking flashed into a wall.”
[So dealing with burnout], I think a lot of it was just desire to win. I think it was said a lot last year, but I do think we are still the hardest working team — we still spend incredibly long hours playing the game, thinking about the game, talking about the game.
A lot of it just literally comes down to desire. I don’t think I’ve really experienced burnout, just because my desire to win is so genuinely just so much greater. My desire to be a great player is so much greater than [everything else].