TL Josedeodo: “I like to have fun in games — I think, throughout my years, I learned that having fun is more important.”
Q: To me, even though Game 1 was close at first, it felt like it ended fast, and Game 2 was a stomp too.
Josedeodo: First game, I think we had the upper hand and then we messed up like one fight and we lost the game basically. And the second game I think … We really wanted to fight the crab, and — looking back at it — we should be more aware that it wouldn’t be the best, and we should just drop it.
But I also think that mistakes can happen — especially when we had like two days of scrims with Morgan. It’s not like we had a lot of time to practice, or do a lot of stuff. So yeah, I’m not… I don’t think the second game was a super-stomp, but it was really hard to play the game [because of] what happened. I think we just need to polish our mistakes and we’ll be better.
Q: Who were you scrimming with before Morgan got here?
Josedeodo: We had three tops, actually. One was Philip, one was Zamudo and the other was Horder. The hard part was that we were switching between them, so it was hard to even practice — some had different styles, different drafts, and [we were always] changing stuff. So yeah, that was the only weird part.
Q: It felt like C9’s drafts were a lot stronger — Game 1 with Nidalee’s healing, and Game 2 seemingly lacking damage from your side (Jhin/Yone).
Josedeodo: Yeah, I mean the second game I think is more from what happened. I think… we’ve played this comp, obviously, many times — and I think it worked out many times for us.
[Today,] I think we were too greedy to take fights that we should just give slowly. Yone is a champion that relies on one or two items to do stuff and Jhin is sort of like a follow-up on the engage. […]
I think it’s more about practicing fights and how we want to play as a team. I think that’s more what we need to see now.
Q: Yeon said he loves watching you tease Quid. What do you say to him?
Josedeodo: I don’t know. Sometimes, it might be because English isn’t his first language. I mean, it isn’t mine either, but he sometimes [accidentally asks] some dumb questions, and I just follow up on the dumb question to mess with him. It’s just like a funny [way] to make him a little annoyed.
Q: Did you and Quid build synergy from playing solo queue? Were you in comms when you duo’d?
Josedeodo: Yeah, I mean, when Tag/Team started, I thought it was a good idea to play with Quid, because I always think mid-jungle is the most important synergy for jungle. Support is fine too, but […] the map leads to the mid-jungle duo.
We played a lot as duo, and we always talked — some days we didn’t speak, like we’re playing random champions and we don’t need to — but most of the time we [discussed] what we wanted to do, how we wanted to play, that kind of stuff.
That [helped us] to be good in synergy in a lot of moments, and [today] we just say, “I start 3 Q, and Ori ult, boom, go.”
Q: There were rumors about TL stomping scrims. Was that actually happening, even with substitute top laners?
Josedeodo: We weren’t beating everyone with the substitutes. We were doing fine. Some days we were losing — and [the style] wasn’t like with Morgan.
[Our playstyle] changes a lot, because the amount of pressure we relieve through topside is way higher with [Morgan], so I think that helps a lot. With the other top laners, it was hard because we want to play botside, but at the same time, we needed to help top.
Also, we didn’t play C9 too much, because of course we play them W1, so we didn’t know what to expect, how they play, or anything.
That kind of always happens first week — one team might be better, one team might be worse. I don’t think we necessarily did a bad job for our first week as a team. And I’m sure they had more days to scrim with their full roster since KeSPA too; they didn’t stop at any point. I think we’ve just gotta work a little bit. Losing means we have stuff to improve.
We knew that [teamfights] are really important in this meta and I think that’s the thing we gotta fix a lot — in scrims, what happens mostly is we’re winning [off of] individual talent, and onstage some players play more safe and don’t give you that lead. I think we just gotta start learning how to use the teamfights and [the] small leads we’re getting.
Like this first game, Core and Yeon were both winning really hard, so I think we can play better [with] individual talent and get more leads too.
Q: Where would you assess the level of junglers in NA right now?
Josedeodo: I mean, I don’t think there’s a jungler that is better than everyone. I think most of us are [kind of] playing the same. No one is doing anything crazy in scrims that I know of, and I don’t think [anybody] will do anything crazy.
Today’s game, of course [Blaber] is punishing well based off the mistake we did, but it’s not like I didn’t [understand] what he was doing. I was [tracking him], but there’s not too much you can do, because of what happened. […]
Like, I don’t think he played well the first game — he messed up three or four timers, and especially playing Renekton-Nidalee, they didn’t do anything crazy with it.
I don’t think any jungler— uh.
Hambak… that guy is weird to play against. It’s very similar to UmTi, for the ones that watch LCS, it’s a similar style. It’s annoying to play against him because he’s doing random stuff that you might not expect too much. […] I don’t think he’s bad, but he does weird stuff, and that’s annoying.
Q: With this roster, you’re expected to be number one with C9. Who do you think is strongest after that?
Josedeodo: I knew C9 was good because we saw them on KeSPA and they were the only team that would match us, so I’m not surprised. But I think 3rd and 4th, it’s hard to tell. I will say, Shopify is not bad — but deeply… weird, too — and I think LYON should be good. Maybe LYON 3 and Shopify 4.
I mean it’s hard to tell, I also think SEN can be […] a dark horse team, because it’s like an annoying team.
I think many people expect LYON to be good, which [wouldn’t be] surprising, but I think SEN might be that one, because how they play is a weird style. […]
FLY is not bad, I think they’re sometimes too over-aggressive, from what I know. Sometimes they get punished really hard on the map by playing like this, but I don’t think it’s necessarily bad; it [may be] more like a scrim thing. I’d like to see them on stage more, because sometimes you play aggressive in scrims and then [on-stage is different].
Q: TL tried to get you for TLA back when you joined FLY, right? Jatt mentioned that Core’s thought highly of you for years.
Josedeodo: I mean, we used to duo back in 2020 — and I remember when we were scrimming against Liquid […] I was on R7, we were beating them at the time as the LLA team. That might be why they think I was good back then too.
That split, I was Rank 1 in NA [from] Mexico playing, it’s like 50 ping. […]
They wanted me for Academy, but to be honest I wasn’t, like high expectation of Academy then [because] I had two LCS offers [from] FLY and GGS.
Q: Do you have any fun stories with the team?
Josedeodo: There’s a lot, but I always forget them. Sometimes we’re joking so much, like in scrims and stuff, that I tend to forget them. If I had to choose, there was one scrim — I don’t remember what champion I played — and I was hitting all my spells like over and over all the time, and Core was saying, “Wow, wow, wow” [every time], and I said, “Oh, Core is surprised because he’s like, ‘Oh, he can actually hit the spells, wow!’,” and we were all laughing.
That was one of the first scrims we played in Korea — that one always comes to mind. […]
Those moments I always tend to remember. Like today, Yeon was saying, “Oh, this Varus is hurting,” and I said, “Don’t worry, it’s gonna hurt more in like 5 minutes.”
I like to have fun in games — I think, throughout my years, I learned that having fun is more important. When things go wrong, people tend to stress, [but] I think it’s fine to just have fun in-game, you know?
Q: Does that work for Yeon? He’s talked about how he can get more emotional or angry after losses.
Josedeodo: I don’t know. To be fair, our only two losses, 1 was against Nongshim — I think, to be fair, it was very similar: We had the upper hand and we lost.
Those games are hard to joke about because everyone is frustrated. You kind of let it slide a bit, [because] everyone has their own way to cheer up.
I think Morgan is the same as me — I don’t think it’s good to punish yourself for losing. Losing means that it’s time to improve. And if you only win, win, win, sometimes it’s not good.
In the end all it matters is playoffs. These weeks are […] not for fun, you also have to win — and I think it’s important to win — but I think the first [step] is to show your mistakes and learn from them.
We already knew what our mistakes were before coming to the match and we’re working on them, so I’m not in a rush to fix everything.
I don’t know — I’m happy with it. I think Yeon should be happy too, but maybe right now he’s angry, and he will realize that it’s just about time that we fix our mistakes and it will be better [eventually].
Header Image Credit: Riot Games
