TL Spawn: “If, after two years together as a team, our goal is to make Worlds and then lose to everyone, then it’s a shit goal.”
Q: Do you have an “if only” moment from today? A moment running through your head?
Spawn: Honestly, I don’t really have an “If only that had gone differently” moment this series. Game two, we have to convert. If we can’t convert 7,000 gold leads, then, honestly, we can’t win. That’s the reality of the situation.
So, yeah, there’s no “What if” moment for me in this series. We looked harder to beat today than we have in the past in Game 1 and 2 — Game 3 was still terrible. But to make it a series, we have to be able to lose Game 1 gracefully, which we did, because maybe the draft isn’t the best.
And then we have to be able to win Game 2, because the draft is probably the best we’re gonna get. And then it’s a Bo3, and you can go from there. But if we can’t convert Game 2, the series is unwinnable.
Q: A lot of people saw Game 2 more as incredible gameplay from FLY than a throw from TL.
Spawn: Oh… okay. [No], that was horrendous […] I mean, that’s a completely horrendous throw. Like, Eain knows that he’s basing on vision because he got Jhin W’d, then he gets Jhin ulted and killed. And we stick around till Singed is alive, and then we die. […]
The krugs fight is fine. We came back after that. We’re 7,000 gold ahead after the krugs fight in their base, double inhibitors down, about to end the game after we get that base off, [and] teleport back. And then we based on vision and died. […]
I mean, we’re completely six items, 4v5 with Singed dead for fifty seconds.
We just need to get our base off, teleport back into base — Ziggs is gonna one shot both of those turrets. He had a thousand AP at that point in the game. I don’t think there’s any way they can hold that situation apart from what they did.
Q: Are moments like that grounded in experience, pressure, or just an intangible “we fucked up”?
Spawn: I think we just fucked up.
Q: Even though it was a 3-0, TL looked coordinated and aggressive for the first time since the roster change. Do you think the team just comes alive in Bo5’s? This keeps happening.
Spawn: I mean, obviously, we love playing Bo5s. We love playing playoffs. Right? So I’m sure this is the time of the season that everyone gets out of bed for. I think I’ve made this comment before in long seasons — it’s hard to get out of bed for Week 2, Game 1, sometimes as a pro player.
Our job, as coaching staff, is to ensure that everyone is as sharp as possible, and that we’re going into each game and taking them super seriously. But it does feel like a grind at times, for the players. So I will say, yeah, the players look forward to playing playoffs more, and they probably are more aware of the energy and the atmosphere […] and the best players do come alive for those moments.
But I think that’s not an excuse [for] why we’re so bad in the regular season.
I think our game play has just been poor; I don’t think it’s like an energy or an effort thing. I think that when I look at how we’re playing the game, some of the decisions we make just don’t make sense. We’re trying really hard to rectify that, get some normalcy into the games.
We scrimmed terribly this week. For the first four days of scrims, nothing looked like a normal game of League of Legends. It wasn’t until the second-last day of scrims, night block, that our game plan actually materialized and we started to play well again. So, I think that coming off four bad days of practice and one good day of practice, this is probably the result that would be expected.
But as I said, the best teams in the world always convert Game 2, and they give themselves a 40% chance of converting Game 1. And then, you know, we didn’t [manage] that.
Q: Doesn’t comparing to “the best teams in the world” feel like a high standard?
Spawn: Potentially. I mean, what else do you hold yourself against? Like, at one point in time, with a very similar roster (UmTi over Yuuji) we were taking games off T1 at EWC.
They went on to win that tournament. Now we can’t convert a 7,000 gold lead against FlyQuest. It’s just two very different teams. Same members, but just very different results.
Q: You’ll likely face LYON next. Thoughts on that matchup?
Spawn: I mean, I think they actually play very similar to FlyQuest. FlyQuest look really hard to beat [because] they take space very confidently on Summoner’s Rift — and if you don’t push them back, then they just keep taking space.
And I think, actually, Oddie and Inspired are the two best junglers at doing that in the league, to be completely honest. I think they just take a huge amount of space. There’s a fight in Game 3 when Inspired is on Maokai: He just takes river solo, and we try [to] kill him with Rell flash-engage, Annie flash, Kaisa flash. But he outplays, and they’re able to collapse really well. So that’s a play that you would expect out of LYON as well. That’s kinda how Oddie takes space.
So I think that’s the area that we need to be very crisp. We need to know when they’re allowed to take the space that they take and it can’t be punished, versus when they’re just egoing. The big difference in Game 2 was when they egoed and weren’t allowed to do it, we actually punished it really well, and that’s how we built our lead — [but] then we weren’t able to close that game.
If we play like [in] Game 2 against LYON, I’m confident we’ll be able to win that series. I think it’ll be a hard fought series.
Even last split, I don’t know if you remember, Arsh, when everyone was like “Shopify is the 4th best team,” I was like “Actually, I think LYON is the 4th best team.” I think if we punish them well, then we will potentially win the series. But I think it is gonna be a really hard series because they’re currently fighting for the 4th place team with us.
Q: Fourth with TL?
Spawn: Yeah, I think we’re probably the 4th best team right now. Like, […] I was really, really surprised [when Shopify won yesterday]. But what I will say is that Shopify’s bottom lane is playing super well and Fudge has kinda joined them as playing super well. Fudge — you know, the Aussie pride — especially on champions like Aatrox, has a really good vision for the game. So I think that, you know, if they keep playing well (and Contractz is a streaky player currently on a hot streak) then I think that they’re gonna be quite potent.
But, yeah, I think that Shopify definitely deserves to be placed above us. Last time they played us, they beat us. And, they beat C9, which we haven’t done in, what, six months? So I’d definitely put Shopify above us at the moment.
Q: With all these good teams in the lower bracket, isn’t the maximum of two Worlds spots demotivating?
Spawn: No. I actually think it’s the opposite. I think that, like, sometimes, you can just feel like you can cruise into Worlds. Not saying it is, but let’s pretend the narrative around C9 and FLY being unbeatable is true. And then Shopify would probably be like, “Oh, we’ll just take the third spot, we’ll just cruise into Worlds. Now we’re in the Upper Bracket [Finals], we’ve got a really good shot. We have to be beaten twice to not get there.”
I think that the old third seed was kind of, at times, easier to achieve. When something is harder to achieve, it gives you a lot of motivation to go for it.
We’re not here to come in [third]. It’s very cliche, but third doesn’t get you to any other internationals from NA. […] If we’re not good enough to win North America, we’re not good enough to compete at Worlds at a good level anyway. You don’t wanna go to a competition and just get rolled. The reality of the situation is we need to get better.
If we think we’re a Worlds-caliber team, we need to start showing it. If, after two years together as a team, our goal is to make Worlds and then lose to everyone, then it’s a shit goal. We need to do better than this.
Q: To be fair, I do think the team has improved — both Impact and APA have been very self-critical and both played much better today, right?
Spawn: Mhmm. I mean, I think they played better today. I think they need to play better than that. That’s what my gut feeling is.
And I do think Yuuji played well in Games 1 and 2 — I think Game 3 was a little bit of a poor performance from Yuuji as well.
Q: What’s your read on why they’re struggling? Mechanics, decisions, everything just looks off for the solo laners.
Spawn: I think they have two different issues: Mechanically, Impact is struggling, and that’s why some of the laning phases aren’t looking great. I think his decision making when he’s in good positions is still quite good. Mechanically, Impact just is not in the form that he was last Summer, when he was 1v2 outplaying dives on Jax.
I just don’t think he or I have the same level of confidence [in his mechanics]. So every day we come in, we’re working on his 1v1s, we’re working on talking about his lane matchups and trying to get those down pat; [we’re] trying to really nail his first 8 minutes of the game. Because if he has a good first eight minutes, then I think that he can really shotcall the side lanes and [do] all the things that I love about Impact really well.
I think that Eain is the opposite. I think that Eain, mechanically, right now, is playing quite well, and his decision making is a little bit haywire. [In] the Ziggs game, mechanically, he played some of those Ziggs skirmishes really, really well with Yuuji. I think that when they’re firing and playing mechanically well, then that’s good.
But they sometimes put themselves in positions on Summoner’s Rift where they need to [mechanically outplay], and that’s always a little bit of a nightmare as a coach, especially when you’re playing a linear champion like Annie — she doesn’t have much room to outplay. You know, you’re either in a good position and you’re gonna carry a team fight or you’re in a bad position and you’re gonna do nothing.
Q: It’d be especially hard against Inspired and Quad.
Spawn: Correct. They control the map very, very well. Quad is the opposite of that [problem]. I think Quad, mechanically, is not the most impressive player in the league. But [with] decisionmaking, Quad is top tier. I think he makes, like, very, very good decisions in League.
Q: Do you think that’s because of Inspired? A lot of players attribute FLY players’ decisions to his calls.
Spawn: No, I don’t think it’s Inspired because they played with a different mid laner and Jensen didn’t make the best decisions. I think that’s probably why they looked at someone like Quad.
Quad just knows what his role is on the team very well and is happy to do his role, and I think that that’s invaluable out of a player like him.
[But] he is good enough mechanically — when I say he’s “not the best mechanically,” I’m [saying] he’s not, like, Saint level. Saint is very good mechanically, but puts himself in weird spots on Summoner’s Rift. But then, if he’s on a champion like Aurora, which he’s just insane at, he’ll really outplay quite well — and I think we saw that against the series in FlyQuest as well.
Whereas Quad is very […] high tier mechanically, but his decision making is the best in the league, I think.
Q: Thank you Spawn. Hopefully TL can improve over the next two weeks to face the lower bracket gauntlet. It’ll feel bad when only two teams can go to Worlds.
Spawn: Yeah. We’ll see. Maybe LTAS takes two seats, and we don’t deserve any of them. But hopefully, we get in form and [make it]. […] I’ve [been watching LTAS]. I watch my boy Roamer every week.
