TL Spawn: “We scrimmed differently this week. […] we thought that it was actually gonna be a carry jungle contest the whole way down.”

Q: Easy day? Feeling good?

Spawn: Never easy, but feel good.

Q: When they were dropping that game in Game 2, how concerned were you?

Spawn: Not really. I mean, honestly, we sit down and we prepare for five game series every time.

That means you need, like, seven to nine champions per person, depending on how it looks. We knew from scrims that that was what they were gonna do. So it didn’t really bother us at all, to be honest.

Q: UmTi never came in today. Did things change from last week?

Spawn: Yeah, we scrimmed differently this week. That’s as simple as it is. I’m not gonna tell people what the scrim schedule looks like beforehand. But, yeah, last week, we thought that Game 1 and 2 would be Yuuji playing because of the AD junglers, and just the preference that Yuuji has on them.

And then, this week, we thought that it was actually gonna be a carry jungle contest the whole way down. If you think about Sheiden’s champion pool, I’m expecting him to play Kindred, I’m expecting him to play Viego, maybe Zed. Like, he’s been spamming Tryndamere in jungle. 

And I just think Yuuji’s gonna deal with that really well. So, I’m just keeping Yuuji in there to contest the carry jungle champion pool, you know? If he wants to play Tryndamere, I’ll play something like Kindred, and then I can contest super hard. 

Whereas, last week, I thought that it was gonna go to utility, which it did. And UmTi can play that very, very comfortably, especially with the comps we had. In hindsight, when it became a Sejuani draft, I should have played UmTi, but that’s just a situation that happens onstage. Didn’t think they were gonna give it to us. 

Q: Pretty interesting to see Impact Sylas, which feels like a big change. That doesn’t align super well with the “put Impact on a tank/Renekton and win” community opinion. Thoughts?

Spawn: Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. You talk about takeaway champions for them, but obviously one of Keine’s best champions is Sylas. [Dignitas] have an insanely good Sylas draft. We’re gonna give them Sejuani ult, we’re gonna give them Lulu ult and, potentially Tristana ult, as well, if we go into the AD mid trades. 

So, us not taking Sylas there when it’s a good matchup top, and when we have a lot of volatile ults like that, would be quite optimistic from my end. And we didn’t really have a great answer into Sylas mid. So, you get him back to play it. It’s a champion that he’s really comfortable on. We’ve actually scrimmed it a couple of times lately, because the [champ] pools do get pinched and that becomes prevalent. 

And we have a couple of other answers, but we just thought that it was a really good Sylas game for us, because we didn’t know what they were really gonna be able to answer with. And they answered with nothing, to be completely honest. In fact, they gave us Millio ult when they picked Lillia. So, if anything, we were super happy with that draft. […]

I have, like, two or three really good ults — Lillia ult, Gnar ult, and Millio ult in that game.

I thought that the Sylas pick was very good, and Impact can pilot it to a competent level. He doesn’t need to be insane in that game. Don’t get me wrong, if it was a 1v9 Sylas game where he has to do a lot, then potentially, I wouldn’t pick it. But he plays it well enough that, in those games where he can just be a role player, he plays it as well as we saw.

Q: With Core and Impact having shakier splits, it feels like Yeon has been the reliable foundation of the team. Is that accurate?

Spawn: Yeon is the best player on our team, to be honest. We’ve played like that [for years]. I rely on him a lot. I’ve relied on him for five years. We’ve won, what, five or six titles together now. We’re pretty experienced together. He trusts me, I trust him, so it’s a good relationship to have. […]

Spawn: I really do trust Impact and Core, still. I actually have a high level of trust in all my players. Even Yuuji, I have an insanely high level of trust in. And despite everything that UmTi and I have been through, I also have a really high level of trust in UmTi. 

I’m playing the players that I think are gonna win us the game right now. I’m picking in a way that I think [gives us] our best chance to win. And, if that means giving Impact an old champion, like Ornn, Renekton or Sion, then I’ll do that. If it’s the best thing for the team, I’ll also give him carries in good positions. 

And, honestly, Yeon’s in good form, so he deserves a carry every game. That’s what we’re trying to do — we’re trying to set him up in fantastic situations. I think the Senna situation, for example, was just a beautiful Yeon situation. I think that’s one of the best Senna games you’re gonna get, even though it’s not his best pick. Being able to take that in that situation, and being able to carry through — you see the impact he has in the game. That’s what the goal of the coach is. 

Q: Who’s gonna win between SR and 100 tomorrow?

I think Shopify is currently the stronger team for sure. But I think that that’s just [based] on current form. If 100 Thieves show up anywhere near their early Split 1 or playoffs form, then they’ll steamroll [SR] 3-0. But I just don’t think anyone’s seen that [version of] 100 Thieves in the last three weeks. 

So, I think that if you go on current form, I would say SR. Are SR good enough to make 100 Thieves play badly? Honestly, I don’t know. I definitely don’t think they are good enough in the mid-jungle roles to make them play badly. So, I still think SR should win, probably 3-2. But, if 100 Thieves show up, and Quid and River play good League of Legends, they’ll win 3-0. 

Q: Both scarier than DIG, right?

Spawn: No, not really. We’re in really bad form at the moment. I think playing bad teams when you’re in bad form is, like, so terrifying. You give us another week of scrims where we can keep building, and I think that we’ll be ready for whoever we play next week. 

I was actually the most concerned about this week, as I was during TL’s first lower bracket run in 2024. I think getting over that first-week hump was really, really bad after we lost to FlyQuest. 

You have to bounce back from a loss. Now, we’re back in winning ways. We’re gonna have some good habits that we built up from this stage performance. We’re gonna go into scrims, and we’re gonna be pretty focused. We’re gonna get the good scrims this week because Cloud9 and FlyQuest are both waiting for us. That’ll teach us a lot. So, honestly, I’m super happy with where we are. I’m not really all that worried about next week.

Q: An extra week to improve, so you can get back in form?

Spawn: I mean, I said it from the start — I actually didn’t wanna be in the upper bracket. I mean, if we were in the upper bracket — let’s say that C9 played badly against us, like they did against FlyQuest, and we sneak a 3-1 or 3-2 win because we’re playing pretty poorly as well. Then, say we play FlyQuest. They definitely would have 3-0’d us in that current form.

Then, our confidence is just completely smashed, and then we’d have to play C9 with no confidence, right? Whereas, right now, we have no confidence. We play DIG, we get build a little bit of confidence. We play SR, 100 Thieves, we build a little bit more confidence. And we get to go into that match with confidence, whilst C9 has just been, probably, beaten by FlyQuest. 

This is what happened to us last summer. There’s a reason lower bracket teams win a lot of grand finals, and it’s because they actually come in with a boatload of momentum and two extra series. 

So, yeah, as I said, it’s not like I wanted to lose. Obviously, you wanna come in as the best team and just remain the best team, but this is probably the best way for us to do it in our current form. 

Q: Is that why you’re expecting to face (and beat) C9 in the lower bracket? They won’t have time to fix their problems?

Spawn: At the moment, I just think FlyQuest is the best team in the league, and they deserve that respect. 

But, again, that doesn’t mean C9 doesn’t have any win conditions. I mean, Thanatos and Blaber are playing fantastic League of Legends. And I think Sven and Vulcan have really fit into the team and are doing their jobs extremely well. They’re both very competent players.

I think that, if C9 play to their strengths, they’re gonna have opportunities to win the series. But at the moment, just looking at current form, I think no one can look past FlyQuest — they look fantastic.