TL Yeon: “The good thing is, even though we’re all hands, we do have CoreJJ.”

Q: How are you feeling about the match against Impact?

Yeon: It’ll be pretty fun. I think he’s been playing decently and he’s been climbing solo queue pretty high.

Q: Do you see SEN as one of the stronger teams? People are split.

Yeon: To be honest, I think they can become a very good team. I think they’re not right now.

I think they have too many inconsistencies in my opinion — from what I’ve seen. I think they have pretty decent potential though. I thought when I saw that team, I was like, “Oh, if every individual player holds their own, it could be, like, not bad.”

Q: Did someone on Shopify insult you? I feel like you were playing brutally aggressive today.

Yeon: Oh, no. I was quite disappointed how I ended up playing … [at least] in the first game of last week — the second game was kind of just hard at some point after the early skirmish. To be honest, I didn’t think I actually did my job that well [against C9], which is the main thing.

I think the way I played was not bad […] in the first game of the C9 series, I thought I played a lot better than the opponent overall, especially in some parts of lane and some parts of team fights, but I feel like I didn’t actually get that momentum; […] I let them have too much of an easy game overall.

This time I was pretty much trying to squeeze out every portion of it whenever I saw a chance, so I could see how it looked like that.

Q: I always saw you as aggressive in lane, even last year, compared to a more passive ADC like Massu.

Yeon: No, I agree. Last week kind of just irritated me a lot on stage. So this time I was just preparing for like two hours of how my mindset was shifting. […]

I will say, I think [you’re] probably onto something, because my coach Spookz said “Yeon, you look so scary. I don’t know what to do,” after the game. I was like, “Oh, am I?” He just said I was intimidating. So I was like “Oh, I guess, I guess it worked at least.”

Q: Are you trying to keep the intimidating vibe for next week too? Or do you not need it for SEN?

Yeon: No, it was just a shift in mindset, but we’ll see. I’m just going to play out the game, how the game should be played normally.

I think I was just trying to focus a lot more on the very small things, which is the main thing this time.

Q: I talked to Jose last week and he said you guys only had two days of scrims with Morgan. How did things change this week?

Yeon: To be honest, we had a lot more conversations about how we want to play.

I do think when the team was first starting off, we were just doing everything we could. As time goes on during the actual season, we learn how each of us want to play. I’m pretty sure in every team, different players have different ideas on how they want to play. We’re sorting that out right now.

Q: Inspired said C9 aren’t that good of a team — that they aren’t so far ahead. Do you see it that way?

Yeon: I wouldn’t say they’re a good team either, to be honest. I would say they play, individually, better in some parts of the game. I really wouldn’t say they’re a better team, per se, though — for sure.

Q: Than TLAW or LYON? Or both?

Yeon: I don’t really know much about LYON, so I’ll just cut them out. But I definitely think [C9] have more plans and ways they want to play the game. They’re for sure ahead of other teams because they’ve been practicing a lot more and they’re communicating like, “Oh, here, we should do this. Here, we should do that.” I just think they have a higher game count, so obviously it’s going to be better for them, but I wouldn’t say they’re a better team.

Q: Looking at the end of the split, do you anticipate it to be a TLAW vs C9 finals? Or because you don’t know much about LYON and FlyQuest you can’t say?

Yeon: To be honest, I don’t know how the format works. I don’t know how much time we have. To be honest, FlyQuest has been looking pretty decent compared to how I thought they’d look. I do think C9 are pretty good. I think they’re off to a pretty good start.

We’ll just see whose form [is best in playoffs]. Honestly, the regular season, it is what it is. But during playoffs, it’s just whoever has the most information at that point. Some teams could fall really fast, some teams could do really well. Like two years ago, TL was fourth, fifth? We were pretty bad but then we went to MSI just because we had pretty good momentum.

Q: Are there any bot lane duos that surprised you so far? SR, for example, seems weaker than they did last year.

Yeon: I think Shopify’s bot lane is inconsistent. I think they’re not bad, to be honest. Sometimes they just have really good games. Sometimes they have bad games. I give them the benefit of the doubt most of the time. I think there are some times where Bvoy actually plays very well. Sometimes he just is like a passenger, but I definitely have a high opinion of Bvoy, I would say.

Q: SR, as a team, is also controversial. What do you think is holding them back on-stage?

Yeon: To be honest, I don’t really know, I just think that we had played better individually than them for the most part today. It’s hard to say because I genuinely think we’re pretty good individually. So hard to compare with them. 

Q: With all the praise for TLAW, FLY, and LYON players’ mechanics this year, C9 is seen as more coordinated/macro-focused. In your series, though, APA found hero plays and out-fought you guys, right?

Yeon: Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I was very surprised we lost to them in teamfights. I was not expecting that would be where we would lose, but we definitely lost in that regard. I do think we had a lot of macro mistakes as well. So props to them for punishing it, but I think we’ll be fine.

Q: Do you feel like the TL vibe has shifted? It used to be like TL is all macro, no hands.

Yeon: I think we’re trying to find a good balance because I think we’re very mechanically good right now, but obviously we’re trying to get on the same page at this point. As long as we have the same ideas of how we want to play, think it’ll be pretty hard to stop us.

Q: The inverse then would be all hands, no macro. Like the FlyQuest strat right now?

Yeon: The good thing is, even though we’re all hands, we do have CoreJJ. *laughs*

I mean, I think we have very smart players as well. I think Quid has a reputation, I feel like, for not being as smart compared to his hands, but I actually think he’s very smart.

Q: Does C9 look like no hands, all brain then?

Yeon: I think it just all depends on the form. I think Zven has been doing pretty well on stage, from what I’ve seen. I think if he can play an even match against Berserker, it’s not bad. And Eain [APA] has good mechanics — sometimes he does dumb things, but at least he does it [well].

For Blaber, it seems like mid-jungle synergy is going pretty good for them. I always feel like C9’s mid jungle synergy is always pretty good. I feel like that’s probably because of Blaber.

Q: Any final message for TL fans, Yeon?

Yeon: Thank you for supporting us and hopefully we play better. As I say in almost every interview, I really like our jersey. Hopefully you guys can buy our jersey — and thank you to our sponsor, Alienware.

Q: Cool. And score prediction for next week?

Yeon: SEN? 2-0.

Q: All right. Sounds good. I’m going to pick you in fantasy then.

Yeon: OK, thank you.

Transcription assistance from @rysaphine

Header Image Credit: Riot Games