TLAW Spawn: “Honestly, FlyQuest is, to me, the scariest team at the moment”
Q: How closely were you watching C9-DIG? It was also expected to be a stomp, but didn’t go that way.
Spawn: Yeah, we watched it. It looked like they struggled a little bit in Games 2 and 3, but then they were able to close it out. Feel like it’s pretty telling of C9 at the moment, actually. Like, they’re really clutch in mid-late game — they just have some struggles.
Q: Of DIG, SR, and DSG, who do you think will make playoffs?
Spawn: I mean the team that played the best against us was Dignitas, right? So we’d have to say right now that Dignitas is the best team — they took a game off us. The other guys looked really shaky.
I would say, when I watched DSG play, there’s like at least hope in their games. They do some things well. and then they have some players that can obviously win lanes — I think both Castle and Callme are pretty good individually.
When I look at SR, I just see no hope for that team. I think they actually … You know, I don’t want to play GM, but I think you got to take a look at that team and, like, what’s happening.
And then for Dignitas, they actually look quite good. Like I think they took a game off us, a game off LYON, and a game off C9. Like probably have to say they’re the favorite right now.
Q: There’s a lot of bright points on every team — do you think the individual skill distribution has gotten tighter, or maybe improved overall?
Spawn: I mean, yes and no. I think like, for example, individually, we look very good still. Like when you look at our individual players — I think Quid solo-killed the Vi at drag, and [him and Jose] looked pretty good mechanically.
Jose on Lee Sin is just flying around Summoners Rift doing things on the champion — he genuinely looks like he plays Lee Sin on fast forward when you watch the games. His kick at the end was actually so incredibly smooth. So, I think good mechanical players stand out.
Thanatos is another player: He just spaces better than other top laners. To be completely honest, it just feels different when you play against him. […]
But I’d say the two or three best teams actually have some macro struggles at the moment. So maybe it’s our macro making games better.
I’d just come out and say it: I thought that C9 individually looked better than DIG today, but I think DIG’s macro was arguably better than C9’s between 12 and 17 minutes of the game. I think we’re really letting ourselves down, macro-wise, as a region at the moment.
Q: It seems like Inspired teams are always good at macro, but with their recent individual dips, has that gone away too?
Spawn: I mean, we played against LYON last week, like we didn’t feel anything of it. I mean, “maybe” is the answer.
But I think when FLY and TL were at their best, in the lane swap meta at the end of 2024, that was the best [we were as a region] at playing macro. I think we were actually world leaders in macro, to be completely honest. And now it feels like we’re playing catch up again.
Q: Does the LYON Castle move make them the top team everyone was expecting?
Spawn: Yeah, I mean, I really like Castle. It wasn’t any [secret] — people would know that we actually tried out Castle quite extensively in the offseason. Like, I actually think the guy’s just a brilliant player, so I think it definitely makes them better.
I think that Castle is one of the best top laners in the league; one of the only people that can go toe-to-toe with Morgan and Thanatos. So it makes [LYON] better immediately.
Top lane is easier to introduce into a team than it is to introduce a new jungler, like we had to do with Yuuji last year, so I think that will have more success than we did.
Also, Reignover has just done it a couple of times now — he did it with APA, a mid laner, [which is] quite hard, he did it with Yuuji, a jungler, [which is] quite hard. Now he’s doing it with top lane.
So, like, he has a lot of experience introducing new people mid-split into a team. I have a lot of confidence that Castle will do well, and I think it does make that team better.
Q: Does it make them scary?
Spawn: To be completely blunt, no. I don’t think it’s scary. Like, honestly, I don’t think so. Like even when we played playoffs against LYON, they came in with a way better strategy than us. They beat us on the day, but none of those games were like, “Wow, we can’t win this game.” I was like, “Oh, we’re actually fucking up and they’re beating us,” but I felt like we were driving a lot of those games, so I don’t think they’re a very scary team.
Honestly, FlyQuest is, to me, the scariest team at the moment — I feel like if you mess up against FlyQuest, you actually just lose the game. They genuinely have four people that can carry the game.
Q: Which would be all four of the players not named Cryogen, because he’s a support?
Spawn: Correct. [But] also, not just the support role — Core can carry the game. I just don’t think Cryo is … He’s a supportive player. He’s not the person that’s going to take over a game if you give him good angles, good picks.
But obviously he does a great job with Massu […] he sets up Massu for a lot of success. I think all the other four players are, like, genuine pop-off players. If you give a two-level lead to Gryffinn, there’s just no chance you’ll win the game — he knows how to play so well with it.
Q: If they’re getting to be a strong team, does that mean FLY’s macro is reaching the level of LYON, C9, and TL? Or are they still mostly winning because of mechanics, thriving in chaos?
Spawn: I think it’s more the second. They’re finding success because of that, but their macro has gotten better. Like it’s now at a point where it’s not losing them the game, and they’re quite solid, but then it’s not like they’re winning the game because of their macro — they’re winning games because their hands are exceptional.
But I think in the first split, you’ve got to play towards your strengths. You don’t want to make the game predictable for a player like Gryffinn or a player like Gakgos — because he’s quite creative as well.
You want to give them the freedom to play in a system, but you need the system to just be good enough that it doesn’t lose your games. I think that’s what the coaches there have done really, really well. They [play a] small map on small map timers, they fight hard at objectives as well. They’re just a solid team.
Q: It reminds me of a supposed change in TL’s strategy that the broadcast highlighted: It seems like TL has started drafting to scale, since your laners seem to win regardless. Was that a conscious change?
Spawn: No, of course. Like, you know, if you can win lane on Sion or Ornn, like, and just be level 16 to level 16, like, what do you want to be? The champion that gives you 3000 gold worth of free items or the champion that has to, like, mechanically outplay to win the game?
If I can play Yone into Ryze, and we’re at three items, literally, if Ryze appears on my screen, I auto attack him to death. I genuinely don’t have to land any abilities — I just run at him and auto attack him to death. Obviously, I want to play the scaling side of those matchups.
Q: From the outside, that feels like something players oppose — like coaches need to convince players to drop ego and pick scaling champions. Is that a real thing? Does Yeon really want to play Kalista-Renata every game, but has to settle for scaling as Yunara?
Spawn: I mean, it’s different coach to coach. You would have to ask different coaches.
You know, we made a mistake the other day in the FlyQuest draft by banning an early game jungler in Aatrox and not banning the scaling jungler in Nasus. And we just had an open and frank conversation afterwards, which is like, “Hey, you guys need to actually let me do my job, which is drafting, and then you guys focus on playing the game.”
And then if there’s a lot of bad drafts in a row, we can sit down and we can have a meeting about it. Otherwise, let me do my thing and let me do your thing. As long as I’m giving you a champion you’ve practiced during the week, I don’t think there should be any issue with drafts like that.
I don’t really think [drafting] is a two-way street on Team Liquid. It’s much more me-driven.
Q: When you say mistake, does that mean you were overruled in the draft, or was there simply too much chaos?
Spawn: Just a very hectic communication sequence: “That shouldn’t have happened.”
Q: In our conversations about drafting — for lack of a non-political term — you seem to be the most authoritarian coach I’ve spoken to. Would you say that’s accurate?
Spawn: Absolutely. In terms of conversation [in draft], I’m like completely black and white.
I can give you an example. In Game 2, there was another champion we’re thinking about picking. I said to Jose, “Do you want to pick this champion?,” And Jose said, “No.” And I said, “Okay, then we’re picking Annie.”
That’s the whole conversation. There’s nothing else involved in the conversation.
I was like, “Is this champion good?,” and Jose was like, “No, there’s too many answers up to it.”
“Okay. Then we are just picking this” — that’s that. […] Now we have Annie, and now the ocmp needs to look like this.
Beforehand, it’s not like I’m completely authoritarian. It’s just, during the draft phase, it’s my job to see the big picture. Your job as a player, in my opinion, is to tell me about the individual matchup that you have to play. And like if I give you a champion that’s completely unplayable, you should tell me because that’s unreasonable for me to expect you to play.
And [you should] think about if I’ve blinded your champion, […] if I pick Annie, Quid’s job is to know if he’s playing against APA, he needs to ban, I don’t know, Sion. That’s a random counter that APA played one time. And if he’s playing against Quad, he needs to ban Anivia because he’s better at Anivia or something like that.
That’s not a real life example. I don’t think we would ban either of those champions. But that’s like what Quid’s job is in the draft if he’s blinded.
Q: It feels like NA’s been a little less creative in draft than other regions — with the exception of Gryffinn. Have you been scrimming with more diverse drafts that you expect to bring out in Bo5’s, or will that prep wait until playoffs begin?
Spawn: I mean, everyone just keeps giving me Ashe-Seraphine, so it’s really hard to pick a creative comp when you just give me Ashe-Seraphine every single Game 1. I think I had it like 4 out of the 5 series. So there’s that.
But then like if you actually look at what we’ve been playing in EWC, like we had a game where we played Kalista-Renata — I think that’s like very slept on.
We’re the only team blind-picking Xayah-Rakan 2-3, I think. I don’t think any other teams have done it. I picked Ornn in Game 1 two or three weeks in a row now, which I don’t think anyone else is playing. I just played Gragas into Jayce, I think that’s a unique pick. Overall, I’m trying to flex as many of those muscles as possible because I think that —
Ah, and we’re the only team that plays Yone blind pick, pretty much regardless of how it looks in [the draft], I’ll just slam it at the moment.
So like, I think we’re trying to use our unique picks pretty well. I mean, I’m praying I get a Smolder or Zeri angle, or something like that, because obviously they’re Yeon’s bread and butter.
But I think that C9, they played Cassio today — that’s like an APA special. I think like, as you said, FlyQuest actually do it across the board. They play kind of everything. We saw Vayne from Sajed a couple of times.
I think, like, it’s just not as hyped when LCS does it. I would say LCS is reasonably creative and then like a lot of the time it just doesn’t work, so then people just flame it, to be honest.
Header Image Credit: Riot Games
