Support Stunt chatted with TheGameHaus a bit about his friend-teammate relationship with Cody Sun, 100 Thieves’ Spring Split, and what to expect for the meta this summer. As part of LCS Media Day, here are his thoughts.
Rob (TGH): In The Heist last split, you and Cody talked a bit about working on your relationship. Could you talk a bit about that, and how you guys are doing going into Summer Split?
Stunt: Yeah, so we have been friends for a couple years now, but we’ve never really worked with each other as teammates and coworkers. This is a tricky questions. I guess with friends, you don’t really want to ruin the friendship at all, so you might too scared to bring up criticism, or too scared to bring up more uncomfortable topics about the game. Like ‘hey, you’re not playing that well.’ Those are all going to be really hard topics to bring up to a friend, whereas, if it were just a normal teammate, those topics are brought up pretty easily without having to worry about how it affects your friendship, because in the end it is a working relationship.
For Cody and I, it was a lot about figuring out how to have an open dialogue about work stuff and separating it from our friendship was kind of difficult, but as we did it more, we got more comfortable. We both understand that we just want to do our best together as a duo.
Rob (TGH): Having that good work-life separation is important.
Stunt: And we’re roommates! That makes it extra hard to separate, I think. We went stress shopping for food together and everything.
Image from LoL Esports Flickr
Rob (TGH): How do you and Cody compare yourselves to the other bottom lanes in the LCS?
Stunt: I would say as a bot lane we are very flexible with how we can play. We can be the lane to be played around, or we can also be the lane that plays a bunch of utility for the team to succeed. We can play for lane dominance, or we can play for moving around the map and rotations, so I think we’re pretty flexible compared to everyone else. I would say it is hard to rank bot laners, but I could say confidently we are top 5 as far as game impact, but that is such a random number, you know what I mean?
Rob (TGH): I definitely understand, and that is playing into my last question here. You guys were able to rise through the ranks and get into playoffs. You had a big role in that, and I want to know how you feel your personal performance did to help the team last split?
Stunt: For me, it was being an initiator for the team and enabling the plays to happen, I guess. Our team, the way we play is very fluid, so we don’t really necessarily have a game plan going into every kind of situation, or a concrete game plan. We’re just always open to the changing circumstance, but that makes it so that the window to engage is kind of small, because it’s like a window where we are all ready to fight, and also they have to a little bit…I don’t know how to describe this!
Rob (TGH): No, no you’ve been great honestly. What you were talking about, being flexible, do you think that is something you bring to the team right now, to be that flexible engager?
Stunt: I think, honestly, maybe I have the most ‘yolo’ mentality on the team, so some of these engages I create seem scary in the beginning, but I am confident in our team’s ability to play out the fight well, and we just have to make the fight happen, and I want to make sure the fight starts off on a good foot. That was a big part of my job in spring.
Rob (TGH): Do you think that is something that is going to continue going into summer?
Stunt: So, this summer the meta hasn’t been figured out yet. I think globally everyone is trying out a bunch of different things. I think maybe Enchanters are starting to see a rise again, because they buffed ADCs in the mid-season patch. It seems like, from the competitive games I have seen so far, people are unsure of what direction the meta’s taking right now,. I will say my natural state is healing and shielding, that is my natural form, but I will be a front line engager if I have to.
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