Hey guys, Meteos is a rock star jungler and a stellar interviewee. Unfortunately, my camera was still not functioning as intended this weekend, but I have done some troubleshooting and do not anticipate problems in the future. You can find the audio of our conversation below, and look out for other interviews on our YouTube Channel.
How important is this win for your morale on the team?
“For morale, this win is really important. There is a big difference between being 5-5 after a win and 4-6 after a five game losing streak. I’m more concerned with how we are playing as a team. We have had some struggles with that, but I think we are improving. It’s tough because each week there are only two games, and on the record it’s just a win or a loss. But yeah, I do think we are improving.”
How much of these recent losses to you attribute to the circumstance of the day in a best-of-one scenario, and how much is it indicative of larger issues on the team?
“I don’t think it’s too much the best-of-one since games are generally long enough that the strongest team comes out ahead – unless there were big mistakes in the draft. A lot of our losses are not being on the same page and having as good of teamwork as others.”
What are you as a team focusing on to put that back together to get back to how you started the split?
“There are a lot of things you have to juggle when coming together as a team and it’s hard to tackle it all at once. It’s almost cliche, but a big thing is communication. You have to know how to talk to your teammates, especially when giving feedback in scrims. Scrims have changed a lot in NA, whereas before we played more games, but had a lot less review. Now we play fewer games, but we sometimes have up to 30 minutes of review in between. But sometimes this extra review can be bad, we can sort of over-analyze what is going on. Like if we got behind making a certain play, we might have a conversation about the play and decide not to run it again, even though we shouldn’t expect to never do something similar in the future. There might be times when it’s good. So it’s a bit tough to figure out how to go through scrims.”
As a jungler, do you go in with a set gameplan and jungle route all very calculated, or do you try to stay flexible for whatever happens in the game?
“It really depends on each game. Some games have really volatile matchups like in C9 vs FOX with the Lucian vs. Gangplank. Controlling the top side of the map is obviously really important. What that means also varies player to player. Whatever it may be, it’s about accomplishing that goal and creating pressure. It isn’t super micro, though, like planning each camp and when you want to go for kills. There are just too many variables in the game and you need to be able to have a bit more flexibility in your play for when things change.”
Reignover talked about it being easier to play for the top side when on the blue side of the draft. Can you break that down a bit for me?
“Reignover likes to play Rengar on blue side a lot and Rengar is really really good at playing aggressively. So I imagine it is because he can go for early invades on the enemy red area and set up vision and force them out of their jungle. It isn’t necessarily better for everyone, partly just due to how Reignover likes to play.”
Why would someone pick red side when they have the choice?
“Well on Blue, you get first pick which is super valuable, but since the change in the draft phase, red side gets a lot of opportunity to gain an advantage as well. You can pick specific champions in your 3rd slot that have bad matchups and then ban two counters to it and then you get the next pick as well! You also always get the last pick, which can be useful for counters and mind games!”
William “Meteos” Hartman after defeating CLG – Week 5
Find Meteos on Twitter @MeteosLoL. Check back here for more content and our YouTube channel for my video interviews! If you’d like to contact me, go ahead and tweet @parkeso. For pictures and stories, follow my Insta @parqueso. If you’re not big into social media, email me at [email protected]. =)