Svenskeren is not worried about the recent 3-3

The last three weeks, Cloud9 has gone 1-1. Is this signs of C9 having weaknesses, or is it more experimenting on stage?

“So we have been trying out a lot of stuff on stage. If we only cared about winning, we might not have tried things out, but Reapered knows what he is doing. So he is just giving us a lot of training time on stage where it is a lot more valuable than playing that way in scrims. Because in scrims you can kind of stomp the game and the enemy will give up and give a lot of free kills and snowball a lot faster. But on stage, the games are typically a lot slower, so you can’t snowball as fast. So I think Reapered knows what he is doing and giving us a lot of practice time on stage. I’m not really worried about the 1-1 weeks because we are just using it for practice mostly.”

Both Reapered and Jack mentioned that their focus is solely on Worlds, so it definitely makes sense that you are treating stage time as practice time. What is it that you’ve learned specifically while on stage while using that as practice?

“It’s just that on stage we can pick Lucian top and Jayce top, and I just played Volibear right now. So you can play whatever you feel like. And if you think it’s a strong pick then Reapered just believes in you and you can pull it out. So even though a lot of champs might not be meta, or whatever, you still get the chance to show your team whatever is actually viable. So it’s a pretty nice environment where the games are more relaxed I guess. And we actually get chances to prove ourselves.”

The Jungle Meta has seemed very stale this season, with 45 Sejuani games picked out of 70 games. Now that there is finally a patch affecting the jungle – now that there is no Tracker’s Knife – are we going to start seeing some of the jungler pool opening up?

“You’re already kind of seeing it now. The champs that were strong before are still super strong, like Skarner and Sejuani. Sejuani had to go trackers knife before, so she didn’t deal too much damage, but with red smite now, she can actually just one shot you. It’s kind of stupid that tanks deal so much damage because of red smite too. It’s not just that assassins that can use it. Obviously Kha’Zix is super strong as well, but that’s not really because of the Skirmishers. It’s that the True Invisibility is kinda bullshit – there’s no counter play to the champion. I think that the patch has not been figured out completely yet, there might be some strong champs as well. Volibear is fine, any tanks are pretty okay because you generally out-scale if you have an enemy that doesn’t go tank, then as a team comp you kind of just win later on in the game. It’s pretty open as long as your team comp makes sense.”

So why have we seen two Lee Sins since the removal of Tracker’s Knife?

“I ran into some Lee Sins in solo queue where it seems pretty strong because with the Electrocute and the Skirmisher’s, you actually have a lot of early game damage. But it just gets out-scaled so hard and it’s pretty hard later on to be useful at all, you have to go for some pretty sick outplays. But in competitive, where the players are like even skill as you, they can kind of play around your play. So I just don’t really see the risk of picking it being worth it.”

Do you have any thoughts on some other picks we haven’t seen yet that may be pretty good?

“I obviously don’t want to leak whatever I’m practicing before I put them on stage. But yeah, I’ve been playing some champs that are definitely viable, I just haven’t put them on stage yet. Obviously there are more than Sejuani and Skarner that’s available.”

Any thoughts on some of the middle tier teams and which seem like they might be able to pull something off in the playoffs if they make it there?

“Well CLG is looking pretty good right now on the new patch. And you can never underestimate TSM. So I think as long as we don’t go against TSM in the first round, it should be pretty good for us.”

Lastly, you’ve been on C9 for a while now. So what is it like with the change to a new organization, and what is it like having Jensen in the mid lane?

“My time on C9 has been really positive. There’s not that many stressful situations where a lot of people are yelling or aggressive. Everyone is pretty neutral in the discussions and take things with an open mind. And I think Reapered leads the conversation so there isn’t much opportunity for people to get in heated arguments because Reapered has the final say. And working with Jensen is pretty easy I would say. I thought he would be really different coming into the team, but he has actually grown a lot as a person rather than when I knew him in EU where he was kind of a kid. But now he is pretty mature and takes in a lot of stuff I tell him and he tells me a lot. So we improve together, and obviously he is a super good player.”

Find Svenskeren on Twitter @C9Svenskeren. 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]. =)