C9 Vulcan – “I hope I’ll meet Shopify because I think their Bot lane is worse than TL’s.”

Philippe “Vulcan” LaFlamme sat down with HotSpawn to chat about C9’s loss to FlyQuest, why he prefers old draft to newfangled Fearless, and his love for Swain.

Vulcan and Cloud9 have been in resurgent form this split, after struggling in 2024 and making organizational and roster changes, like the addition of Nick “Inero” Smith as Assistant Coach. Though they fell 3-2 to FlyQuest in the Upper Bracket Semifinals, most fans are expecting them to cash in their ticket to the rematch for Split 2 Finals. After the loss, we interviewed Vulcan about everything going on for the Quebecois support, including why he’s blunt about preferring SR, a matchup which his wish for will be granted this weekend.

C9 Vulcan interview

Hey Vulcan, thanks for chatting. I figure we’ll start with the series and then chat about some format stuff and whatever comes up?

Vulcan: “Sounds good.”

Great, can you sort of walk me through how you’re feeling about the series game-to-game. I just talked to Busio about the same thing, so I’m interested to hear both perspectives. There were some close moments, but obviously the result wasn’t what you wanted, so walk me through the series from your perspective. What went wrong? What went right? That sort of thing.

Vulcan: “Yeah, game one and two, we had good moments.

I think it feels bad, especially because of game 2, we ended up being in a very good position to win, and I think our draft was a lot better than theirs, but they were good at finding good angles. That was a theme throughout the series. I feel like they were better than us when they were in technically worse positions to find a way to make it work.

Game 1, we had a lot of playmaking in our comp, but we didn’t really get that many plays going. We got a few early plays, but then we slowly lost, I guess. Yeah, and then we lost game two, obviously, massive throw, so we’re 0-2.

So, not great. I think game five started off very poorly with the skirmish in our blue jungle. I think if we can take a one-for-one there and run or something, then we have a better chance, because I think our comp is pretty strong early game. We should be able to get leads rather than being beaten. But then after once we’re behind, it didn’t feel like we had many tools to get back into the game, and they did a good job of slowly choking us out and not letting us get back into the game.

But we did somehow find a way to get a third Drake fight that I think some of us could have played a little bit better to win that fight, and then we would be on Soul point after winning a fight, because I think they probably shouldn’t be fighting us on there. I mean, they kind of have to, I guess, because we’re close to Soul. But Leona, Gragas, and we had really good vision everywhere. And I think if we play individually a little bit better there, maybe we’re the ones rolling them a bit, getting the fourth Drake, Soul, and then forcing Baron and stuff like that, being able to play with tempo.

And, yeah, that was the series.”

You’re getting to play out an actual Best-of-5 Fearless series now that we’re in playoffs, how are you feeling on Fearless as a format? You just got to play our first actual five-game series of Fearless and the consensus seems to be that it doesn’t do a ton compared to traditional draft until game 3 and onward. How’s it feeling?

Vulcan: “Yeah, I feel this is fine. I feel like there are enough champions to make it work. You don’t have to pick something that troll. I think it depends on the meta, I guess, because sometimes there’ll be some champs that are a lot weaker. But right now, it feels like it’s okay. I’m not sure, you know, it’s not exactly your question, but I’m not sure if I’d say that I prefer playing Fearless over not Fearless.”

No, that’s a great point to bring up actually. Let’s chat about that. I’ve written a bit about my problems with Fearless, and I definitely think it has changed some of the core competitive incentives that teams have had for over a decade in old draft. Speak your truth, what makes standard drafting better than Fearless?

Vulcan: “I think I lean towards Old Draft just because I feel like Fearless introduces a bit more…not exactly randomness, but it’s never going to be replicable, you know what exactly the champions are out, and in what order. And every game is always different. I guess it’s a different set of skills that you have to train, being able to adapt to which champions are open and which are not, and then be able to take on the fight. It’s a very different skill set than before when it’s a lot easier to make a draft and then you just deviate a bit from that one if you didn’t like it or you ban a champ that they were too good at or something, or you switch it up, you have like a couple of drafts ready.

But now…we were never in this scenario in game 5, where these champions were up and then we didn’t play against this Leona, that never happened. And so I think as a competitor and as someone who also watched, I think if I were watching, I would rather see a game five watching players that are practiced on the comp, on the champs, and they’re not forced to play something wacky. Obviously, it’s our responsibility to be ready for Fearless now that it’s like this, and we have to practice champs and be ready for different comps and whatever. But yeah, that’s leading towards the whole drafting system.”

Awesome. So you guys know you’ll be squaring down with one of TL or SR right now, since that series happens tomorrow. How are you feeling about the matchup? I’d say you guys are favourites into whoever wins there, but tell me how you feel, and who you think will take the TL vs SR series tomorrow?

Vulcan: “Yeah, I would also say that we’re a favorite going into it. I think we and FLY are pretty clearly above the other teams, but I don’t think that they’re that much worse. I think you kind of saw it in the Shopify series against FLY, where even though it was a 2-0, any of these games could have gone the other way. So we definitely have to be careful. I do think, to answer your question, that I would give it to Shopify, if I were going off current form. I do think that if TL figures their shit out a little bit and kind of play a bit cleaner, I think they should, in theory, win. From what I’ve seen so far, they split, I’d say Shopify. So yeah, we’ll be watching tomorrow, and then I think we’re favored. We’ll see.”

Alright, we’ll wrap up with my favorite non-pro play-related question. If Riot came to you and said, “Vulcan, you’re in charge of deciding what region or champions get the next show.” Where would you want to see an Arcane-style animated show set in the world of League of Legends, or what champions would you want?

Vulcan:  “That’s a good question. Let me think. I mean, there are a few regions. I was thinking of the Shadow Isles, but I don’t know how much story is going on there. It’s just all the weird champs over there. Probably doing some freaky stuff. Noxus is like rumored to be next, right?”

Yeah, it’s certainly the most likely one, given the “Bite Marks” music video, but nothing has been officially confirmed.

Vulcan: “Like, maybe confirmed? I think I would like Noxus or Demacia. I guess they’re kind of intertwined. So maybe you’ll see both of them at once. I think, yeah, I think that’d be cool. I would say Noxus/Demacia or either of them, depending on what story they’re hitting for the champion. Swain is pretty cool. So probably, I mean, that’s what, you know, that’s the teaser. They were doing it the whole time. So I guess I have a boring answer, but I think Swain’s cool.”

Listen, you’re preaching to the choir here, man. I genuinely hope that the next show is a Noxus show that follows Swain’s rise to power, give me some demon arm action, you know?

Vulcan: “Perfect. Yeah, me too.”

You’ve said you think Shopify will win, out of the two possible opponents, is there one you’d prefer to face?

Vulcan: “I hope I’ll meet Shopify because I think their bot lane is worse than TL’s. So I hope that they win. I hope they’re the better team, and then we play against them because I think Yeon and Core JJ give us a harder time in lane, where playing against Bvoy and Ceos was easier. So yeah, good luck, Shopify.”

Awesome. Thanks for taking the time, Vulcan. Have a good one.

Vulcan: “All right. Thank you, Nick. Have a good one. Cheers.”