FNC Oscarinin: “The LEC right now is the most competitive that I’ve played.”

Fnatic (FNC) has had a good start to the LEC Summer Split with three wins on the board. After the victory against BDS in Week 2, Hotspawn chatted with Óscar “Oscarinin” Muñoz about his challenging offseason, Poby’s mid-game shotcalling, the state of top lane in the region, and FNC’s chances of securing a spot at Worlds.

How are you feeling after today?

Oscarinin: I’m always happy to win, but the games didn’t feel good for me to play. I will revisit them with my team. But yeah, I’m always happy to win 2-0, I guess.

Ethan: I do feel like you had a lot of difficulty playing the weakside today; you died a bit too much.

Why did you have such a hard time playing the weakside against BDS?

Oscarinin: I think [in] the second game, I was a bit on a “weak side Kingdom”, like a complete island. So yeah, I want to address it because I don’t think it should be like that. I was doing fine 1v1, but I was always scared of Sejuani. I was thinking: “Oh, she can come through lane or the pixel bush” and then she came from behind. I didn’t see it, I don’t know, it was a disaster. First game, it was probably mostly my bad. I want to watch it too, but I think that was more my bad than anything else. Even though, enemy team was just playing on my side always, I don’t know why.

Ethan: Honestly, they were a bit AFK outside of your lane…

Oscarinin: It felt like whenever I showed, they were like: “Oh, let’s go to this lane.” Yeah, it was not nice to play.

Ethan: Your offseason felt very uncertain, as well as for the rest of FNC’s top side.

How was the offseason for you personally? How did you handle being on the verge of getting benched?

Oscarinin: I knew the situation, and it’s not like there was much I could do. I had my meetings with the coaches. I said whatever I felt with the team, my situation in the team, and everything. I think they were happy with that.

Anyway, I was confident in my chances of staying. I don’t think there was someone else who could do a better job than me.

Obviously, I was kind of worried still, because it’s not nice to be in that situation. Yeah, it was a lot of uncertainty. I didn’t know what was gonna happen. It was not nice.

Ethan: I discussed with Mikyx last week, and he told me you were individually trying hard a lot more in Summer. I know you’re obviously not the only responsible and the whole team kind of lost that determination…

Both as a team, but also you individually, what created that decline in motivation over the year?

Oscarinin: I don’t think [the problem] was motivation itself, or that I’m trying harder this split. It’s just that we could not work properly; everything just felt too bad.

There was a lot of frustration in the team. It’s not like we were not putting in the hours or that we were not trying. I just feel like it was not an easy situation for us to bloom and do a good job.

At least, that’s from my POV. I don’t know how my team feels. I think this split we changed a lot of things in the dynamic of the team. So I feel better with that. I can work better with everyone in scrims. I know everyone is happier with me, I’m happier with Mikyx, and with everyone in the team right now. We are working really well.

Ethan: In the end, Poby joined, and you stayed. I feel like FNC had a difficult time when it came to mid-game, but with Poby, things have changed a bit. And I think you’re looking even better in midgame than you are in early game right now. I also watched the voice comms from your games and it looks like Poby is shotcalling a lot. Especially in midgame, [he] manages the tempo and addresses some stuff before team fights.

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— LEC (@LEC) August 10, 2025

Did you expect Poby to be so vocal in midgame?

Oscarinin: I didn’t know him, so I didn’t know what to expect. But for sure, I was not expecting someone vocal who was going to call whatever he wanted to do. He didn’t know English when he came. He could barely speak and we had to talk a very broken English, so he could understand us.

It was really unexpected to have him actually try to talk a lot, to make us understand how he wants to play, how he sees the game. He did a really good job on this.

I’m very happy with how he communicates in mid-game. In the early game, I think he doesn’t communicate as much, but he plays the lane very well. He’s very disciplined with his laning phase and I’m really happy with him.

Ethan: I wanted to have your point of view concerning the toplane in Europe. I feel like the region has not been able to produce a lot of huge talents in toplane recently…

Do you agree that toplane is a weak role in Europe?

Oscarinin: I do agree. I also think we don’t see top lane the same way in Europe as in Korea or China. I think we play very differently with the role itself. But when it comes to internationals, sometimes we lack some firepower in there for sure. So yeah, I agree, even though I don’t think the best tops are too far away. Canna, for example, played very, very well at First Stand, honestly.

Ethan: He’s not European…

Oscarinin: Sure, yeah. If we only talk about Europeans, I think there are really only a few who can play well internationally.

Ethan: Fnatic hasn’t missed Worlds since 2016. Yourself always qualified for Worlds since you joined in 2023.

Would you say that this year’s qualification might be the hardest ever for you?

Oscarinin: The LEC right now is the most competitive that I have played. There are some very good teams. I think MKOI is very good. KC, G2, even GIANTX is playing pretty well right now. So I think a lot of teams are actually competing. Unlike the other years, where there was a really clear top three and then there were the other teams. I think, right now, there are a lot of good teams. So yeah, it’s very competitive and it’s probably the hardest.

Ethan: You are most likely one BO5 away from Worlds. But it is in playoffs that you guys usually struggle the most.

What will change this time, for Fnatic to clutch it?

Oscarinin: I think we are working a lot — as you said — on the mid game and on our preparation. So we can be aware of everything when we enter playoffs. So we are more mechanized, and we don’t have to think about things because they’ll come automatically. We are trying that for playoffs, for us to not completely run it down because of pressure or something like that. That’s what we are trying to change. To also be really disciplined in practice. Lately, it’s been working pretty well. We will see, but I’m pretty confident that we will go to Worlds.

Do you have a closing message for the FNC fans? But also your Spanish fans because the Summer Finals are in Madrid…

Oscarinin: Obviously, I really want to compete in Madrid to play another LEC final, also because [it means] we would be qualified for Worlds. I hope this is the split that we actually win the LEC. We are all trying really hard for it. I hope you can see it. We do it for you.