While we were having fun watching the action at the LEC Finals, we sneaked an interview with EU legend Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski to talk about his life as a content creator, his predictions on the finals, NAVI, and his hopes for EU at Worlds.

Ethan: I know you did a lot of events in your career, but I guess it’s the first one as a content creator, right?

What do you think of the atmosphere of Madrid so far? I saw you hanging around at the XPO. How was it?

Jankos: We watched KC against Fnatic and I think it was amazing. The energy is there. Of course, you know, people were biased towards FNC because Spanish people do like to have a rivalry with the French people. So I think we had more FNC fans. But today there’s going to be FNC-MKOI, so I’m wondering how that one is going to go.

I think MKOI has a huge fan base, [but] so does FNC in Spain, so that’s going to be awesome. The arena is [also] amazing, I feel like the design of the mountain in the middle looks actually really, really cool. And I feel a bit bad for the players, you know, having to climb all the way up and then when you lose, you have to go all the way down, right? Like they said, they are with Oscar and he also mentioned that they have so much adrenaline, they don’t think about it. But I’m wondering if the players, after five times will get exhausted or not.

LEC XPO 2025
Photo Credit: Gomez Visual/Riot Games

And then the last thing, the XPO is also nice. I think there are about 15 booths at the XPO and you can do many, many things. Basically, everything is free as long as you get in and there’s no ticket as well. You can collect stamps and that way, you can get some free merch. You can get free stuff from all the sponsors from LEC… There’s even a fun Fans for Fans booth where fans made their own stickers, and the stickers are actually insane. I had some of them on my mic when I was doing the LEC content. And honestly, the stickers are so good, they’re so well done. And apparently, it’s the fans who went with the initiative to LEC to ask them to make a fan booth. And then they took care of everything. You guys are amazing. Seriously, that was just beautiful. I mean, the fan booth was my favorite one, beautiful passion.

Ethan: I wanted to talk about your transition into content creation.

How did you handle it? Was it like something that was already on your mind when you were playing? Are you happy with how it is going so far?

Jankos: Well, I’m hoping that. Overall, I think the transition was interesting. It wasn’t easy. Even though I was streaming for a couple of years, it always felt like I was mostly being a player and then I was streaming as the second thing. But now it [has] changed: I’m a streamer and then a player. I feel like the priorities changed because it’s more about entertainment than it is about good gameplay. And you also want to branch out into not just playing, but also doing other things, as playing is not your main goal. So it’s still something that I struggle with a little bit, but I’m trying to understand it better, and I’m trying my best to, you know, grow as a content creator.

Ethan: Now that you’ve done a full year of content creation,

Would you say that you prefer life as a content creator or as a pro player?

Jankos: That’s a very interesting question. I’d say that both have pros and cons. I think for playing, it’s just the fact that you can 100% indulge yourself in League and no matter what, all you care about is being good at the game, and everything else comes second. But on the other hand, you have way more stress and there’s like 12, 14 hours of practice.

With content creation, I feel like you have a little bit more free time. I still feel like I spend a lot of time streaming. But I still feel like, for example, I can live in Poland, so I can spend more time with my family, with my friends. And since for the past 10, 11 years, I was a pro player and I was always traveling and I was always in Berlin, I didn’t really get to spend a lot of time with my family. So right now I’m kind of making up for it. So I suppose there’s both have pros and cons. I feel like I really liked being both and I still do like being a content creator, but I also do miss competing. But also like international events, you know, when you qualify for MSI, when you play in front of such a big crowd. So yeah, both worlds are very nice.

And would you say that you’re definitely retired from pro play now that you’re kind of on a good track with?

Jankos: Content creation and everything, it’s hard to say. I don’t really want to speak too much about it.

Ethan: So I guess that you heard the debate around co-streamers overtaking the official broadcast, or at least becoming the dominant way of consuming League of Legends esports.

Do you have any thoughts on that now that you’ve kind of joined the team?

Jankos: Well, it’s interesting. It’s very difficult for me to really have a strong opinion because I’ve been doing it for only about a year. Right. And there are some co-streamers that I’ve been doing forever. Well, I definitely do think it makes it more difficult to watch through like the main broadcast because there are big streamers who will just take over and every language has a big one like Caedrel, like Kameto, like Ibai, and so on. They also represent teams nowadays.

I feel like it is becoming more mainstream to just watch them for their personalities, but also because they bring the passion to the project. As long as people are enjoying the project, I think that’s fine. I don’t know how it really impacts the broadcast itself. If it’s because I can know for sure that if the co-streamers have huge numbers, but they don’t always support all of the mini projects that LEC is putting out, then it’s gonna be hard for LEC to really go mainstream with these projects, just because somebody is not watching.

I feel like there are some pros and cons to that as well… and I’m definitely on the smaller scale of the co-stream, so I feel like I can, you know, I’m like, aware of it, but I also try to, you know, do things that I enjoy and I like. And I assume that if I were a bigger one, I would probably keep the same logic, which means that it’s probably hard for Riot to also always include the co-streamers. It’s hard to include all the content during the co-streaming hours, if that makes sense.

Ethan: To talk more about the team you joined this year, because it’s no secret that Rogue was like ‘kind of AFK’ in terms of content creation during that time. I know you’re going to be grateful for them, like giving you your first chance as a content creator for LEC, but I see you making a lot more stuff with NAVI.

What are your thoughts on NAVI as an org so far? Would you say your work has drastically changed with them?

Jankos: I mean, definitely. Right. I have visited Berlin two, three times, and I was only through one split ride. So I have definitely been way closer to NAVI than to Rogue.

I feel like NAVI is actually trying hard to make a competitive roster for next year, and they want to be a big part of LEC. They don’t want to just buy a slot and be irrelevant, if that makes sense. So even though the summer split 2025 didn’t go well for us, I’m sure that next year the roster is going to be more competitive. So we’ll see how it goes. I’m excited. I think it’s going to be awesome.

Ethan: And I guess that you heard that Rhilech will join NAVI next year as their jungler.

What are your thoughts on him?

Jankos: I mean, Rhilech is, you know, one of the highest-ranked players in solo queue. He’s definitely very talented and a very young player, but that’s kind of all I can say about him for now. I did speak to him, actually, as a mentor in a way, because that’s kind of my job as well, a little bit on NAVI. I wouldn’t say that I’m a huge mentor, but I’m very experienced for a player.

So if NAVI can use me and if players want to talk to me about, you know, potential, their career path, and maybe how I stayed at what I was doing for so long, or maybe they just want to talk about comms or anything else, I can help them. If the players want my help or if they feel like they want to talk to me, I’m happy to talk to them. So hopefully I can help a little bit here and there.

Ethan: Okay, great.

What are your bets for these finals? Who will win the LEC?

Jankos: I actually did a prediction with NAVI as well. We had a video about it and I predicted KC to be in the final so that prediction is dead now. I predicted them to win.

I wanted them to go from [the] lower bracket and won in the final, but I mean, there are a lot of things happening behind the scenes, I guess. So it is what it is. My next prediction, or rather, in the finals, I expected G2 to be there, and I had them from the winner’s bracket. And I also had MKOI in the winner’s bracket.

 

G2 being the final [is] not surprising; I think they will win the whole thing. I think they improved a lot; they are a very solid team, especially SkewMond. Labrov is very solid right now, but SkewMond is looking insane. I think he’s looking, maybe potentially, like the best jungler currently, but Elyoya is also coming close to him. So we will see which one will be in the final, which one will be dominating the finals. We also can’t forget about Fnatic. My prediction for today is going to be MKOI wins 3:1 and then my prediction for the finals is going to be G2 and 3-2 over MKOI. We’ll see what happens.

Ethan: And I know we have the debate every year,

But what are your honest thoughts on EU’s chances at Worlds?

Jankos: This is a very tough one, right? Because you know, it is no surprise that we are not the strongest right now. We are not in the best shape. I truly hope that we can be competitive.

This is going to be a very generic answer because it’s really hard to predict how we are going to do. You know, I hope that G2 can actually perform well this year. And I feel like considering the growth they have had from January to now, there is some hope.

I would say that last year they looked very solid throughout the year, but it didn’t feel like they improved so much throughout the day. It just felt like they came in solid from 2023 and they just were solid for the whole year. This year, they actually had this progress from January; they were not a very good team and [didn’t have] a lot of cohesion. Nowadays, they look different. So I hope that they can close it out with a slam in the finals.

They can reclaim the trophy and then they can represent our region at Worlds. Besides that, we have MKOI, FNC. My expectation, these teams are not the highest. I mean, I’m sorry, but you know, MKOI and FNC’s international events have been rather disappointing for a couple of years now. Let’s hope that at least one of the teams can do well and can make top 8.

For anything above top 8, I think that’s going to be a great success. Top 8 is going to be a great success considering that we haven’t been top 8 since 2022 and the last team who was there in 2022 was Rogue. We need some good teams.

Ethan: To round off the interview,

If you had to reflect on your pro career a bit, are you happy with what you’ve accomplished overall? Looking back, would you have changed anything, obviously, outside of that BO5 against FPX?

Jankos: I mean, definitely there are things that I felt like could have done better or I could have done more. Not necessarily more, because I feel like I’ve always had this logic during my career that I’m doing the best I can do in the given moment.

I don’t really dwell on the past and I don’t really overthink, ‘Oh, what would happen if’. But I feel like I gave my best.

Of course, there are regrets, that sometimes maybe I can make a different decision. Maybe you have won a Bo5, but these things don’t really help you and you can grow from them. You can be a bigger human in the future, but just thinking about the past and being stuck in it is not going to help you grow in the future. And especially now that I have somewhat turned a page and, you know, I’m trying this content creator out.

Jankos playing for G2 in 2019
Photo Credit: Riot Games

Dwelling on my past is not really something that I do. But yes, I mean, I wish I would win more, but at the same time, I probably had the best jungler career of any jungler from LEC so far. That can definitely change in the future, depending on how well other Western players will do internationally, but I think I enjoyed it, and I think that was a great career. In case I don’t come back, if I come back, maybe I can, you know, add another trophy to there. But I think I had a pretty enjoyable pro career.

Ethan: As you said, we got to see a lot of new talents this year and we also got to see teams that are importing more and more Koreans, even NA with JoJo.

Are you hopeful for EU’s future overall? Would you say you’re optimistic about what EU has to bring to the scene?

Jankos: It’s very difficult to say because in LCK, they have so much talent as well.

I feel like LPL is getting weaker a little bit, but LCK still remains strong. So I think that if we can compete against LTA and we can compete against LPL, that’s already not bad because we could go back to being the second strongest region.

Unfortunately, for the past two years, we haven’t really been there, right? FlyQuest has been performing way better internationally, so that’s LTA, and then LPL has also been beating us. So I mean, we are the 4th-best region; some of us even say we are a minor region at this point.

I’m hopeful for the future. Of course, it’s always good to think about maybe the rookies can carry us in the future. People like SkewMond playing around, playing along Hans Sama, Caps, and BB (BrokenBlade), and Caliste as well.

Caliste, unfortunately, won’t have the Worlds experience, but you know, SkewMond, a player that is growing as well; he went to MSI, he will get that Worlds experience, maybe in the future he can grow to be a great player.

Same as Inspired, he’s the pride of FlyQuest and ever since he moved to NA, he has been, you know, playing insanely well. And he’s also representing… Well, he’s representing LTA, but he’s still a Western jungler. So you know him and Bwipo.

Overall, FlyQuest as a Western team; it’s good to see NA doing well too, right?. I’m hoping that these guys can also keep on their high level and carry the region. It’s always interesting to watch Western teams compete for the higher places. And I truly hope that FlyQuest will be competitive with these worlds and also maybe one of the EU teams, be it G2, be it MKOI, be it FNC.

Do you have any last words for the fans or anything you want to say before we close the interview?

Jankos: Well, thank you guys for supporting me. I think I had an awesome weekend at the arena in Madrid. I hope that you guys are enjoying the show as well, and I would welcome all of you to my co-stream in case you want to visit, and if not, please enjoy the games. See you.