Two days before First Stand kicks-off, I got the opportunity to discuss with the MVP of the LEC Winter’s final: KC Vladimiros “Vladi” Kourtidis. Karmine Corp’s midlaner spoke his mind about his confidence level, people’s expectations towards him, the new meta and, the international midlaners he’ll soon face.
First of all, how does it feel to be the best midlaner of the LEC, at least for winter?
Vladi: It feels good. I didn’t really expect to perform that good at the start of the Split, like to be able to beat G2 3-0. But, we just improved so fast. I improved so fast, I would say. And yeah, here we are.
Ethan: I also heard you talking a lot about not being cocky and staying grounded in interview. And it’s funny because I also heard your coach Reha saying that sometimes you are even overcocky in game since you never pay attention to the name tag in front of you. And you just got MVP of both series against the best midlaners in the league for the past four years now.
What’s your mindset right now and how do you manage to stay humble? Is it because you’re still very young?
Vladi: I wouldn’t say I’m that humble, but I think not recognising the name plates in the game is a good thing. You should see them as player one, for example, because it does give you confidence then to play your own game and to be able to beat everyone. And yeah, that’s what I do. I just play with confidence. I don’t care whho I play against. Even here at First Stand, when I’ll play against Zeka or or Creme, I won’t really care. I will just play my game. And yeah, I think we can beat them. Will be rough but I think it’s possible.
FINALS MVP 🏆 pic.twitter.com/cGgoqCqgmg
— LEC (@LEC) March 2, 2025
Ethan: I saw your CEO and your coaches praising you a lot because of the time and efforts you put into the game, not only because you it rank one in soloqueue, but also like during the offseason since you got to play a lot of inhouses.
Do you think putting all that time and effort into the game was the key to your success?
Vladi: For sure, you could say that. I think playing inhouses in the offseason against the Worlds’ players was very helpful. I think I just play a lot and it’s because I love this game. And when you really like what you do, you will obviously just do it a lot. And yeah, with the time you are putting on it, you will improve fast. Like, I was playing League 15 hours a day. And now here I am.
Ethan: To talk about First Stand now, people were not expecting expecting you as much as Calista or Yike, for example during winter.
Now that you kind of showcased your talent, are aren’t you afraid of that pressure since people people will most likely have more expectations towards you?
Vladi: Not really. I’m a guy that doesn’t really get affected by people’s opinion. Like I don’t really care what they think.
I don’t really care their expectations. I just put my own expectations and my expectation is to beat everyone in this tournament.
Ethan: I also wanted to know your opinion on the new patch because lane swap should be dead by now.
Do you feel like this patch is completely shifting the meta and how hard is it to prepare in such a short period of time? Especially since lane swaps have been part of the games for a whole year now.
Vladi: I don’t really think it changes a lot. I mean draft wise I don’t think it changes a lot, but yeah for sure. Like the play style in the first few levels will be way different.
Ethan: Like you won’t have Canna in your lane at level 2…
Vladi: Yes, you will be able to to lane normally on top lane. So that means the champions priority will change a bit. You used to have, for example, K’Santé as one of the highest priorities or a few tanks, Sion etc. so they can handle the lane swaps. Now it will be different people should start playing carry tops, I would say.
Ethan: And you don’t think it will affect supports that much? Because I was expecting supports to play more range champions to dominate the lane now.
Vladi: Maybe, I’m not really sure, maybe they will start playing lane bullies, but not really from what I saw. I think it’s still the same I would say. And I think you can still show up on toplane after minute three. It’s still not that bad for the laners in botlane. Like if they if they really have a rough lane they can still show up at minute 4.
How has been the training so far? Have you been able even to scrim any team or has it been only soloqueues, normal games and media day for now?
Vladi: There are been a lot of media day. But yeah, yesterday was our first scrim against… I mean, I can’t really say.
Ethan: Was it a good team?
Vladi: It was not a good team. But we have some strong scrims I would say in the upcoming days. And yeah, we will see.
Ethan: Will you have to scrim during the match days? Because, you play on stage nearly everyday…
Vladi: Yeah, I think we we are scriming during the match days, after the match we have scrims. A bit weird, never really had that. But yeah, we will see. Obviously if you lose a match day and then you scrim, you are a bit down but I think it’s fine.
Ethan: I wanted to have your thoughts on the midlaners you’ll face during the event. Of course we’re going to mainly talk about Zeka and Creme, right? And these are two player. I feel that they had the same trajectory in their own way since one was very good at AD carries champions in the mid lane, while the other was very good at melee champions. And now they’ve both grown a lot to become much more complete players that can play mages and adapt very well to the meta.
What’s your personal thoughts on Zeka and Creme? And do you think you already have what it takes to match them?
Vladi: Yeah, I think they are obviously very strong players, very strong individual players, like Zeka also won Worlds like two years ago. And yeah, I think I can beat them. I don’t think they are something special. As I said, they are very strong laners. But I don’t think it’s hard, at least in this meta, where lane doesn’t really matter. I would say it’s mostly about the execution in team fights.
We will see, but I’m pretty confident that I can beat them.
Ethan: You’re all all great Yone players.
Who’s the best Yone of you three (Vladi, Zeka, and Creme)?
Vladi: I would say it’s me. Then either one of these two can take the rank 2 like, I don’t really care, but I’m by far the best.
Ethan: OK, so maybe you’re starting to become a bit cocky after all *laugh*…
Vladi: I’m not cocky, I’m just realistic.
Ethan: For your first match, you’ll be up against someone that has never played Yone in his entire career tho. I’m talking about TL APA.
Vladi: Wait he never played it?
Ethan: Never in pro play.
Vladi: It’s because Yone requires fingers.
Are you confident that, with KC, EU will finally not crumble against NA?
Vladi: I don’t think NA is something special. I think they have good players and they have a big history, for example, CoreJJ because he won Worlds.
But I think we are very strong individuals. I think we have very strong mechanics. You can compare our mechanics to those of the Asian teams.
I would say it’s just the execution mostly that they do well. So yeah, I think we can easily beat them.
Ethan: And of course we talked about not being cocky but I saw you already throwing some trash talk to him.
Do you have any message before you face APA?
Vladi: Just the same. APA stands for Always Playing Average and everyone’s going to seat on March 10th.
Ethan: There has been a debate on socials on whether or not Europeans should support you despite like not being KC fans and for a large majority I saw people were actually kind of down to cheer for you.
Do you have any message for the KC fans obviously, but also for the new EU fans that just joined the train for First Stand?
Vladi: Thank you for the support. To the KC fans, they’re always there, like even in the LEC studio, they are coming to support us. We really appreciate it and we are also doing this for you. And to the other fans, I think it’s pretty normal to support EU. I think if G2 won the finals against me, I will probably support them myself, even though I will compete against them in a few weeks from now. Like it’s pretty normal to support our region and yeah, make it better.
Check out our interview with CFO’s midlaner Tsai “HongQ” Ming-Hong.
