MKOI Elyoya: “We are our biggest opponent, believe it or not.”

On Monday, Movistar KOI suffered their first loss in the LEC’s Winter playoffs against Karmine Corp (0-2). No more room for mistake, as MKOI have been relegated to the lower bracket, where any loss is synonymous with elimination. Javier “Elyoya” Prades and his team will face the winner of Team Heretics – GIANTX, on Sunday. With the Spanish jungler, we discussed what went wrong against KC, his development as a player, and what lies ahead.

Ethan: You just lost against Kamine Corp (0-2).

Can you tell me how you and your team feel right now?

Elyoya: Right now I think we’re really frustrated with the way we played. I think both games today were pretty bad performance from our team. I think we really didn’t show up. They were a much better team today. So yeah, it feels bad to lose this way. Yeah. I think frustration is the the first world that comes to mind.

Ethan: I personally feel that you kind of let down Drake control in early game. Is it something that you like, anticipated or is it just that the in game conditions were just not in your favour at those moments?

What do you think happened if you had to like recall a bit on on the games?

Elyoya: Yeah, I think the in game conditions were not in our favour. I think we had Drake three and Drake four where we were in a good spot. We had the zone. They were chunked and we just misplayed, obviously. I would say that the game was in our hands totally. We had the lead and we just threw it today.

We wouldn’t have won against any team today.

We just didn’t had a a good day. So yeah, I think Drakes, Void Grubs, Herald, whatever it was. We were just not in it.

Ethan: You still managed to to steal a Nashor…

Elyoya: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it almost gave us the win but…

Ethan: I assume you saw the Caliste interview on PGL last day. I’m telling you this because KC against KOI has been like a growing rivalry in the in the league.

How do you feel about this yourself? And do you think it’s important to have those kind of narratives in the league?

Elyoya: Yeah, I think it’s really important that these narratives appear. I think it gives much more life to the competition. I would say yeah, what he said was fine. I really don’t share his opinion. I think he was just bantering for fun, kind of I don’t think he even believes it. But yeah, overall I think it it just brings joy to the competition. It brings this tension. So I really like it. I’m in favour of it.

Ethan: You think you’ll be able to humble him the next time you’ll face him?

Elyoya: Yeah, for sure. I think next time we face them we will have trash talk prepared for it. So yeah, it’s going to be good. After the game, he’s just going to know his place.

Ethan: On a more of an individual scope, do you feel like the role within the team that you had has evolved since last year? Because obviously you were like the leader in 2024. You had to lead a rookie team.

Now that you experienced Worlds together, a full LEC year together, do you think like your role has changed a bit and maybe you can focus more on yourself, on your own gameplay?

Elyoya: Yeah, for sure. I think my role has changed and has developed differently. I’d say right now I’m a much more complete player. I would say I consider myself an athlete kind of, like I take care of many things apart from the game. So overall I’m quite happy with my routine, with how I’m working, and I know eventually with the time I’m just going to get the results that I want. So for me, it’s just a matter of time that I end up winning.

Ethan: You talk about winning, but you already did multiple times. And you’ve been in the top of the league’s junglers for years now. You’re slowly becoming a veteran…

With all the rookies coming in, how do you keep the motivation to grind, improve and how do you manage to keep meeting those expectations year after year?

Elyoya: Well, I don’t think I have won that much to to not have this ambition or this motivation to win. So I still have a lot of motivation to win. You know, I’m not Caps level that has just won so many times LEC.

LoL at the end gives me so much happiness, and I hate mediocrity. I don’t want to be “one more”.

I think that’s why I work every day, to not be mediocre. It’s my goal at the end.

Ethan: You entered the LEC with MAD lions and you directly won everything, before winning a third title with another roster in 2023.

Do you feel like you can keep on improving despite that you already won in the past, with two different rosters? And how?

Elyoya: Yeah, I think there are many ways to improve. I would say even as of my today version, I still have many ways to to improve. For example your sleep, how you take care of yourself out of the game, what you’re doing game, the preparation you do, having what works for you in terms of learning…

There are many things that you need to know for yourself and it’s something pretty hard to do in esports since there is no real academies that prepare you for these things. Like the academies are kind of just a place to play League of Legends, but they are not really something that prepares you for what being a real athlete is.

I think it’s developing in that way, but it’s going to take time, obviously. But yeah, I feel like I’ve improved so much over the years and I still have so much to go on.

Ethan: For the next round, you’ll be up against either Heretics or GIANTX.

Do you have any preferences?

Elyoya: Not really, I think GX will make it, but we should beat them easily. GX, Heretics, Fnatic, whoever it is, we’re going to have to beat them. So I don’t really care the opponent. I want us to work on ourselves, our team. We are our biggest opponent, believe it or not.

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