MKOI Zeph: “It’s our trademark to play the map correctly”

This Sunday, MKOI lost 1-3 to G2 Esports for a spot in the LEC Summer Grand Final. They are now waiting for their opponents at the Madrid Summer Finals, which will be one between Karmine Corp and Fnatic. The assistant coach Quentin “Zeph” Viguié sat down with Hotspawn to discuss the series, the upcoming matches, Myrwn and Supa’s progress, MKOI’s expectations for Worlds and his opinion on the other teams still in the run.

Ethan: I have the impression that the games today, whether with the chrono break, your throw, and even in the gameplay in general, were a bit chaotic.

What’s your opinion as we just came out of the series?

Zeph: Right now, perhaps [it’s] a lack of preparation for the match. For my part, I felt like I had good drafts. Maybe the first one, I told myself that it was good, but maybe it’s not good in the end, I have to reevaluate, I have to think tonight, I have to sit down and look at what went wrong, what they wanted to do, a little bit to understand their point of view. The second one, I think it was really free. But we lost it because we played badly, it happens. I think today they played better than us in general, but beyond that, I think we didn’t show much, which was a bit of a shame; it was just a day off. So in the heat of the moment, I would just say drafts were not too much of a problem. Obviously, the last draft was sh*t. But that’s how it is, you know. In fact, you have to understand that we have to win this game and the next one. So we have to make sacrifices for the next game on red side to be good too. You have to make small concessions and hope to have something that… can win you the game and still put the next game in good conditions. It’s not like we left some champions open for fun.

Ethan: I have to tell you about this game 2, where you went from 10k gold ahead to losing it 3 minutes later. I feel like throwing big leads in the late game is not something that happened to you for the first time today…

Is this a subject that has already come back on the table, these somewhat disjointed late games that MKOI can have?

Zeph: It happened at the beginning of the year, perhaps? In winter and all?

Ethan: From memory, there was also KC Spring, where they played Ivern-Elise, and BLG Game 4 at MSI.

Zeph: Yes, there were some, I agree.

In any case, we are a team with high highs and low lows. And today, we were in a low.

And I think G2 wasn’t potentially all in a high. Most of their players, but not everyone, were in a high. I don’t think all their players played well. It was really a winnable match, but I think we just performed very badly. So the games were tough.

Ethan: Ok. You don’t think there’s an issue with MKOI’s late game overall?

Zeph: No, no, no, there’s no problem. I think it’s really a bad preparation that, anyway, we were fighting in the mud mentally just to survive, when we shouldn’t have been in this spot. But maybe in the end that’s part of the problem. I don’t know everything, it’s just… From my point of view, it’s really a bad preparation that creates all these problems and these problems are not there if you are better prepared, which will happen in the final; this is the good news.

Ethan: Let’s discuss a little about MKOI progress overall. I think there are two players that we didn’t expect as much as the others this year. For me, they have exploded their glass ceiling. Supa first, even if today he didn’t have his best performance, in general, he is mechanically very consistent and what always shocks me with him is how he uses his tempo, along with his intelligence on the map. But I’m also thinking of Myrwn, who has become ultra complete, where before he was a player who could only rely on a few meta champions, in addition to sometimes playing too much on the limits.

How do you explain that Myrwn and Supa have progressed so much in such a short time?

Zeph: It’s complicated to answer this question correctly. I think Myrwn has done a lot of work. Obviously, they all worked a lot. I’m gonna start with Myrwn first. Yes, he’s a more complete player. And everyone has their flaws. But it’s true that Myrwn, in relation to people’s expectations, maybe we can say that.

For example, the guy who works the most is Elyoya.

Maybe today, he didn’t play as well. But in general, that’s why he’s so strong, you know. Myrwn, in relation to the expectation you have, maybe you’ll think like that. But I think it’s just individual work with Melzhet or me, or himself. And most of the time, it’s when it comes from the players themselves that they play the best. When they’re the ones who come to the coaches and ask and are curious and everything, that’s when the players perform best. And after the week won against Fnatic, something Myrwn was doing that he didn’t do was that he was doing reviews with Melzhet in addition to the usual reviews, etc. This is something that has not been done since Worlds qualification, maybe in the end it has an impact.

And for Supa, it’s the same thing, I think that today he wasn’t consistent, maybe it’s a bad preparation on his part, maybe it’s a bad draft, maybe it’s just a bad day, I don’t really know, but it’s true that… In general, he’s a very consistent player and we, as a team, it’s our trademark to play the map correctly. G2 as well, they are good sidelaners, even though they’ve been simplifying the game lately, in the way of stacking drakes, grouping on objectives and fist fight, which is a really good way of playing; it’s just that they’re simplifying. So normally, against all the teams in Europe, we’re pretty happy with our map control, and that’s our strength as a team.

Ethan: To look back on the prep a bit, I know that you have a big place in the staff when it comes to the prep and scouting. This prep was very much highlighted, especially in the Spring playoffs. From an outside perspective, frankly, it seemed really obvious that you were coming in with a lot more weapons than the others.

What do you think is the edge you had compared to the other teams in the prep at the time?

Zeph: Well, for example, this match is going to be important. It’s an interesting match because you see, we lost, but I think that…

We have a lot of information for the next match against G2. The best play that they have now is to recreate new things to surprise us again. But if they don’t do that, there’s a good chance we’ll be in a very, very good spot next time against them.

Often that’s what happens, you lose a match, you adapt, the guys don’t adapt that much, they lose, they want to adapt. We push ourselves a little bit like that, only in the games that are important, like a competitive match. Now we played against G2, the next time we play against them, it’s not going to happen like that. I hope so, because otherwise we would have done a bad job once again.

Ethan: And I also wanted to talk a little bit about this new champion status that you have, because it’s not something that all teams managed to embrace. I necessarily think of KC. You’re doing pretty well at the moment because you really seem to be the most in-form team after G2.

As a coach of a champion team that manages to stay in shape, what’s your read on the problems that KC is going through lately?

Zeph: Maybe a lack… I don’t know how to judge KC, actually. Because I think people are coping on the internet, saying that their drafts are bad and everything. It’s not true. Their drafts are totally fine. I think G2 today, they were not giving a f*ck about drafts. They just locked their champions. We knew every time what was going to happen, we exchanged champions, you know, it was chill. I think that the drafts that KCorp is making in general are not bad, so it’s not a problem. I would say that… At the moment, they’re no longer the best at what was their trademark. For example, what G2 did today, to stack the drakes. You take the game… What game? One or two, I’m not sure. I think it’s the first one, where we take a kill, we do the Atakhan. And then they take the position on the dragon. In fact, they don’t dispute the Atakhan and it’s the right thing to do. That’s the thing we’d do too, but they prioritize dragons a lot. And that’s something that KCorp, at the time, did very, very well. And I find that they are less consistent in this, less than they could be. In any case, G2 performs better at that than they do. But maybe it’s the consequences of the laning phase, the drafts, or I don’t know what.

But it’s just from an outside point of view, what made their trademark and what made them win the Winter… They may have forgotten themselves a little.

Ethan: It makes sense because in general we often saw that they were trying new things, new drafts, new approaches and inevitably it might have deviated them a little from what was their successful identity. You will participate in Worlds for the second time in a few weeks. And so we were talking about assuming the status of a top EU team… At Worlds, it has rarely gone well for Europe, and we haven’t really experienced a top team rising to the expectations there.

PRÓXIMO DESTINO: WORLDS 2025 ✈️🇨🇳#goMKOI #MKOIWIN pic.twitter.com/LGhwZxtpO2

— Movistar KOI League of Legends (@MovistarKOILoL) September 8, 2025

Now that you don’t really have this position of a team that is new and that has to get used to international events, what will be your goals in China?

Zeph: Well,

Our goal will be to win.

The problem is that if we lose games like today, it hurts. Games like this mean that our preparation was bad and that we are going to face new problems at Worlds. I think that in all the matches, there is a big part of luck. When we won the Spring, there was a lot of luck involved. The guys had the bad read of the drafts, and we had the best read. In the end, yes, we did a good preparation, but we’re lucky that the other guys fucked up. And you can win Worlds this way, like I’m not going to say anything about DRX… But along the lines, you can win Worlds this way.

The most important is that we arrive being the best version of ourselves and that we are there to compete. If we’re in a spot like that, with a bit of luck, we can do it.

If you had to bet on someone who will take third spot for Worlds, who would you bet on?

Zeph: I think KC. I think that GIANTX could maybe beat Fnatic or not, but I don’t think so. But you never know, maybe Fnatic will shit on themselves. It can happen, you know. All the other teams are not bad; they’re not as good, but they’re not bad. And Fnatic, their gameplay is really too simplistic. And I think they’re going to lose to KC. But it’s true that KC, they lost games that were unlosable, shaky games, so it’s pretty hard to predict. But I’d still put KC.