2025 has been a year of sudden turnabouts for Shopify Rebellion (SR). The struggling organization has stacked the arrival of Ludwig and MoistCritikal as owners onto a genuinely impressive tear in Split 2, and we spoke to Juan “Contractz” Garcia about what’s making the difference on-stage.
Contractz was a bloodthirsty rookie playing for Cloud9 when I came back to LoL esports as a franchised fan in 2017. Now, eight years later, he’s one of the most experienced junglers in the league, with a championship under his belt. We took the time to chat with Contractz about his journey to where he is now, how SR turned this around, and more.
Nick James: Hey, Contractz, thanks for taking the time. Let’s start off with the congratulations that are in order. You guys just took down Team Liquid in a pretty convincing 3-1 series. How are you feeling about your games and your performance? Walk me through it.
Contractz: “[I’m] feeling pretty good, I thought I played pretty well today. So, very confident, or taking confidence, from that for sure. I thought I pathed well in three out of four games… actually maybe two out of four games. My Poppy side pathing early was kind of so-so, but I thought I knew my role well in most games and I thought I played to the condition of the game very well, so yeah, I’m feeling confident for sure.”
Nick: You guys have had a massive glow-up this split. You’ve got a lot of experience under your belt, and you’ve had good splits and bad splits. What was the difference maker here? What allowed you guys to go from really struggling to being a top-three team in the league?
Contractz: I think it’s just about everyone buying into the progress that we can make as a team. We all bought into the culture and what we were working towards, we knew that it’s not going to be easy, we knew we had a lot of bumps, and that we all individually needed to get a lot better, and that we would mesh well when that happens. I think we all stepped up individually a lot, and then once we play well and know our roles well in the game, I feel like connecting is just secondary. I just thought that we just never stopped progressing, we never stopped grinding, and it definitely paid off.
I think our DSG series was definitely like one of the turning points to that. We would always get these crazy leads, 5k gold, 7k gold, 8k gold, even versus the top teams and we just throw it.
So we just put a lot of emphasis on if we just fix these mid-game macro problems, then we’re just going to be able to storm the league. It’s not perfect yet, but we’ve made progress.”
Nick: With your experience, what did you see in the team around you that made you go, “Okay, our ceiling is much higher than we’re showing.” What sort of changes did you guys have to focus on to get to where you are now?
Contractz: “I think first we needed confidence in ourselves and you know, to play our game, and second, we’ve all been here. We’ve all been in playoffs, we’ve all won championships, we’ve all experienced the international stage. I feel like we just needed to find that again, and step one to that starts with just improving ourselves individually and then connecting on the team goal and team identity after. We all knew that we had what it takes to compete at the very top in this league, and things are just clicking right now.”
Nick: So, I believe it was an episode of PROS where it was mentioned that when Yuuji was subbed in for Team Liquid, you sent some funny messages along the lines of “you better guard this guy, I’m gonna invade him on repeat.” Now that Yuuji’s first split is over, what do you think of the newest jungler in the league? You’ve been a rookie inserted into high-pressure environments, though you had the full split to play out, what are your thoughts?
Contractz: “I think he’s a pretty good player, he’s pretty smart about the game, and plays to his team’s conditions. I thought today he made some pathing errors in games one and four, but I think game two and three he actually had really solid games. I think he just has [to] brush up on his positioning and fights on certain champs and kind of know his limits a bit more. But he’s a very confident player, I think he’s a good addition to the league and is definitely on the better side of junglers in the league, for sure. He’s a good prospect, honestly, for me.”
Nick: Looking ahead, you have C9 and FLY in between you and MSI. How are you feeling about the possible matchups?
Contractz: “I’m just taking it day by day, I’m gonna just soak it in, I’m gonna get on match day, I’m gonna feel nervous, but I’m gonna rein it in and conquer it so for me, I’m just excited to tackle the match.”
Nick: You’ve now had the chance to play with the B05 Fearless series a bit, which is really when the format starts to make an impact. How are you feeling about Fearless now that we’re further into the format?
Contractz: “Yeah, I think the top teams don’t have trouble playing champions per se. What gets confusing and you know, requires a lot of adaptability within the teams, is how you connect your champions because honestly, even in the last series, we saw some really wonky drafts where it was just like, Poppy, Bard, Taliyah, and Tristana.
It’s just really odd stuff that I feel doesn’t make too much sense together so it’s just about connecting all the champions together and just making a cohesive unit with a win condition. I think it’s it’s a good addition people are still learning how to thrive in this kind of format.”
Nick: So I just spoke to LS about format stuff, and he was saying he thinks the best thing Riot can do is go from Fearless to full Ironman, which is where bans stick around for the series. So, if I ban Zac in game one, nobody can pick or ban Zac for the rest of the series. Obviously this isn’t likely to happen, but what would you think about playing Ironman?
Contractz: “So, that sounds super fun. It would definitely make it a lot more chaotic, and a lot of people would be exposed to that format because I guess game 5, 15 junglers, 20 junglers, are out of it. I’m gonna pull out the Zac or Bel’Veth or something, you know you gotta put out something freaky. I don’t think Riot will ever do it, but it’d be fun.”
Nick: Alright, last questions, and they have nothing to do with pro play. Firstly, Riot has announced there will be more Fortiche-animated LoL shows like Arcane, in new regions, with new characters. If you were in charge, what region and what champions would you like to see get their own show?
Contractz: “So, I feel like we got to Ionia, something like Irelia/Akali + Yasuo Yone. Something like that, I think it’d be cool to see like another Yasuo/Yone thing.”
Nick: Next question is connected, obviously, Riot is doing these big themed Seasons throughout the year now. We got Noxus, we’re in Ionia/Spirit Blossom right now, and the game gets a map makeover, small mechanics, and skins to tie in to the event. If you got to pick the theme for a season, what would it be?
Contractz: “If I had to choose that, I would just tell them to bring back dominion, but if it was like actually trying to do a place on Runeterra, then I would just do Shadow Isles or something like that.”
Nick: Amazing, looks like we’re out of time here, Contractz. Thanks so much for taking the time, best of luck, man!
Contractz: “Yeah, thanks for having me! “
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