PAIN TitaN on long-lasting laneswaps: “The game is pretty annoying right now.”

PAIN Gaming, like the rest of their LTA Sul brothers, had an incredibly rough week at the inter-conference brawl ahead of First Stand, we spoke to star ADC Alexandre “TitaN” Lima about their game vs 100T, his thoughts on the ongoing laneswap meta, and why he loves Lucian.

The LTA interconference event was a demoralizing set of four straight losses for LTA South. Despite this, PAIN’s boisterous and iconic superstar ADC TitaN sat down with Hotspawn after PAIN’s 0-2 loss to #1 LTA seed 100 Thieves to chat about the series, the meta, and more.

TitaN: “[Laneswaps] are annoying for every team”

Nick: Hey TitaN, thanks for taking the interview when you guys didn’t have to. I just want to lead the interview off with a macro question I’m curious about. In game two, you and 100 Thieves both swapped your bot lanes into top lane at the start of the game. 100 Thieves rotated later, and The LTA main broadcast interpreted this as 100 Thieves reading you guys engaging the swap, but it seemed to me, stylistically, that your bot lane wanted to play out the 2v2.

Did you guys initiate that lane swap or did you read that 100 Thieves wanted one and respond?

TitaN: Second game I wanted to match their swap, because also our bot lane matchup is good for level three, and we can skirmish well into them. And, if I play normal and go to the bot side, they  have dive priority on my Ambessa, so I don’t want this to happen. So, I just matched. It went pretty good for me.

Nick: Touching on lane swaps, I’ve chatted with tons of pros this year and last to ask them about their opinions on lane swapping. Last year, a lot of them expressed concern that lane swapping was moving from a specific patch’s meta strategy to something that was going to stick around in the wider world of League of Legends for a long time. It feels like that’s played out, we’re still here almost a year later dealing with lane swaps.

How do you feel, as a high-agency bot lane player, about the way lane swaps change the incentives and risks for the bot lane? Do you feel like it takes away agency?

TitaN: I mean, our team, our best strength is through bot lane. As we’ve said on every interview on our playstyle, and the swaps kind mess us up because we have good prio through bot side and we know how to manage all the situations. [Lane swapping] is pretty annoying for every team, I think. It’s about being creative, about if you know how to trade better, if you wanna match if you are strong, something like that. You should be really smart on this kind of thing, because it’s all about the macro and being creative, you know? I think swapping is hard, bro, it’s hard. It should be really like, you should know your orientations clearly, because if you mess up once, it’s so hard.

Nick: Riot did try to make some changes earlier this year to disincentivize lane swaps. They made towers deal more damage, removed Cannon minions from early waves, and tried to make it harder for teams to stack up multiple waves and dive a top laner. However, I’ve heard from multiple teams and players that this change actually made lane swaps better, because the team that decides to put their top laner into the bottom lane in a 2v1 is less likely to be dove.

What do you think about the changes and about how Riot has been addressing swaps?

TitaN: I really think that Riot is kinda confused, also, about the lane swaps. Because…they lose their hands, that’s what I can say. They gave the towers more damage, also they put less minions, with the cannon change, so it’s harder to stack and dive. In our case, what people used to do is that they’d proxy the wave, right? To not let their top laner come back to the lanining phase. But it’s almost impossible, you know, with the tower changes. It’s so hard to get a clearly good dive angle. So, of course, the game is pretty annoying right now, because if they have a clear advantage in early game, there’s nothing we can do. We just have to match, match, match, match, match and start bleeding them until our time comes. 

Nick: 100 Thieves are the bloodiest team in the world, and you specifically lead the entire LTA in both kills and deaths. As a bloody player facing a bloody team, how do you see 100 Thieves’ strengths and how do you prepare best for them?

Do you think that preparation bore out today?

TitaN: We already know their strength is through bot lane. They also play a lot with the jungler. They only start doing stuff with their jungle, from what I could view and what I could see about them. I think they are a really good team, but today, for me, their draft is kinda greedy, from my point of view. They were too passive, that’s why we could be able to have a really good game into them. The first game was our mistakes: we didn’t push the drake, we didn’t switch positions with dyNquedo. Like, with two K leads we shouldn’t be able to lose this drake with that composition that we had. So, for me, it’s more our mistakes than that they were playing really well, from what I could feel, y’know, even though they are a really good team.

Nick: Okay, last question, has nothing to do with pro play. I like asking pros this to see what they think. Have you seen Arcane?

TitaN: Yeah, I watched Arcane.

The next series from Fortiche will go to a new region and focuses on new champions, if you could pick the region and champion the next show focuses on, who would it be?

TitaN: I really want to see Lucian. This is one of my favorite champions, and I also have a tattoo of him. I really like this champion, and I want to see how he became that demon in the skin that he has. I really wanna know his history.

Nick: Oh, the High Noon skin where he’s all half-demon?

TitaN: Yeah, High Noon. High Noon.

Nick: Yeah, that skin is sick.

TitaN: Yeah, you know. Something like that.

And the region? Hmmm….because High Noon…Texas. 

Nick: *laughs* So the next Arcane show, when you’re in charge, is about High Noon Lucian and it’s set in Texas? I love that, bro.

Yeah. Yeah, it was a good choice, no?

Nick: Great choice. Thanks so much for taking the time, TitaN, pleasure watching you guys play today, and I hope to catch you later on.

TitaN: Thank you.

The LTA cross-conference event continues this week, with all four of the LTA North teams playing for the singular slot that will take them to the three-day Fearless bonanza of First Stand.