TL Yuuji – “I had so much fun playing on stage and I’m just excited to get to play more and learn more.”

Ganbat “Yuuji” Ulziidelger has been thrown into the furnace of tier 1 play for the LTA North Split 2 playoffs, and is being forged into one of the most exciting residential rookie jungle talents since C9 player Robert “Blaber” Huang. HotSpawn sat down with the Mongolian man-of-the-hour after TL’s defeat at the hands of a resurgent Shopify Rebellion.

Yuuji has been introduced to LoL Esports fans in a set of circumstances that we’ve seen create diamonds of pro play through their pressure. A struggling team, with expectations of championships, and a rapidly-dwindling timeframe to make those dreams a reality, subs in a rookie talent in an attempt to get something to stick. While they fell out of the playoffs in the lower bracket and top four position, Yuuji’s performances make me incredibly excited about this young talent’s future once he’s afforded an offseason, regular season, and the resources therein, to play and prep. We sat down with Team Liquid’s jungler to chat about the SR series, the split, and how he sees his future.

TL Yuuji Interview

Nick: My condolences on the loss, Yuuji. Obviously not the result that you wanted, but let’s get those questions out of the way first. How are you feeling about the series right now? Where’s your head at on those games?

Yuuji: “Obviously, it feels terrible to lose, but I think we made a big mistake on games 1 and 2. I think we were in a winning position, I think,  in both games [but] we didn’t manage to secure the win at the end.”

Nick: You’ve had a very sudden debut on the pro play stage, coming from Tier 2 all the way up to one of the most competitive organizations in LTA, without a regular split to practice. It reminds me a bit of Bwipo’s debut, actually. What has your LTA debut experience been like? Just break down your overall sentiments on this ‘split’ and the experience you’ve had.

Yuuji: “Yeah, I mean…to be honest, it wasn’t expected. You know, at the start of this year, I thought I would just play in tier 2, but I was lucky enough to get a tryout from TL and I was lucky enough to be picked up. The experience has been great so far, I guess, I’m learning a lot and I just feel like I didn’t have enough time to just be together with the team. I think, to me, it’s mostly just playing with my teammates and being on the same page playing with a new team, trying to figure out [an] identity as a team to keep going forward. I feel like since I didn’t play in the regular split, I would say it’s very different. You just play the last match of the regular season into playoffs, so it’s interesting. I had so much fun playing on stage, and I’m just excited to get to play more and learn more.”

You haven’t played everybody on stage, but I figure you’ve scrimmed a lot of them. Are there any of the other LTA junglers that you’re excited [to face]?

Yuuji: “It just felt nice to play against, I would say, almost every jungler, and just see how they play and see how they work with the team. You know, how they work with the team, how they play the draft, and if I had to mention one…in scrims…I never played vs River on stage, but in scrims, it seemed like he was like very good. He would make plays [where] you know he can solve the game, in the scrims.”

Have you seen Arcane? And, if you have, what champions or region would you want to see in an animated show, if you were in charge of the next animated LoL outing?

Yuuji: “Yeah, I watched it. Oh, let me think…well, to be honest, I have no clue about League lore.”

That’s fine, you can just pick champions who you like or who you think look cool. There’s no wrong criteria to choose from here, just follow your heart.

Yuuji: “If I had to choose…maybe, you know, Ashe, Braum, some winter champs. Maybe Sejuani, I think that could be a good lore choice. Maybe get some of the fire champions like Brand…who else is a fire champ? Are [there more] fire champions? Annie?”

Great, I love teaming champions up by elements, that’s actually great. The next question is similar. Riot is doing the season updates where the map gets a makeover, a bunch of skins come out, and we get the games and comics. If you got to choose the theme for a season, what would it be? Riot has said that some seasons will be themed after skin lines, so feel free to choose a skin line you enjoy, like Project or High Noon, or whatever.

Yuuji: “I would choose High Noon, actually, some cowboys, some high noon [events], stuff like that. Maybe you could get a little cowboy hat on if you kill like an objective, and you get buffed for more hats.”

That’s awesome. They clearly already have the technology to stack hats from Aram and Arena, Summoner’s Rift players should be able to stack them too, you heard it here first, Riot. My next question comes from a conversation I just had with LS a few minutes ago in which he said he thought the best format that Riot could use for LTA was Ironman, which is like Fearless, but the bans also persist through a series, like the picks do. I don’t think this is likely to be real, but what do you think that play experience would be like?

Yuuji: “Let me think…so it’s like, if you ban a champ, it’s going to get banned the entire series?”

Yeah exactly. If I ban Skarner, Viego, Xin Zhao game one, they’re gone for all five games.

Yuuji: “Well, it would be interesting. If it happened, everyone would have to play some random champions starting in game 3. I don’t know if it’d be a good format, because I think [it] would be too chaotic. I think Fearless is very well balanced right now. Ironman could work if it’s like blind pick in game 5 with no bans. I think banning all the champions would make it hard to practice. Let’s see…each team gets five bans, so it’s 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 champions gone from bans… yeah, that would be crazy.”

Awesome. Well, we’re basically out of time. Thanks for taking the time, Yuuji, I really appreciate it. It’s been a pleasure watching you this playoffs, man.  You’ve been thrown into an incredibly high-pressure environment, and I think you’ve looked really promising for a rookie thrown out of the pan and into the fire. If you ask me, you should be very proud that you looked as good as you did.

Yuuji: “Yeah, thank you, man. Thank you.”

Have a good one, Yuuji.

Yuuji: “Thanks, you too.”