Upset on the reality check: “[It’s] not a performance we should be proud of.” – LEC Versus Week 3 Interview

With the win over Karmine Corp Blue, Fnatic are 4th in the standings with a 5-4 record heading into Week 4 of the LEC Versus. Following the series, see what FNC ADC Upset had to say about the team’s early-game struggles and why there are no “free games”.

What’s your impression of the series against KCB?

Upset: I think we’re not quite playing like ourselves in the early game right now. We’re making way too many mistakes in this game, especially on bot lane I think there was some maybe miscommunication or some misplace and it ended up being quite bad for us. It put me in a quite bad spot, jungle as well.

Overall, I think there’s just a lot of pressure with this format and a lot of stress right now because the nature of best of ones is very volatile and I think the league is very competitive. You can see a lot of teams beating each other. So I think it was just important to win today, but not necessarily a performance we should be proud of, in my opinion. But every win counts right now.

We threw a game at the start of the week and yesterday we had a very difficult draft and game to play so it’s very important we managed to get a win and comeback. I think KCB also has good strength in the early game against most teams. They have been playing quite well and that has been also somewhat our weakness. Once we got in a good position, the game was quite good. But before that, I think they had a lot of good plays to.

Davide: Razork previously told us you guys seem to struggle more when it comes to stage performance, especially in early-game execution.

Do you agree with him and what are you guys working towards to?

Upset: I will speak for myself. Me and Lospa have been just playing a lot of duo queue, watching VODs, playing 2v2s, playing scrims, talking about it a lot. But I think it’s going to take longer.

We played together for a few weeks now and we need to find our own a little bit… Like what kind of bot lane we want to be, how we really want to play, what are our strengths, what matchups we really like. And it’s taking us some time still. I also think the high pressure Bo1s make it a bit more difficult to play how we play usually, which is understandable, right?

It’s also Lospa’s for first split and also our top laner’s first split, so I think it’s just some growing pains and overall, we also need to build more synergy. I think we don’t play very coordinated in the early game and right now the game is very snowbally, so we really need to take a close look at just how we’re playing and what other teams are doing and what we need to improve. But it’s taking us some time for sure.

Davide: With five wins on the table, your chances of playoffs greatly increase.

Have you started working towards Bo3 and Bo5s?

Upset: I’m not sure what’s the benchmark for being in playoffs, five should be a decent number, but maybe we will need to win as well next week.

[For] best of three, we haven’t looked too much into it yet. I would say just because the early stages are so volatile, these super weeks can swing either way. You can see it with a team like Los Ratones. They had a really difficult start and now they have a really good momentum and that means so much.

These days where you have very limited practice, because you only scrim three days and then you play three days. Playoffs will be on our mind for sure… But first we need to qualify because with how the league is looking right now, it’s very close to standings.

Davide: Next up, you will have Team Heretics and G2 to round off the round robin.

What do you think of both teams?

Upset: I mean, [Team] Heretics seems to have their own struggles, but they also are getting some wins. You can’t underestimate any team right now.

And I think even though G2 has not been looking that good on the stage games, I think they’re a very strong team and I expect them to get stronger and stronger the longer the split goes. It will be a difficult match for us being a somewhat new team, but I’m optimistic towards both matches. I don’t think there’s not going to be free games, anyway.

Is there any player that stood out to you so far?

Upset: I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest, so it’s hard to say. I think the players that have been playing well are still playing quite well for the most part. I think maybe you could even choose Baus now that they won four in a row.

I think the early start was very rough… But honestly, in his last games, he’s doing quite a lot for his team compared to the first matches. It’s been quite impressive to see the shift. But for the whole team, I think it’s very nice to see. I’m very happy for Yamato (YamatoCannon, Los Ratones’ head coach).

Davide: This is your eighth year in the LEC.

What’s the biggest thing that still motivates you to keep competing? Is there anything your’re particularly proud of?

Upset: It’s a very long time for sure. Every team I’ve been in, we have managed to at least go top four, top three andI think the thing I’m proud most of is probably that I’m very resilient.

I had so many difficult moments in my time playing my whole adult life. I’ve been in this very high stress, high pressure situation and I think I’ve been staying strong and trying to not lose the love for the game and stay passionate.

I think that’s what I’m most, most proud of and that I can still on most days be proud of how I play.

What’s something you’re missing from previous seasons?

Upset: I miss Zeri-Lulu. Honestly, that was my favorite for sure. But maybe in Fearless we will see it.

What’s your personal goal for this year?

Upset: I just want to be present in the moment, enjoy what I’m doing, just try to keep working on my craft and be as good as a player and teammate as I can be. That has been my goal.

Anything you would like to say to the fans?

Upset: To our fans of Fnatic and my fans, I mean obviously the games have not been very good. We are really trying hard to figure out what we need to do better. We can only ask you guys to be patient and not to have high expectations for now.

We will need time to work on it. Obviously, we have issues and I’m going to keep trying my best for the, for the team and thank you for supporting us.

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