LohaN on Lotus comeback: “I told the boys don’t force things… if you win pistol, go round by round”

Team Liquid was up against it at Masters Toronto as soon as news of nAts’ visa issues broke. Despite the IGL eventually attending the tournament, their initial loss to BLG, and disruptions to practice leading up to the tournament meant that they were always on the back foot. A 2-1 loss to PRX, in which TL forced a map three overtime despite having been 11-1 down, resigned the team to early elimination. We spoke to Team Liquid coach Ivo “LohaN” Albino for an interview after the series.

Hotspawn: Let’s just start with the map three and that incredible comeback. While it must’ve been excruciating not to see that one get over the line, it was an unbelievable effort from your team.

What were your thoughts as that map progressed?

LohaN: I still need to process this game a bit, to be honest. At the end of the day, it was an amazing game for us, for them, for the viewers. Honestly, when we were down 11-1, the only thing I told the boys is:

“Okay guys, let the game come to you. Don’t force things if we can. If you win the pistol, go round by round and if you start the momentum building, just help build even more”

But for me, watching from the outside, I didn’t want to believe that you could come back. And then when it starts, when it go to the 12-12, I was like: “Holy shit, we’re coming back”. And then, yeah, we went out in a brutal, brutal fashion.

While maps one and three saw close wins for either side, map two was very one-sided in PRX’s favour.

What do you think was the difference there? What do you think gave Paper Rex the edge overall for the series?

Lack of preparation, honestly. The fact that we practised with Erik (penny) for two days, and even Sunset — we didn’t even practise because we knew that Ayaz (nAts) wouldn’t be here for Toronto. So we practised just with an academy player back in Berlin for three or four days. And that was the time of preparation that we had for Toronto.

So, in the end of the day, everything that we’ve shown on the server here in Toronto was a few days of practise, a lot of on-the-fly calling, a lot of fly creativity from the boys, a lot of the creativity from Daniel (yaotziN), my assistant coach.

And I think in Sunset, when you face a team that’s well drilled and if you don’t have the correct protocols, yes, we’re going to struggle. We don’t have the reps in.

As you’ve said, nAts’ visa issues have impacted practice, and there were also the well-publicised scheduling issues for EMEA that would’ve had an impact too.

How frustrating is it to have had your tournament run potentially cut short due to factors outside of your control?

So it’s something that we have to process. All year has been a lot of ups and downs for this team. I think we’re getting used to dealing with the adversities. Sometimes there’s a lot of things that are just outside of our control. Once we knew that Ayaz was not coming, we were already in the bad stage. Because, even before knowing that Ayaz was not coming, we played the EWC qualifiers and then we had one week basically of practise to prepare for the new patch. We had to change four or five comps, learn Sunset — pretty much impossible time-wise. And other teams will be more prepared. Then we also knew that Ayaz was not coming. It was even more like: “Hey, another thing that’s out of our control”.

I’m just proud of the approach that we took, honestly. When I saw the boys’ faces [at] the start of the week, the preparation week that we had, the news that Ayaz most likely wouldn’t be coming, it was hard to accept. But they pulled through it, and, at least for this year, no matter what happens, I think we’ve gone through it all — all the possible outcomes, things that we don’t control, things that we control. And it’s a learning experience and we’ll build ourselves into a better team.

At the start of this season, there weren’t many expectations for Team Liquid to be a top EMEA side going to global events.

How far do you think TL can go this year?

I see us getting into Champions, honestly. I think we have what it takes to get to Champions… I want to win trophies. I just don’t want to qualify for internationals, honestly. And I think that’s our aim. We want to win something this year. We’ll work for it. We’ll work hard for it. And yeah, that’s what to expect from this team.

Obviously at the start of the year, people don’t have a lot of expectations. On paper, yes, we’re not as strong a team as many other teams with big names. But I think we have the quality, not just as players, but also as people, that it takes to build a successful roster. And I think this year we’re going to aim for it. We’re going to aim for trophies. That’s my goal. And I think it’s everyone else’s goal, yeah.

Speaking of interpersonal skills, how much easier does it make your job that nAts is such a great leader/motivator and proactively takes on that part of his role?

Yeah, what can I say about him? This guy is a beast, honestly. I think one of the main reasons that he can focus on his leadership skills a lot is because [of] how good and intuitive his game is. I can tell him something, I can explain something to him [and] he instantly understands.

He’s a really smart player in instinct for the game, that even complex concepts in the game become simple. So when you have a player like that as an IGL, he can literally really focus on other things as being a leader. And I think throughout this year, it’s probably the one thing that improved the most honestly, from the start of this project to now, he’s just a beast.

It just takes over; he’s a leader. He’s an example for the rest of the boys and when he talks, everyone listens. It’s just, it’s amazing what he does, honestly.

Were you proud of the team’s fight against BLG without him then, despite the loss?

Yeah. We built a system around Kamil and Gio, or kamo and keiko. They are the playmakers of the team who like to make plays and we gave them a bit of freedom. I think the week of preparation, because of practise without Ayaz, this first game was actually very, very beneficial for the team. I think the boys taking more responsibility on their shoulders — at the end of the day [that] will make them better players. Even though our run here wasn’t as we’d like it to be, I think there is a lot of good things that we can learn from.

And I think both Kamil, Gio, Patryk (paTiTek) as well. They learn new skills during that first game. Like taking accountability, taking responsibility for the game, reading the game more. And I think even today, and the game against MIBR, there was a lot of moments that were like taking responsibility for macro fights or giving direction to the team, which is really good to see.

Penny joined, seemingly as a stand-in for nAts, but there were some reports that the team was considering signing him anyway, perhaps even for the long term.

Can you help to clarify how the penny signing happened?

Obviously for Stage 2, I don’t talk too much about it because there’s a lot of planning going around. But for this tournament, as soon as we knew that Ayaz might not have his visa, we waited literally until the last day of the roster lock for the tournament. And as soon as we understand he was not getting his visa, we got in contact with penny and we signed him for this tournament as a sixth man.

Not as a sixth man, actually to play the whole tournament because we were really expecting Ayaz to not be here. But as soon as we got Toronto, Ayaz literally got the confirmation that he would get his visa, so he’d be here in time for the second game most likely. And, okay, we have here six good players, we have we don’t have enough reps, enough practise in this meta, in this map pool, so let’s try to do the best with these six players. So we just adapted the six-man roster and I think it was the best possible decision that we could have done. And I truly believe [that] if we wouldn’t have done this decision, [we] would have struggled much more during the games.