Stavros Vergos: Hello, I'm joined here by Frosk, we're here for the LEC Finals in Athens. It's nice to have you here with us. How has your first year been in LEC?
Froskurrin: I mean, I've gotten this question like 4 times today and the honest truth is just it's just been like amazing. Unfortunately I don't if my voice will convey the excitement but working with the teams, the audience, on-air, off-air, broadcasting and LEC has been a life-changing experience and I mean that in the most sincere way.
Stavros Vergos: I remember one of your... you said last year that the ability to cast in a stadium, to a live audience, was one of your reasons for going to the EU. Was your wish fulfilled?
Froskurrin: Ah, yeah. It's a completely different experience to the LPL. Obviously it's a secondary language broadcast, we would often kind of like point in a broom closet for our time in Australia. And then coming into China, while we were in-venue we weren't going out to venue and it's just a completely different experience to talk to a crowd, have a crowd interact and react to what you're doing and you're saying kind of energy. The experience in Berlin has been amazing. It doesn't come without its shortcomings. I dealt really heavily with a lot of stage fright early on in the LEC and it was kind like give and take, kind of like week to week, but I'm feeling fine so far and we'll see if maybe that changes if I step out in the arena and it's super full but it feels good right now.
Stavros Vergos: What are you predictions for today's game and tomorrow?
Froskurrin: I think it's pretty easy to say it's going to be a Fnatic - G2 final. The thing is that I think it's really important who wins the first game today, because I see, there's windows that Schalke can win, I think Schalke love to fight 2v2 on the bot lane, they don't usually take a losing match-up and while Rekkles and Hyli had an incredible performance against Perkz and Miky in their G2 series that went all the way to five games, they were winning match-ups that they shouldn't have been winning, like Ezreal - Rakan into that Morgana game and that shouldn't happen. It shouldn't have happened to Miky and Perkz and it definitely won't to IgNar and Upset. And while I give a lot of credit to how Hyli and Rekkles play things out, they play a much more limited champion pool than, I think, everyone else, so they're kind of masters of even bad match-ups and are able to punish that but ultimately, like, if IgNar and Upset play standard they shouldn't lose 2v2, it means that Hyli can't roam and it really slows down a lot of what Fnatic want to do and I think that's kind of Schalke's window in --and it starts with the bot lane-- but otherwise this should be a pretty easy rollover for Fnatic and then they should look at their rematch with G2 in the final.
Stavros Vergos: I see that before the MSI you'd rated G2 lower than Fnatic, I don't remember exactly the reason but it was something like G2 not playing to their full potential. Do you feel like Fnatic can find a weakness, find a weakness in G2's mentality and try to win this game?
Froskurrin: I think, right now when you look at kind of the highs of both teams, that G2 now have kind of ascended to perfect form, if that makes sense, a lot of the holes in G2 at MSI were that Perkz and Miky didn't have the same synergy and longevity and time to develop that synergy as teams like Fnatic had. Now as we're at the end of the year, I think Perkz has definitely made good on his promise that he was going to be the best ADC in Europe. I don't think that it's by, like, a large margin that he's better than guys like Rekkles and Upset. I think the LEC has progressed to a point where if you don't have a god-tier ADC, you don't get to compete in this league. It's not enough to just have a good mid-laner and I think the fact that are last three standing ADCs prove that point. The thing is that Perkz just has that synergy with Miky, that intangible that you can't put your finger on, and then the flexibility of his champion pool and kind of how he thinks about the game as a legendary mid-laner. So now I think G2 kind of shored up all their weaknesses. They still have kind of a lot of variance in their play where... I mean they joke about it, sometimes you get Claps, sometimes you get Craps. I think we saw that very clearly in those series, the first three games of G2 versus Fnatic whereas, like, Fnatic, don't have that same variance. They 're very consistent at what they do, even if people think of Hyli and Bwipo as kind of like "coin flip" players but the game plan never changes. It's just a difference of did Fnatic lead in the early game? If yes then Hyli and Bwipo's playstyle works out perfectly. And if no, they don't really adjust it so they keep going in, they don't have the gold lead to back it up and then suddenly Hyli looks like a coin flip player where he's like 1/7. But. I think the fundamental is always there.
Stavros Vergos: Alright. And what are your standings for the regions going to Worlds in a couple of months?
Froskurrin: Um, right now I can't speak a lot to LCK or LCS because I don't watch them as much. I watch a ton of China and I watch a lot of EU and I think those are kind of the two regions everyone's at their personal favourites. My opinion is that EU is superior to LPL and their top teams and the reason is again that flexibility about how they think about the map. And it could just be that I've now been taught how to think about the game by watching EU games. Casters are taught by the teams that we watch and taught by the teams that we cast and that's why you're trained... Like when I was an LPL caster, I just thought about the game from an LPL perspective and then I would clash with Deficio and Vedius all the time because they thought about it from an EU perspective. So maybe now I've just been brainwashed and I only see it from the EU perspective but how European teams acquire tempo and what they do with the tempo on the map, especially G2 and how efficient they are with kind of setting up objectives and eating up map space, the LPL teams don't acquire it the same way. It's a much more riskier playstyle, even though G2 have like such a high variance level of play.
Stavros Vergos: The western teams have been accused in the past of trying to copy the Korean meta. Do you feel like there's been hero changes or change of mentality that made Europe and China create their own meta and their own playstyle?
Froskurrin: I think the same thing happened to Europe that happened to China in 2015. While China did collapse at Worlds in 2015, that was also the year when MSI and pros like Zz1tai went on record saying that seeing EDward Gaming win the trophy told China that they could win. And then everything was different past that. And yeah you had like a systematic collapse in 2015 but outside that China has gone its own way and has performed very well at international events since. I think Europe kind of had the same awakening when Vitality, G2 and Fnatic did damage at last year's Worlds and now did damage at this MSI. When you see a western team lift the trophy suddenly you do just want it more and you know that it's possible, so you try harder. It's like... who's gonna run faster? The guy who's doing it for the fans or the guy who's doing it because he has nothing else? This is all he has and he's playing to live his life every single day to, like, feed his family and continue his way forward.
Stavros Vergos: Alright. One final question. Do you feel like we're gonna have a repeat of the last year where we see China and Europe going to the finals? And do you feel that European players now have the mentality to stand up against the Chinese that seem to be the kryptonite of European players?
Froskurrin: It's funny because before it was actually Europe that was the kryptonite to China. It was Europe that, like, pulled the rug out of them at a very crucial time. So while Invictus Gaming seem to have gotten the better of G2 in particular, I do not think that will happen again because there is a good chance that Invictus Gaming don't make it. I think that Europe has the best shot it's ever had to hoist a World Cup, that's not like an outrageous opinion to hold. I think everyone's really looking at SKT and seeing if Faker can kind of like return to that greatness and hopefully Korea doesn't collapse again at another international.
Stavros Vergos: Alright. Thank you very much for your time.
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