Q: Last week you lost two games, and your performance this week (second week) has also been average. How do you explain this?
Caps : Last week, our entire team played poorly, and I myself didn't play well in two games. It was the same against SK and BDS, I made many mistakes, and there were many individual mistakes. However, I think especially last week, our whole team's performance was average, but this week we played much better. This is why we were able to win the game against GX even though I died many times, we still know how to win games. We were a bit rusty in the first week, but this is also the reason we lost to T1 at MSI. That defeat was a big blow to us, and we reflected on our actions. But now we say "Alright guys, we need to regain confidence for the game" and I feel like we can do anything.
Q: When you are playing in Europe, do you go all out to win games like in international tournaments? Or do you try new things in the league?
Caps : We always strive to win, and this largely depends on mentality, on how you want to win. I have been playing professionally for many years, and it is obvious that there are easier ways to win games in the league, but these easier ways often don't have good results at international tournaments. For us, it is important that we want to win every game, and that's how we put in all our effort to win. But at the same time, we also need to come up with a plan to compete against teams like T1 and GEN. So we will do a lot of preparation, and this preparation is not only for winning in the league, but also for winning in international tournaments.
Q: Are some of the champion picks or tactics in Europe aimed at winning international tournaments rather than just winning a few games in the league like some teams?
Caps : Of course, what I mean is to find a balance between the two, and we must find that balance. Because if you only consider how to play in international tournaments, can you spend all your remaining time on playing international tournaments? If we want to succeed in international tournaments, we must first go all out in the league. Of course, we won't always win, we saw it in the first week, if we don't play our tactics, we will lose some games. Certainly, there are some champions and tactics that are more effective in the league, but as a team, we need to use less of these things. Because in the long run, it won't give us any advantage. Also, one of our main focuses is to practice heroes that are less affected by version changes, but this is difficult because Riot keeps changing heroes.
But some heroes are more or less unaffected by patches, what we need are heroes that can be used to make an impact against teams like T1. Some heroes are strong and easy to pick up, and we can win in the league with them, but they may not be effective in international tournaments. However, the situation is not so simple, for example, our AD player Hans sama is very good at Draven, this is a hero with a distinct style and it's his signature hero, so we need to find a balance.
Q: What did you learn from this year's MSI event?
Caps : We learned a lot from MSI, we learned a lot on a macro level, especially in the game against T1, we saw some areas where T1 is superior to us, and we need to make the maximum effort to solve this problem. Of course, you ask me if the problem is solved, I can't say it's completely solved. It's not just saying "Oh, we know now, and we need to solve this problem." We need to truly try and take action, which also explains our performance in the first week. When we started to consider more complex tactics, we were a bit rusty and the results were not very good, so this week we are trying simpler things, and next week we will strive to improve on these.
Q: The things you learned from MSI or international events, are they mainly related to the patches or the things you mentioned earlier, the things that are less affected by patches and more useful?
Caps : I would say it is the things that are not related to patches, but of course, everything can change. For example, if Riot removes Baron Nashor now, many things will change, if they change the mechanism of the mid lane, like last year when they changed the speed of the side lane minions, or changed the map. If they make major changes like these, then of course some things will change.
What we learn is definitely not just about a certain hero, some things are indeed related to heroes, for example, if you know that you can use a certain special hero to gain advantages, but most of the time it's not like that. We can see that we have made some of the same mistakes in the games we played, including MSI and Worlds. So I think we should admit these mistakes, and if we correct these things, we will become more dangerous. In this MSI, including previous international tournaments, there were many times when we were able to gain a big advantage, but we made the same mistakes again and again, and in the end, we paid a heavy price. These problems are not easy to correct, but we will definitely pay close attention to this point, and if we can improve on this point, we will be very powerful.
Q: Do you think Asian teams have a better understanding of the patch?
Caps : I'm not sure, I don't want to lump them all together. I think different teams have different understandings of the patches, and I do believe that they can quickly master certain heroes and their skill level is stable. But the threshold for using heroes in matches is not low, I don't think their drafting is always the best solution, sometimes we can gain an advantage in the draft, but when they have a high level of mastery of the hero, our proficiency with the hero at least need to reach their threshold, otherwise we can't win the game.
Q: Other teams will also learn from G2, what do you think will happen when you face T1 again?
Caps : Of course, I think T1 has already changed many of our habits, but what's interesting is that we have been adjusting our playstyle. Our tactics in this MSI are very different from last year's Worlds, so I think we need to adjust our style, we like to make some crazy choices, so our preparation work is not easy. And I think as a European team, we have some advantages compared to LPL or LCK teams, many teams have less preparation against us, and we can use this to gain an advantage,