Timber wood
Another day of the Worlds 2023 Swiss Stage led into yet another set of eliminations. Yesterday saw NA’s Cloud9 fall out of the tournament at the hands of Europe’s Fnatic, followed by MAD Lions being eliminated by Weibo Gaming.
After the series, Blaber and Humanoid spoke to the media and reflected on the series and Worlds 2023 as a whole.
Credit: LoL Esports
Blaber outlined the key challenges for Cloud9
Blaber was up first, reflecting on a series that he was very disappointed to lose, where he felt he made a lot of mistake and his team was not able to make the correct decisions when losing or under pressure.
“We knew exactly what we were going to do in our games and — regardless of whether it was good or bad — I felt like we were prepared regarding draft. But I think our gameplay wasn’t good in the whole tournament.”
His key takeaways from the tournament as a whole was the need for mental strength, explaining that:
“Everyone’s skill matters a lot… there will be a lot of problems that arise and you have to just stick through it as a team. It’s really important that teammates keep our mental strong. It feels like in a long tournament like this having strong mental is really important.”
Now only first seed NRG remains from the LCS, going up against G2 Esports for a spot in the knockouts. Despite thinking his fellow NA side will “probably lose,” he still feels that NRG “have a chance” and will “for sure” be cheering them on for the remainder of the tournament.
“It feels great to send NA home. I think it would be a huge disappointment if we lost today” | Humanoid
Humanoid knows Fnatic can do better
On the winning side, Fnatic’s Humanoid was also not totally impressed with his teams performance, explaining how he thinks they will lose if they’re to repeat the performance level against Asian teams who are way higher in the LoL Worlds Power Rankings.
That said, after losing the opening game to C9, Humanoid didn’t feel like much immediate adaptation was needed to turn the series around.
“After the first game we didn’t really want to change much because we thought that it was just really unlucky in the early game; they still took so much time to close it out. So we just thought that if we play our normal style then we would win.”
Asked by Esports.net who he would like to face next, Humanoid is thinking about Fnatic’s tournament chances:
“I’m hoping to face NRG after they lose to G2. That’s probably going to be the easiest match.”
He added that Chovy and Knight are the specific mid laners he’d like to face at some point during Worlds, simply as they’re “the two best mid laners”. Knight had a similar sentiment in his own interview, and sees Chovy as the best opponent to meet at this event.
Looking ahead to the final round of the Swiss stage, Humanoid believes it’s Fnatic’s early game that will need to improve if they’re to have a chance at qualification:
“I think we mainly have to improve our early game because we’ve been going behind a lot and losing a lot of Rift Heralds. So I think the 1-8 minutes is the most important point for us right now.”
We are currently watching Dplus, GAM, KT and LNG decide their tournament future. Check back with for our thoughts on their series, and a preview on how our Pick’ems are progressing.
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