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Edited by Ritu13 at 22-12-2023 01:23 PM
On October 31, MAD's mid laner Nisqy talked about his experience at the 2023 Worlds in a recent livestream. Some key points he mentioned are as follows (reproduction or sharing of screenshots without permission is prohibited):
"So when we first arrived in Korea, they showed us the training facilities, but initially, we could only play solo queue. I remember it was from the 31st to the 5th or 6th. After that, everyone except Chasy (MAD's top laner) arrived, and that's when we started practicing as a team. At that time, everything was going smoothly, and we were all in good spirits, no issues at all, it looked great. Even before our day off, we went out for a drink together, it was great.
But in the following days, we started playing against some better teams, and I noticed things were getting worse. Some small issues arose, and we didn't know how to play anymore. So we prepared some champions to ban in the Swiss stage, but overall, the situation was still okay."
Nisqy then described the situation in the three days before the start of the Swiss stage. Due to media days and content shoots, the teams couldn't practice on two of those three days, but every team faced this issue.
"The first game against C9, we played champions that none of us had played much before, I don't know how we picked them, and our draft was strange, we didn't know how to play. Some players wanted to participate, and some didn't. So starting from that match, we became disjointed in terms of drafting, teamfights, and map management.
Then we played against BDS and won. But I don't know if you noticed in the match against BDS, we picked Veigar, and I locked in Sylas. For me, to gain a drafting advantage and win, I knew I had to play Sylas; I knew I had to pick a functional mid laner. On paper, if you play a functional mid laner well, you can pick one, but if you pick one and don't roam, it's pointless. Fortunately, the game against BDS went smoothly, and we gained an advantage from level 1, with Elyoya (MAD's jungler) successfully carrying the game.
Then in the third game against NRG, NRG directly picked Ivern, which we hadn't anticipated. I think our chances of winning against Ivern were close to zero. But the problem was that the champions we picked weren't what we wanted to play. For example, Blitzcrank was a champion we often banned because I couldn't see how we could win with Blitzcrank. I knew that mechanically Blitzcrank suited me, and I could play him, but from our team's playstyle, if I picked Blitzcrank, I didn't think we could win. So I often replaced Blitzcrank with Swain. Finally, NRG picked Sylas in the fourth or fifth rotation, something I wanted to pick, I should have taken Sylas in the fourth rotation; I think it would have made a big difference. But things happened that way, and this game, in the end, I ended up with Xerath. I was almost going crazy; I wanted to smash my monitor. I had no idea how to win with that champion. It felt like I was trying to find a way to win the game, but I felt like I was playing a different game from everyone else, it was really frustrating.
After the game against NRG, I told the team not to give me utility mid laners anymore. I didn't want to play Sylas and Xerath; I wanted to play Azir, Sylas, Nidalee, and champions like that. I told them that, in order to win, I believed these were better choices. I think if you're a professional player, you have to believe in your choices and know which champions can lead your team to victory. To play at the highest level, I know I need to pick Sylas, Nidalee, Azir.
Considering this, in practice, I sent them many messages about it. I was confident about the match against WBG. Originally, we were going to pick Ahri mid, because we often picked Veigar, and I also agreed to play Ahri. But at that time, we hadn't picked any strong champions yet, and no one wanted to prioritize a specific champion, so that's why I didn't care about others picking Sylas directly in the third rotation. Because I knew that no matter what, I could play this champion well.
So, in the first game, I played well. I made some plays that I hadn't made before. Because I really felt like I didn't need to worry about all the other stuff. I just wanted to show my best performance. That game was tough because I felt they countered Sylas really well. I made a mistake in the top lane that cost us a lot of gold, and we didn't execute teamfights properly in the next two skirmishes. At that moment, I thought that if we had won the first game, we would have eliminated WBG. Because we would start to believe in ourselves, believe in our ability to carry the game. But after losing the first game, I thought the second game would be really hard because TheShy played really well, their bot lane did great too, and I thought I needed to make a change.
In the second game, I picked Ahri; maybe I should have continued picking Sylas. But I wanted to try something else, maybe even Nidalee. I didn't know if I was a little lost after losing the first game, but I knew we still had a chance to win. I knew that if I could perform at my best and Ahri and Veigar could roam, we could win. But the second game was too difficult; our damage was lacking, and the enemy had too many ways to avoid fighting. I think Lissandra was a big problem for us. Overall, we faced issues with the champion pool; there weren't many champions to choose from in each role, so we were restricted in the draft phase.
After the game, I was somewhat disappointed but also somewhat relieved. I was disappointed because we lost and got eliminated, the year was over, but I also knew that this team would come to an end. We really didn't want to play together anymore. The team's chemistry wasn't good, and there were many rumors during the offseason. I've mentioned in interviews that I'm reasonably satisfied with my personal performance, but I'm disappointed that I couldn't lead the team further. Because players like the great mid laners, like Faker, even if they're not in top form, having someone like Faker or Chovy in your team makes you feel incredible. But I think this was really tough for us; we didn't have a common understanding of how to play the game, and this situation got worse during the World Championship.
So after this Worlds, I wasn't sad at all. Maybe I was a little sad because we lost, but for me, in the first game against WBG, I had the upper hand against Xiaohu, and I think that game released me from the pressure. This Worlds made me realize that I can compete with Asian mid laners. In the past |
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Post time 3-11-2023 09:53:52