Q&A with Champions: FNaticMSI

MMORPG.com:

ESports and competitive gaming seem to be on a really big up-turn in the last few years. From folks who are right there at the heart of the movement, what do you think are the driving reasons for this?

Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen:

Well since technology advances games become better and better and nowadays many children grow up with a computer, which wasn’t a possibility before. And just like in any “sports” e-sports host a competitive scene as well.

Max “Magic” Dreysse:

It’s obviously because the general interest in computer games is growing. There are many reasons for this I believe, many of which even socialscientists fail to explain. Most relevant ones are rather sad ones as far as I know however. I believe for many people computer games are a way to escape the massive pressure our modernmarket society puts on them, so it is kind of a drug. There are immense numbers of seriously addicted gamers who hate to deal with their own life and prefer spending ages online. Obviously there are still many players who just nerd for the lulz tough, thus there's no reason to go emo. Well, the rest of the story is a simple economic process I suppose. Many people play games thus the industry starts investing a lot of money into the games.

MMORPG.com:

What sorts of things does your team to do to keep the team cohesive and acting as a unit? Is the culture like that of a family, or is it more of a militant style, or somewhere in between? I mean, there’s not some guy off to the corner shouting about DKP (for no apparent reason) is there?

Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen:

As people spend a lot of time together they grow fond of each other, making the team spirit raise. People understand the game so after playing enough games together, the unity just appears on its own.

Max “Magic” Dreysse:

We are most certainly more of a family. In my opinion it's very important to act as some kind of a hivemind in a team, as you can be sure that conflicts will arrise once someones opinion gets ignored. Having a "supreme" leader will mostlikely make it hard to keep everyone satisfyed. Besides there are many different forms of behaviour that are great if you can manage to stick to them.

You never want to blame your teammates for mistakes they did while you're still in a game. If you feel like its something very urgent which needs to be mentioned first doublecheck if its really appropriate to not wait until the end of the game. Obviously failed skillshots and such are nothing to criticize. If you want to help someone improve you should only inform them about the mistakes you believe they themselves didn't notice. Telling an Ashe player that his arrow missed will just make him pissed and eventually play worse. Telling a supporter that he can place his wards a little further to the right to achieve a way more useful area of vision however will actually help him improving his gameplay.

Besides, if you're getting criticized yourself: Admit your mistake. It will give your teammates the feeling that you understood your mistake and that it's unlikely to occur again. There is nothing worse then starting to argue ingame, so even if you feel like you did fine: Just take the hit for the sake of the atmosphere within the team. There will be time to discuss it after the game!

MMORPG.com:

So you find out you are going to Dreamhack to compete against the world's best teams: tell us a bit about what you guys did in terms of practice or preparation to go after the championship.

Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen:

: We actually had some internet issues before the Dreamhack games and servers were kind of broken, so we tried to salvage the time we could to practice. We also prepared strategies etc. versus each team even when servers were down.

Max “Magic” Dreysse:

Of course we tried to practice as often as possible. This includes playing 1v1's against each other to practice lanes (whenever we weren't complete), scrim games against other topteams and of course ranked games.

MMORPG.com:

What is your take on the differences between the European and North American competitive scenes?

Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen:

What I’ve heard is that US competitive scene is almost dead, there isn’t much competition as 2 or 3 teams dominate everyone. Also in US people have smaller organizations such as CLG and Solomid who are maybe really not capable of providing the money to travel to offline events. In EU competitive gaming flourishes, many good teams which each have a chance to defeat another.

Max “Magic” Dreysse:

It is childish and totally inappropriate if you ask me. It used to be far more dramatic a while ago, when the Europeans felt like their metagame wasn't being taken into consideration by Riot when it came to balancing the game. This was one of the reasons many Europeans were hoping so eagerly for the Americans to finally loose a big event: It would finally give our community the right to influence the development of patches, so they hoped. In my personal opinion the conflict was always overrated. At times their teams were ahead, nowadays it seems like the tides have turned. It's no big deal, we just have different playstyles. No reason for hate.

MMORPG.com:

Given that the EU and NA have different meta-games, do you feel that either of the meta-games is ahead of another in terms of favored champs and tactics?

Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen:

Meta-games of EU and US kind of blended during Dreamhack. I’m not quite sure how US meta-game differs from EU now.

Max “Magic” Dreysse:

Well, lately the Americans have been adapting the European playstyle most of the time, thus it’s hard to say. At the moment the meta-games don't differ too much from one another. Since we invented the current playstyle I claim the right to say: We Win! Besides we actually won in Sweden, backing up my point quite nicely.

MMORPG.com:

In terms of playable champions, which do you feel are the most under-rated that people haven't quite caught onto you, and conversely who do you feel are the most overpowered?

Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen:

Most under-rated champion is probably Trundle. Most overpowered champion at the moment is Orianna.

Max “Magic” Dreysse:

Underrated: Twitch. Hes totally insane in terms of damage output: He has the biggest base attackdamage of all the ranged carries, his expunge is mostlikely the hardest nuke among all the ranged carries, his passive true damage hurts like hell and sofar I didnt even mention the insane attackspeed he gains from his q. To top all this greatness off he also has an insane range aoe slow. Sounds OP? Then add an ulti that converts your autoattacks into aoe missiles with pathetic uberrange and you got twitch. They even take over onhit effects such as witsend, life-leech and crits... prepare for it, the rat will come!

Overpowered: #1 Orianna, #2 Amumu, #3 Gankplank, #4 Tf and #5 Yorick. I'm also starting to hate Fiddle lately, he might be on his way as well!

MMORPG.com:

During Dreamhack, many people have been pointing out the fact that almost every player used the summoner spell Flash. What's your take on Flash and its role in the game currently?

Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen:

Flash is the most useful summoner spell in team fights as you can escape AOE and melees with it. It’s a very powerful escape mechanic but is necessary for the survival of the squishier champions.

Max “Magic” Dreysse:

On the one hand you have your ranged champions who need to reposition themselves as much as possible during teamfights to ensure a staple damage output. Having a flash obviously helps a lot there. On the other hand you got your melee champions who need to chase the opponents ranged champions and thus need a flash to counter theirs.

That’s basically about it. If someone has a flash you need a flash to catch him. If you want to escape from someone with a flash you will mostly need a flash too. In general the best way to counter flash is to pick one yourself, leading to these totally boring (summoner spell-wise) mirror-matches. They should totally change something there if you ask me. I love the DotA "dagger" which allows you to dodge spells (like the old flash) but isnt usable shortly after you've been damaged. Would make it a far more strategic and skilled mechanic if you ask me.

MMORPG.com:

What do you guys envision as the future of the eSports movement? Obviously League of Legends has become this titan in the space, but what other games do you see on the horizon that may draw people into the fold?

Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen:

Dota 2 is the obvious answer. I don’t know about other games, I really don’t play other games than LoL at the moment.

Max “Magic” Dreysse:

As a DotA veteran I'm obviously looking forward to DotA 2. It's gonna be tough to permanently drag me away from LoL though, so show me your best, Valve.

MMORPG.com:

Similarly, what sorts of changes would you like to see in the future as eSports continue to grow? How would you like to see the sport change and mature?

Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen:

Well I wish for overall growth of e-sports, more price money, more viewers etc. E-sports is heading in the right direction.

Max “Magic” Dreysse:

Tough one, I'm actually quite happy about the way it is at the moment. Of course it would be sort of cool if we had more attention in for example newspapers and such but I admit that thats sort of unrealistic. I guess a far nobler thing to wish for would be to give more people the chance to try themselves on playing competetive games. As it is right now computergames are a first-world only phenomena. If we were to enable thirdworld inhabitants to enjoy nerding, we would grow a lot closer to what soccer is: A real global sport. I mean, be honest. Calling the Dreamhack a "World Championship" while there are no South American, no African and no Australian teams attending feels sort of wrong.