Interview with FNaticMSI - Part 2

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?

Manuel "Lamia" Mildenberger:

Might be the more and more complex and fun games that are being released, might also be the possibility to escape the working-life easily by just turning on the PC and relaxing for the night.  Might be a lot of different personal reasons for a lot of different people and cultures, or just all the reasons mixed together somehow. It's really hard to tell.

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño-Martinez:

Basically that you can play with IRL friends in this game. Internet friends and real friends just make games more enjoyable to play since you also spend time with people you like while playing.

Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel:

Can't really tell, I haven t been playing games related with eSports before LoL, but I guess it's Riot seeing there is demand and potential and thus supports a growth in the eSports scene.

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?

Manuel "Lamia" Mildenberger:

It's quite the messed up family where once in a while every other guy is serious and the others aren't – so we almost everytime have someone who can be responsible.

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño-Martinez:

I guess the main fact is that we are all good friends, we are people that when we meet IRL we love to do stuff together and we work like real friends even on internet. So when we play mainly we have fun and we know that we play as friends for fun. I think that keeps our motivation up.

Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel:

I mean, there's not some guy off to the corner shouting about DKP (for no apparent reason) is there? We are just a bunch of guys that enjoy doing stuff together, which of course includes playing a lot of LoL together, but also other stuff.

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.

Manuel "Lamia" Mildenberger:

We were very excited and just practiced as much as would, to make sure we were ready!

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño-Martinez:

Even though the servers were really messed up in those times and we couldn't practice we tried our best to train anytime we could. But sometimes we just met and the servers were not working so we talked a few hours what we would do, talk about strategies and whatnot, but I think we lacked some practice still.

Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel:

We actually did less than we'd usually do, due to Riots server problems going big at that time and two players having massive internet problems at that time aswell. But we tried to get as much practice playing as a team, to be ready to face the best.

MMORPG.com:

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

Manuel "Lamia" Mildenberger:

I can't really comment on this one, myself. Enrique?

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño-Martinez:

I think most of the Americans would like to enlarge the solo parts of the game while in Europe we want to go with team-fights as soon as possible. Also there are some heroes more used in America than in Europe.

Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel:

NA competence scene seems somewhat smaller, in terms of less tournaments and because of that it seems to be getting more influenced by Solo-Queuing. This means that NA has probably the better individual players, but EU shines at team-play.

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?

Manuel "Lamia" Mildenberger:

Right now, I think both EU and NA have almost the same Metagame – since Dreamhack atleast so the next tournament will probably show who is ahead a bit again.

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño-Martinez:

Europe's meta-game has a slight advantage: we pick the heroes usually thinking more on the team-fights and how would they work all together.

Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel:

Judging from what I've seen on DH and before, I'd tend to say that EU is ahead in the meta-game, as EU meta was superior and NA started playing it as well. Can't tell if it will stay that way.

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?

Manuel "Lamia" Mildenberger:

Lee Sin and Trundle are underrated. Overpowered at the moment are champions like Udyr, Irelia, Jarvan: bruiser-style champions.

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño-Martinez:

As bad heroes I would mention Malphite, katarina cant think about more right now but those two surely are bad right now. For the OP heroes there are a lot right now. Yorick is insane, Udyr, Gangplank, Orianna... there are a bit more but that are not that overpowered but those heroes can simply destroy always.

Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel:

Most underrated right now would be Lee Sin and Cassiopeia for me, have seen a lot of people doing really well on those lately, but they are yet, pretty rare picks. Most OP: Yorick, Orianna, Warwick and Gankplank for obvious reasons. I'd maybe even include Brand, that guy is such a beast.

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?

Manuel "Lamia" Mildenberger:

Let's just say that Flash can be used skillfully or just plain stupidly from time to time. Of course it is strong compared to other summoners but you can juts take a look at BLC where every champion has a flash-like-ish ability as well. Flash brings more movement and quickness into the game and changing it at the current meta would be a huge deal.

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño-Martinez:

Flash is probably the strongest summoner spell: it provides you escape ability, positioning ability, and in middle of a team-fight dodging ability or chasing ability. It works for everything but it's perfect as it is. I don't think it needs any rework since all the meta-game is based on flash right now. If you remove it you would have to buff or nerf lot of heroes. IE: Heroes with jump like Kassadin, Corki, and Tristana would become super OP since they would simply jump out of a wall and you cannot chase them.

Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel:

At the current point I already see Flash as a necessary game mechanic, removing it would have an insanely high impact on game-play. May seem weird to keep something that everyone has to use anyways, might as well remove it at that points, but Flash is too important to take it away, so many champions would need to be rebalanced if it was gone.

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?

Manuel "Lamia" Mildenberger:

I think LoL, SC2, Diablo 3 and CS will be and will stay the biggest.

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño-Martinez:

I'm not really into other games since League of Legends. I only like Counter-Strike! I'm waiting to see DOTA2 and will give it a try so who knows?

Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel:

DotA 2 for obvious reasons, else Diablo 3 is going to be big for sure, but I doubt it's material for eSports. So I guess it will somewhat stay the same: for people that like MOBAs there is LoL, HoN and BLC. For RTS fans there is Starcraft 2 and there are plenty of shooters as well, if someone managed to bring RPGs/MMORPGs into eSports, it would be a big step for growing even bigger, since there's rather little of eSports in those games but there's tons of people playing them.

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?

Manuel "Lamia" Mildenberger:

More player-supportive, less team and company based. In the end it's always the player that suffers, so I'd like to see more bans/punishments/restrictions for hackers and cheaters.

Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño-Martinez:

I would love to see more offline events about League of Legends. It would be really cool since I can't see my team every time I want. If we had more events I could spend a lot of time with them outside of the game. Having more trips would motivate more players to train for sure.

Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel:

I like it the way it is right now, but like anyone I'm up for improvement anytime.