DIG FakeGod: “We didn’t have any practice with Akaadian as our jungler for the LCS, like not even a single game”

In a rough week for Dignitas in the LCS they unfortunately lost out three times, to Golden Guardians, TSM and CLG.

We spoke to their top laner FakeGod about the match against TSM, playing Rumble in a solo lane and having to play with a last-minute substitute.

I appreciate you sitting down to talk after that close game. I wanted to start off by asking about your specific lane matchup. We rarely get to see Rumble played in a solo lane these days and I was wondering if you could give some insight into the matchup?

FakeGod: Rumble is a pretty lane dominant champion, his Q is just a pretty strong ability and when he overheats he can beat anyone in a 1v1, I feel like. For me, I picked Gnar to try and outscale in the sidelane and look for team fights later on. I’m just comfortable on Gnar, the laning phase was pretty rough though. I didn’t die or anything. We actually locked in some Xin Zhao ganks and I was even in CS and on the same item.

TSM had some scaling threats in Ezreal and Viktor. Did getting the early objectives ease your mind any?

FakeGod: Yeah, we weren’t really talking about their scaling potential, just about what we could get in the early game and how the game was going. It was only until we lost a team fight that we started thinking it could get a little more dicey now and that our champions weren’t the best scalers.

You guys were facing off against a few long range ultimates, did this account for that team fight loss you were talking about?

FakeGod: Yeah, it was pretty hard to get into their range because we were more of a flanking, engaging composition. We had to keep looking for unique angles just to try and get on to them. The easiest way to do that was to fight around the objectives, but we kept messing up around neutral objectives when the fights became more even. Not the early dragons but the third or fourth.

Do you feel like your lead broke down after these 5v5s?

FakeGod: Yeah, it was just pretty hard to go onto them in general. We could only really use TP flanks or closing in from the side lanes, and I don’t think that we really did the best at those. I think that TSM blocked those plays pretty well since that was the only thing they really had to do. TSM knew they just wouldn’t get comboed by our flanks and they just won front to back fights.

With relatively few hard engage on the side of Dignitas, did you feel like the burden of starting off fights was largely on you?

FakeGod: It was either on me timing my Gnar ults or Leona’s engage. I think some fights for sure I definitely timed my ults poorly, like catching waves when I shouldn’t have. Actually, if I caught a wave, I had to procc my mega-Gnar to clear the whole wave but just because of things like that we didn’t always have the best angle. We just couldn’t really fight when I was in mini-Gnar form. That puts us in a lot of hard situations. We just forced too hard and eventually lost.

As you stated, it felt like Dignitas lost the lead pretty suddenly. How do you recover from a situation like this?

FakeGod: We just had to stay focused on the game and what our options were and how we could still fight back. For that game, we were just waiting for the objectives to spawn again and continually look for flanks. We also kept track of their summoners so we could abuse them if we had a summoner advantage.

Around 30 minutes, you guys found a really good fight off of an engage from Aphromoo. Could you walk me through that play?

FakeGod: When they got baron off that dragon fight we lost pretty badly, we knew we had to look for a fight when they looked to siege on our inhibitor towers because we knew that we had zero wave clear. We basically tried to look for TP flanks behind them for middle inhibitor and eventually toplane, but it was very difficult. When they reached the bottom lane, we knew we had to fight since this was the last one. Aphromoo just said “okay, I’m going to flash and ult here!” and we all said okay. We all just had to go in at the same time after that. It was a decent angle since Viego TPed behind them.

We planned for it in advance since we knew we had to get them off our inhibitor, but we just had to search for the right moment if they gave it to us. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing, but we knew that a fight was coming.

TSM is of course a formidable opponent on their own, but did playing with a last minute substitute make this match harder?

FakeGod: Yeah, a bit. We didn’t have any practice with Akaadian as our jungler for the LCS, like not even a single game. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision. Essentially, on stage versus TSM was our first time we played together. Honestly, I’m pretty content with how the game went considering the situation.

Dignitas still has a relatively strong record. Do you think your good Spring Split has given you guys the room to find the root of your current problems?

FakeGod: Yeah, I think it’s really good for us that our Spring results carried over and the fact that Summer is a longer season. We just have more time to get things in a good spot. We have a lot more leeway to experiment. Our Spring results were pretty good and have acted as a good buffer so far.

Thank you for the interview, FakeGod!

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Image Credit: Riot Games / Dignitas
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