G2 Flakked: “I think Zeri is for sure a bit overtuned right now”

With the end of Week 5 the top three teams of the LEC now look much closer in the standings, with G2 now tied with Fnatic for second at 8-3, especially with Rogue losing two crucial games in the same week. Next week, G2 will face SK Gaming and Fnatic and see if they can secure another good round of results as the LEC approaches playoffs.

First and foremost, thank you so much for accepting this interview and congratulations to G2 on going 2-0 this week. Brilliant stuff so far. Let’s take it from the top, walk me through G2’s 2-0 week and what did you guys work on or prepare coming into this week?

Flakked: Thank you. We started the week not in the best mood I’d say, because the last match we played against Rogue we played pretty badly. I wouldn’t say the mood was really down but maybe we were lacking a bit of confidence after. It’s fine now. We were going through our official matches and finding out what our biggest mistakes were and in the week of scrims we were working a lot on fixing them.

The game against Astralis wasn’t that clean, but I thought the one against MAD Lions was so we were pretty happy with how everything went. We were fixing our mistakes and we’re playing better everyday.

I wouldn’t say the Astralis game looked close but it did look a bit dicey early on. Talk to me a little bit about that game, how did you see it from your perspective?

Flakked: From our perspective, it looked really chill. Like, we were losing 8-6 or something but we were saying to ourselves, “yeah, this game is won”! Yet after we looked at the game from the outside, we thought that yes, maybe it was a bit closer than we thought. Of course, we really wanted to play clean but we couldn’t, especially myself.

Individually speaking, I think I played really poorly. On the dive, I could’ve played way better mechanically and done better with wave management too. I did so much random stuff. But in the end, a win is a win, you know? I’m really happy for another 2-0 week.

Yes, that’s true. When you mentioned previously that you were coming in as a rookie, I’d just like to get your thoughts on that. As a rookie, you got the offer to play for G2 Esports. When you came into the LEC, and even now, do you feel like there’s a lot of pressure for you to perform or are you just taking it in stride?

Flakked: I would say at the beginning, I had a bit more pressure than I do right now. Of course there’s always pressure in whatever you do, especially if you want to be the best or win everything. But right now, it’s nothing compared to what I felt at the start. When I first joined G2, the first days I felt a lot of pressure and was nervous, because I had never played in the LEC before. I actually had like a month of tryouts and scrims, and while I had decent practice and I was pretty confident in myself, you never know until you play your first official match.

In my first official match, I was playing Jinx against Excel’s bot lane of Lucian and Nami and I was like, “oh shit, it’s Lucian + Nami on stage. I might run it down”. Like, one mistake in this lane and you get snowballed on for the rest of the game. But no, it went pretty well and something I didn’t take into account is that the enemy team has pressure to perform as well. Everything is in your mind, you’re worrying about misplaying or inting but the enemies have that in mind as well, so a lot of people and teams play way safer in official matches than they do in scrims.

I would say, yeah, I was feeling more pressured in the first week . The longer I was scrimming, being around my teammates and playing officials, you could say the pressure has been ‘off’.

You do look like you’re playing a lot better in recent weeks, especially after the COVID incident. In previous interviews, you’ve talked about how much you love your teammates, but there’s one figure in G2 I don’t hear about too often at the moment. Talk to me about what it is like working with your coach Dylan Falco.

Flakked: Dylan is really nice and he helps me a lot. He does every draft preparation, and every day we work with him on what we want to play, what we are comfortable playing and what works best for our team. He’s been really great and shoutout to Rodrigo as well who is our Head Analyst. I think they’re both insane, they’re really nice and easy to work with.

For example, if I don’t want to play let’s say….Malphite bot even though let’s say Malphite bot is overpowered. Instead of saying things like, “why don’t you play it?” and stuff, we will look for different solutions together. He really adapts to everyone and it’s such a pleasure working with him.

He’ll definitely be very happy to hear that. And speaking of overpowered picks, we know that Zeri is considered OP at the moment with her being the talk of the town right now. What are your thoughts on Zeri, is she as overpowered as people say and think?

Flakked: I mean, it depends, right? Like for example, when I was playing it against Rogue, it didn’t look broken (laughs). I think for Zeri… in some scenarios, it looks like it’s a bait champion but in others, she looks broken. I think Zeri right now is for sure a bit overtuned.

I don’t think she is that strong early on but she has a good laning phase and she’s pretty safe. But I think Zeri right now… I don’t know. I think we still need to see her more in official matches because in scrims, this champion looks f***ing broken since everyone is fighting a lot. But on stage, people play a lot safer.

At the moment, I feel like this champion is kinda useless in teamfights after you run out of your Ultimate. So I’m not sure now and it’s kind of what I said: I think in some scenarios, she looks really broken but in others, she looks really bad. It’s kinda hard to judge because Zeri is pretty much perma banned every game.

That’s fair enough. Next week G2 will face SK Gaming and Fnatic, so talk to me about these matches and which one are you most excited to play?

Flakked: I’m most excited to play against Fnatic for sure. I think for SK, if we play our game and if we play like we usually do, we should take the win. But I think against Fnatic, of course it’s going to be tough, especially in the bot lane department because Hylissang and Upset are pretty good at this game!

I’m really looking forward to playing against them and trying to, you know, match their aggression 2v2 in the bot lane. I really think Targamas and I can beat them and I will be working 24/7 until I achieve that goal.

Okay, let’s see if your coach heard that! On a fun note, you’re Spanish and Fnatic has a Spanish player in Razork. And of course there’s Elyoya in the MAD Lions. Is there a big rivalry between the Spanish players, and do you absolutely want to beat them every time you meet?

Flakked: I mean, I think it’s kinda like a meme between us because outside the game we really love each other. We’re really good friends and I still haven’t had the chance to meet them because of COVID and stuff. However yes, I really want to beat them and it’s like friendly banter between us. Like I saw Razork in the Match of the Week video saying, “I really want to smash Flakked” but this is really friendly banter. I really like Razork and Elyoya, and I hope that we see more Spanish players in LEC in the future.

I’m pretty sure we will. What would you say are your personal goals for this spring?

Flakked: I think that right now we can end up first in the Spring Season, so I really want to give my best to try and win the regular season as well as playoffs, but I think my overall goals stay the same.

I really want to be the best bot laner in Europe and I don’t really care much about the regular season. If we end up first then that’s great but if not, it’s fine as long as we’re in a good spot for playoffs. My short term goal would be to win the LEC Spring Season and for my long term goal, it’s to become the best bot laner in the West.

Well, I don’t want to jinx it but let’s say G2 wins spring and you go to MSI 2022. Which team and which player would you like to face?

Flakked: For sure it would be T1, I would really like to face Gumayusi. I really like him and I think he’s insane at the game. He also has a really funny personality, so I really want to face him and I really want to beat T1. And of course there’s Faker, right? I mean like holy s***, it’s f***ing Faker, you know (laughs)!

Absolutely! Last question, you’re famous for your pet duck, Tetoncito. When will we see you bring Tetoncito to the LEC studio?

Flakked: I don’t know, it’s kinda hard to get my duck here. First of all, our gaming house is not big enough to have a duck in proper conditions. I’m not sure if the LEC will be happy as well with getting my duck in the studio because he poops like a maniac, by the way! Every 10 minutes, he drops a nuke and it smells so bad and you need to clean it up. I’m sure the people in the LEC studio would not be happy with me bringing my duck in (laughs)!

Thank you Flakked and good luck this weekend!

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