Misfits Gaming Shlatan: “Just making it to LEC is not an achievement for me”

The LEC 2022 Spring Season’s Week 1 has finally concluded with a mixture of surprising and not so surprising results. Misfits Gaming arrived in the new season with three changes to their roster from last summer and weathered the storm of Week 1, finishing the perilous superweek with a 2-1 scoreline. They face Excel Esports on the first day of Week 2.

First and foremost Shlatan, thank you so much for accepting this interview and congratulations on finishing the superweek 2-1! Let’s take it from the top and start it off easy, what are your reflections from your victory against Team BDS?

Shlatan: Thank you. My reflections on the game, I think in terms of draft, we were ahead because we got a stronger bot and top matchups, and we got a good early game jungler as well. Well, they got a stronger one I suppose , but we could play for drakes and objectives early on. I think it was really hard for them to contest us, especially early on. But then we made some mistakes in lanes, especially top and bot, and we handed them some advantages which we shouldn’t have.

But we still kept playing for the objectives like we planned and we took the first two drakes and Rift Herald. They also misplayed around some of the objectives. I guess we’re taking a lot of leads early on and I think later on it’s really impossible for us to lose the game because we outscale them in terms of damage. I think they were just misplaying a lot. We were getting caught off a lot of times by their ganks or making mistakes in lane, but they were doing the same basically and they were also giving us too many free kills.

That’s fair enough. Of course with Misfits winning this game means you end the week 2-1. But is it fair for me to say at the moment, Misfits look quite messy, even in the two games you’ve won against Astralis and BDS? What do you think of Misfits form in a moment and what do you think you guys need to work on going into Week 2?

Shlatan: I don’t want to say too much because we are still a new team, so I can’t say I’m 100% sure about what we should work on. We still need time to figure out some stuff and we’re just trying out champions as well. We don’t have good synergy yet but I’m pretty sure most of the LEC don’t have good synergy as well at the moment. There’s only a few teams that I feel like are already playing with some kind of synergy.

I think that’s what we need to improve on is synergy, in teamfights, macro wise, getting on the same page. Things like this will make us play better. I think we did well in our early games and we have good players in terms of laning phase. So I think pretty much every early game was good for us, from our wins and even in our loss against Rogue. We’re taking objectives early and getting some leads. We just need to get good scrims in and improve from there.

I’m not sure if this will be something that you are willing to answer, since this is your first time entering the LEC, as a rookie, and playing official stage games with the team, were you nervous going into this week of games?

Shlatan: Yeah, I was pretty nervous. I mean, I didn’t feel like I was nervous before the games. But in-game, I didn’t feel comfortable, so I don’t feel like I played well in those games. I’m pretty sure I could have played way better in the first game, I rewatched the game and I think I didn’t play well in teamfights. For the next two games, I think I did way better but still, it wasn’t close to what I wanted to be or even close to the level I was supposed to play at.

I feel like I just need more time, maybe. I mean, I feel like even though we won two games, as you said we didn’t play very well and the teams that we played against, they played really bad as well. I think everyone will just keep improving in LEC over time. It looks like it’s really messy now but with time everyone will be better. So, we need to work hard.

I’m sure that misfits will definitely look much better in the coming weeks. This is your first season in LEC as a rookie and you were definitely one of the hotter prospects in the ERLs. Talk to me a little bit about getting promoted to the main team in Misfits. How do you feel now that you’re playing in LEC?

Shlatan: I felt like I should have been playing in LEC already, in 2021. After EU Masters 2020 with K1CK Neosurf, TynX, Elyoya and I were playing really well there, and they both got picked up, which I think was really deserved. Yet I think there were also some junglers that didn’t deserve to get picked up and in the end, I didn’t get the chance to go to LEC. But overall, I don’t mind it. I had more time to play and develop in the ERLs.

I don’t feel it’s an achievement or anything just because I get to play in LEC. I feel like it’s really important to keep improving and be the best player that you can be, not just only getting to the league itself, that’s not an achievement itself for me. So yeah, I’m still happy that I can play that and work with the best players in Europe. I get to play against the best players in Europe, scrimm against them, and all of this is way more professional than the ERLs. It’s a good thing. But as I said, just making it to LEC is not an achievement for me.

Well, speaking of ERLs. As I understand the Misfits Premier team which you were on as well, are quite close to the main team. Could you outline to me some differences between your time now in LEC and when you were on Misfits Premier in the LFL?

Shlatan: I can’t get into too much detail and I also don’t want to come across being cocky or anything. When I was playing in the academy team, I felt like as a team we were really good at playing together. I was really making sure that we were on the same page on how to play the game, spending a lot of time in reviews and the like. I was somewhat forcing it and it probably was annoying for some people. Sometimes we had arguments with each other but I felt like it made us play better as a team. When we were playing in the academy and we were watching the LEC team play, we felt like that individually they were really good but maybe their team synergy wasn’t always the best.

So even when I got promoted to the main team, I had the same feeling that the players here are extremely good individually, but maybe we need to play more as a team and improve our teamwork. It’s just how I felt. Time will tell.

Okay, we are coming to the end of the interview. I just have maybe two more questions for you. Now that misfits have completed their super week are there any junglers and teams in particular that you want to meet?

Shlatan: I’m not thinking too much about it. I just want to improve in scrims and then play against whoever I’m supposed to play. We will play against everyone so it doesn’t matter too much, although…maybe facing off against the other Polish junglers? Jankos and Selfmade, so I guess G2 Esports and Team Vitality. Yeah, I look forward to facing those two teams I guess.

You’ve defeated Cinkrof I guess, so that’s one down.

Shlatan: Oh right, I forgot he was playing in BDS. True!

Before we end, this is more of a personal question of mine: When are you going to play Lee Sin? Everyone who’s watched ERLs and everyone who was watching you, we know you for your infamous Lee Sin! When is Shlatan’s Lee Sin coming out? Come on!

Shlatan: (laughs) I mean, let’s be real…they will just ban it! They’ll just ban it and I will not get to play it. Okay, I feel like against some better teams, maybe they will leave it open because they will try to test me out. But I’m ready to take the test, and I hope that we can have some fun games!

I look forward to that! We’ve come to the end of the interview, anything else you’d like to add or shoutouts you’d like to give?

Shlatan: Yeah, I just want to say thanks to all of my fans. Thanks for the support. It doesn’t matter which country they’re from. Just…thank you.

Thank you Shlatan and best of luck for Week 2.

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