Pad (MAD Lions): “FPX looks fucking scary, but if we play well, you can expect Worlds contenders in MAD Lions”

MAD Lions came into summer as the defending champions, now they are the back-to-back LEC champions of 2021, defeating Fnatic 3-1 in the finals to hoist the trophy once again. With LEC summer officially coming to a close, they will now look towards preparing for Worlds 2021.

MAD Lions assistant coach Patrick “Pad” Suckow-Breum joined us once again and took time off celebrating MAD’s historic win to talk about their final series against Fnatic, some thoughts going into Worlds and why people should watch the European Regional Leagues (ERLs)/EU Masters.

First things first, big congratulations on being the back-to-back champions of the LEC! Did you guys expect to win 3-1 in this fashion and how did you see this series?  

Pad: We expected to win, for sure. Obviously there was a bit of a fear factor coming into today from Fnatic because they won every single matchup  coming in as fifth seed, beating every team and looking stronger. From each opponent they beat, they looked stronger from series to series. But personally, I wasn’t too worried. 

I think 3-1 or 3-0 was the prediction we were going for, depending on what kind of Fnatic showed up. Well actually, it didn’t depend on Fnatic today, it depended on how we approached the  series. I think Fnatic looked better than what they showed against Rogue because I feel like Rogue had a complete misread on Fnatic, on how they play the game and how you should play against them to counter them. Rogue just looked completely unprepared.

That’s an interesting perspective. Facing Fnatic, the biggest obstacle perhaps was time? While there were days leading up to it, you guys technically only had 1 day to prepare for potentially new information. What were some measures of preparations that you guys did coming into this series?

Pad: It wasn’t that hard, because we played Rogue last week and I had to prepare 15 games of Fnatic going into this week, since I’m in charge of scouting reports and giving my opinion on how we should approach the series in terms of draft and gameplay.

There was a lot of data from Fnatic so there was plenty to take from. I think from those 15 games, there was enough data and patterns on Fnatic that unless they drastically changed up their up drafts and played a completely different style, I didn’t think it was an issue to only have one day to prepare with new info from their last series. 

I don’t think that they showed up and did something massively differently that what they showed against Rogue, I just think Rogue just allowed them to do what they had done in their Lower Bracket run.

Just very quickly then since you mentioned Rogue, do you think Rogue is not as good as they showed in the Fnatic series and do you think they are potentially better than them? 

Pad: I mean, it was obvious that Rogue really, really slumped towards playoffs. They had a massive slump against us and Fnatic. I think that if you look at our series, obviously we played well and Game 2 ended up being super close but actually, we ended up with a big lead and we could have closed out the game as well. And you can see they gained a massive lead against us as they do the times we’ve played against them. 

I think Rogue’s issues are the same issues we talked about last time. But for the last two series they played in playoffs, they also struggled in the early games, and previously they were the best early game team in the entire league over the course of two seasons. Them having a slump period and affecting the early game in the series against us and Fnatic hurt them a lot. 

I think if they can bounce back mentally, they can still have a decent showing at Worlds 2021.

Moving on from that, let’s talk about your achievements this year. You’ve had an incredible year. Tell us how you are reflecting on your amazing year so far, winning LEC twice and going to MSI, coming from the NLC?  

Pad: It feels insane. I’m just happy and completely mind-blown. I just have so much happiness and new knowledge and stuff I still need to process, still so hopefully we do it the couple of weeks before we go to Worlds! 

I’m just absolutely grateful for Mac and Kaas and the players obviously, but for Mac in particular for giving me this chance coming from NLC while also being the best possible guide you could imagine. He is always correcting me, giving me constructive criticism and creating a safe space where failure is okay as long as you learn from it. As I’ve grown over the season, he’s given me complete freedom to do what I do, having trust in me with the scouting reports I do and the info that I gather. It’s been amazing. 

I could not have had better tutelage than having Mac overseeing my development over the last year. It’s just been perfect.

Speaking of Worlds 2021, it’s the big topic now. MAD Lions are not going into Play-Ins this time unlike last year, do you think this will be a big advantage for you, since many say playing in Play-Ins allows a team to get more official games in the new meta? What do you think?    

Pad: Honestly, I don’t think it really matters. More games is always nice but for us, having a longer break, making sure everyone gets to process this season, getting to process what we’ve been through like the double quarantine, getting some distance from the game is really healthy. 

What matters for us is scrimming the Asian teams and getting stomped, and learning from getting stomped and then learning how to stomp them. Lot of our development towards Worlds is going to come from scrims. I don’t think playing in the Play-Ins against the Wildcard regions or NA’s third seed would help us a lot. I think scrimming against the LPL/LCK teams will make us evolve as a team and take us to the next stage. So overall, I think going to the Main Event is an advantage for us.

Alright, a fun question to follow up on that. The venue for Worlds has not been officially announced but if you had to choose, where would you like Worlds to be held in Europe this year?  

Pad: It probably impossible but…being a Liverpool fan and having primarily come from the UK scene, as well as knowing the UK fans are crazy in a good way, I would love it to be in the UK. 

I think Denmark has a decent crowd, but other than that I’m not too fussed. Overall if I had to choose, the UK would be my number 1 choice!

Alright, UK it is! On the topic of who you would like to face at Words, MAD Lions kept saying FunPlus Phoenix (FPX) in the pos-game lobby. Which teams would you like to face, personally?  

Pad: I would like to face FPX, FPX and FPX!

Fair enough! I’ve asked you this at MSI, so I’ve got to ask you this now. Can you give the European fans some ‘hopium’? Will Europe win Worlds this year since it’s held in Europe, being the first seed from the LEC?

Pad: (laughs) FPX looks fucking scary and Doinb is having the best season of his life…but if we play well against the LPL and LCK teams, and we develop our current style into matching them and specifically FPX, you can expect world contenders in MAD Lions.

Before we end then, I’d like to ask for a quick word on the ERLs and EU Masters. You, Kaas, you past and current players come from there. What do you have to say to people who maybe are not so keen on watching the ERLs and EU Masters? 

Pad: Everyone should watch more ERLs. Personally, outside of LPL, I prefer watching the ERLs because they’re much more fun. I think we’ve come into an era of watching LoL where everything has to be perfect and I think it’s wrong. I think it’s a boring approach to watching LoL. 

I watch games for the bloodbath, for the skirmishing, the micro etc. I watch for the small outplays in the 1v1’s, 2v2’s and so forth. You get a lot more of these fiestas in the ERLs, which means more skirmishing and more fights, which is more fun for me, personally. So watching ERLs is always more fun.

If you don’t watch the ERLs and EU Masters, you’re going to miss out on a lot of upcoming talents and if you miss out on those, you’re going to be sad when they then join LEC and pop off, because you missed out on them actually being good in the ERLs.

We’ve come to the end of the interview. Any closing thoughts and any shoutouts?

Pad: Thank you to everyone for supporting us and thank you for the last interview, that got a lot of traction on a really important topic! 

Thank you Pad and congratulations to the MAD Lions once more for winning the LEC 2021 Summer Season. Best of luck at Worlds 2021!

 

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