Rogue Larssen: “We have a lot more to improve on, way more than we usually do”

Emil “Larssen” Larsson and his team Rogue secured a spot in the lower bracket finals against G2 Esports. We talked to him about his most recent series against Schalke 04.

First of all, congratulations on defeating Schalke and moving onto the semi-finals! Of course you guys did not know who you’d be facing off against until Schalke upset Fnatic, but what was the preparation like for this series?

Larssen: “For us, after last week when we lost against MAD, we just had to focus on ourselves because we had a lot to improve on. Same for next week, but I feel like we can beat both G2 and MAD Lions.”

Game one seemed like a pretty classic Rogue win where you guys just out macroed and outplayed your opponents. Was this an ideal start for you guys?

Larssen: “Winning the first game is always ideal, especially whenever we stomped them and controlled the game. That’s how we want the game to look, just very controlled and comfortable to win. It was kind of the same as when we played against MAD because in game one we also stomped them hard in the first game and then we lost game 2 in quite a bad way, so it was kinda worrying. It was just a hard game but we came back.”

Focusing more on this second game, do you think it was just this difficult teamfight composition Schalke drafted that resulted in this loss?

Larssen: “Yeah, it was very hard to play that game against a full-engage team, and I felt we weren’t playing that bad. It was just unusual to play against this composition. Teamfighting was very hard and it was a good draft by them for sure.”

Schalke seemed to keep on throwing these dive comps at you guys, how did Rogue respond?

Larssen: “We definitely noticed after game 2 that they just wanted to play dive comps, which is an unskilled way to play in a way, because it’s just the easier way to look for fights. When you play on stage people are a bit more stressed and look for fights more, so Schalke just played into this theme and played for teamfights. It’s a good thing to do if you don’t know how to play macro that well, but I think if you play well at macro then you’ll do fine against this type of team composition.”

When you play on stage people are a bit more stressed and look for fights more.

Looking at your matchup, you were facing off against another great mid laner in Abbedagge. How would you describe this matchup over the course of the series? How did the near constant roams by Gilius and LIMIT in some games affect this?

Larssen: “He was playing decent, but almost every game I got TP advantage and I would try to teleport botlane. Not much happened in the midlane, I think. They definitely played a lot around midlane with Gilius and LIMIT but it was just something I had to respect.”

You tweeted out after the game that your coach finally didn’t just stick you on Azir duty, and you actually had a lot of champion diversity across this series. What motivated this switch-up, especially since Azir was open in some of these drafts?

Larssen: “The reason I picked Azir against MAD, not to reveal too much, it was good in those games and going into those comps it was just a good pick. I will always play different champions, it’s just that Azir has been honestly very broken but now it’s nerfed which creates more diversity. It just happens there’s more diversity and viable picks, which is nice and way more fun than playing three games as Azir, which is very boring honestly.”

What about these AD mids you were picking like Lucian/Trist? Did they just provide a consistent secondary source of damage alongside Hans’ Kalista?

Larssen: “I think the AD mids just got a big buff since Seekers got nerfed, and Seekers was very good for mages against ADs and was very broken. I think now ADs in mid are way more viable which is why I think they are stronger.”

Momentum flipped so often in this series from moment to moment, how did Rogue keep their strong mental, especially in game 4?

Larssen: “If something goes wrong you always have to move on from that play and focus on what you can do right now. I think our mental state can definitely be stronger. When something goes wrong, we sometimes don’t forget it as fast as we should and focus on the next play. Our mental is something we need to improve on for next week. Schalke got a bit of a comeback but we still felt like we would win every fight. In that game we could have been calmer as we were more stressed than usual.”

Is there anything else you think Rogue generally can improve on before your next series?

Larssen: “In practice we have a lot more to improve on, way more than we usually do. Next week will be very important because we had quite a rough week in practice last week and we had a talk about what we need to improve on. Like the fundamentals of the game for example, because lately we’ve forgotten how to play as a team which is what we need to go back to.”

You guys had such a strong regular season, is some of this just from the difference between best-of-one and best-of-five?

Larssen: “A bit, but I think we just became a bit worse, lost our fundamentals and started playing more as individuals. Also the first series against MAD was the first time back on stage. I think that people were playing too stressed and our comms were too hectic and we didn’t play like we usually do. Instead of being calm and playing macro we were looking for fights all the time, which is what we improved on a lot this week and we tried to play like normal again.”

I am very confident against both MAD and G2. I think during the whole split, even though we never won, we felt like we were the better team.

Next week you guys are facing G2, what are your initial thoughts going into this match?

Larssen: “I am very confident against both MAD and G2. I think during the whole split, even though we never won, we felt like we were the better team. If we have a very good practice week and improve on what we need to improve on then we can beat them both. I think it will be very close against them both and it will be very fun.”

Congratulations on the win, Larssen, and good luck against G2 Esports next week!

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