G2 Esports top laner Ki “Expect” Dae-han said Europe doesn’t fall behind in comparison to other League of Legends regions except for the one everybody chases.
After G2’s victory against 1907 Fenerbahçe on Saturday in the League of Legends World Championship, Expect said in a video interview with Fomos he doesn’t buy into the public perception that Europe is a weak region.
“It’s inevitable (some people think Europe is weak) since Europe didn’t show incredibly good performances at worlds recently,” he said. “But it’s not like Europe did terribly either; at last year’s worlds H2K made it to semis and we were the runner-up for this year’s MSI. It may seem like Europe is weak. I don’t think so. We’ll have to show up at worlds this year in the rest of the games. I think Europe is on a similar level to all regions except Korea.”
It has been another tough start for Europe at worlds. G2 is 1-2 and in third place in Group C, and Fnatic is 0-3 in Group B (though Misfits has surprised and is 2-1). Europe looks worse compared to North America, which has all three of its teams with winning records through the first round of group play.
G2 rallied to beat Fenerbahçe after a 25-minute loss to Samsung Galaxy. Expect said the loss left quite an impression on the team, leading to some strategic changes.
“After the loss, we changed our game plan a bit,” he said. “Instead of focusing gank pressure in the top lane, we changed our focus onto the bottom lane, as it is very much a bot lane carry meta. I don’t like playing tanks, but I have to play them in order to win and it doesn’t matter all that much even if I die as a tank. With a top lane tank and a bottom lane advantage, we thought we would be able to win.”
As the top lane tank meta is still going strong, Ardent Censer has allowed the bottom lane to be the ultimate carry of the team. Although he wasn’t fond of playing tanks, Expect said that it’s what needs to be done so that the team can win games.
“Some fans think I only play tanks and get carried by my team, and that is in a sense true because the bottom lane does so well, which means I don’t have to try to make risky plays,” he said. “I do want to show that I am also capable of things like that, but the team’s victory comes first. Our goal is to make it to the finals of every international tournament this year, so I’m OK with being remembered as the decent top laner who doesn’t die often.”