'We found our way to success'

What a great start into the ESL Pro Series summer season for our League of Legends team. The lineup around Thomas 'Acer | Schabs' Vogel demonstrated their skill by starting with three wins out of three games into the next season. Though they were not able to play with their 'normal' lineup, since one of the new players didn't receive his ESL trusted level in time. We sat down with Acer | Schabs and Emil 'Acer | fruity' Moselund to talk about the current situation and the great start.

Thomas, you just won over mTw on Wednesday. You are placed first in the current season. How does it feel to start with 3 wins, especially if you compare it to the start into the last season?

Thomas 'Acer | Schabs' Vogel: Considering we've now earned the same amount of points as we had at the end of last season we are very eager to qualify for the playoffs. Especially because we only needed 12 Points to be top 6 in the spring season.

Emil, let's talk about the very first game of the season. It seemed like you didn't really come into the game with Nautilus in the jungle. Were you nervous because it was your first EPS game and the team had high expectations?

Emil 'Acer | fruity' Moselund: Of couse, it's my first EPS match and we're setting ourselves high hopes for this season. We had a terrible early game in this match, but we knew once we got to teamfights we had our chances. The game turned around when they face checked the bush and we were able to score an ace really quickly.

How did it feel then, that you could just trust in your team and you won the whole match, even though you didn't perform that well personally?

Acer | fruity: I felt really bad, letting my team down. My performances haven't been good so far, I feel like I have to step up my game, and with exams are over now I will focus 100% on League of legends.

Thomas, in the first game we saw you turning the late game with your flash ultimates. You continued that combo in the second match. Were you already sure mTw would be banning Malphite?

Acer | Schabs: I was expecting the ban yes, especially because Mase said in his stream that he recommended our upcoming opponents ban my Malphite after the first 2 games he casted. Moreover opponents always check the game history in LoL and the screenshots of the other EPS matches. So yes I was expecting Malphite to be banned.

Emil, you are still very young, playing next to players with a lot of experience like Thomas (Schabs) or Spencer (Pyri). What did they say after they first game? How was the team's mood?

Acer | fruity: I don't really think that much about it, but Thomas have really given me a lot of experience. Also I wanna say that Boris (Reevan) has given me a lot of experience too. After a very tough game we talk over which mistakes we made in a calm manner, and after we're just happy to win our match.

What do you guys think went well or poorly during the last three matches?

Acer | Schabs: In the first game we had a terrible early game, enemy Cassio had something along the lines of 5/0/x. We came back and won the game because we have more experience and played the teamfights way better.

Second game was different. We were ahead all early game but lost the first teamfight at dragon because we had no pinkward and were in the dragonpit when nocturne utlied on Reevan's Ziggs and died instantly. After that we had to regenerate and managed to get the game back in our hands over time.

On Wednesday we played nearly perfectly as a team. We denied Anivia every blue and got every Dragon but one. We nearly managed to throw it twice by individual mistakes when players got picked off while farming and porting.

Acer | fruity: Our teamfights, are really shining I feel like. In the mTw match we had full control over their blue which is really huge against Anivia mid. But of couse we're making some bad mistakes, getting caught in unnecessary places.

You made changes to the lineup before the season. Nevertheless Pyri, one of the best supporters around, wasn't able to play because of Trusted level problems. Will it give you some more confidence in the next matches, when he will be part of the lineup?

Acer | Schabs: Once we get our synergy back that we lost in the weeks we couldn't play with him I hope we will be even stronger. On the other hand our botlane with Adren4lin did exceptionally well and carried the game against mTw.

Acer | fruity: We've played a lot with Igor, and I think they're both really great supporters, so I don't think we will feel a difference when we play with Pyri again.

There are not many teams who have the same lineup for more than a few months - on the other side: this was and is exactly your plan. Where is your skill level at the moment? Do you feel pretty comfortable going into important matches or do you think you are on a good level, but you can always improve the longer you play together?

Acer | Schabs: Every team will improve the longer they play together. At the moment we've found our way to success by picking really strong combos and not fotm (note: flavour of the month) heroes. For example I don't see us playing Kayle top. She is a strong champ but the playstyle doesn't fit our team. Once we managed to acknowledge this we built way better teamcomps than in the spring season and we succeeded.

Acer | fruity: I think we can still improve a lot as a team, and also as players. With that there comes a lot of time and effort, and since I just finished my exams I will try to raise my play. Also I feel pretty comfortable going into EPS matches, if we hit our very good play like we did yesterday agasint mTw. We're 100% going to the EPS playoffs.

Thomas, It seems like the team fights are your advantage, since you focus on picking champions who are doing great in teamfights, like Malphite, Jarvan, Morgana and Ziggs. Are there exactly planned combinations you decide to play during the picks and bans of each match?

Acer | Schabs: We have 6 setups at the moment, that I won't tell you now of couse, that synergize pretty well in teamfights, yes. Once we've finished the bans we know what we will play. We try to pick the core of the setup (usually toplane and mid) with our 2 last picks.

Emil, as you're the jungler, there is obviously a lot of pressure on your shoulders, as we already mentioned. How would you describe the "job" of the jungler and what do you like about it?

Acer | fruity: What I like about being the Jungler is, you have chances to win the early game. If you get 1 or 2 ganks on top with a kill. It can snowball really easily on toplane, and it's also the easiet lane to gank, because the lane is so huge, and it's hard for enemies to escape if they don't have a  gap closer. Couter-jungling is also very fun, you're taking a risk going into the enemy's jungle, but if you know where the enemy jungler is, you should always try to do something. You can also take timers of enemies buffs, which can *result* in a few kills or a stolen buff from enemies.

Thomas you are some kind of tactiacal leader. Does it take a lot of time to find the best combinations, since there are a lot of possibilities of course? Does the team sometimes have to play heroes you guys don't feel that comfortable with, looking for a good teamfight combo?

Acer | Schabs: There are 2 ways to get to a good teamcomp. The first is long theorycrafting and the second is reusing what we see works in soloq or even premadestreams like dreamhack for example. I am not that good at the first way, Pyri does that a lot better, but we use a lot of things we saw someone else succeed with or we experienced in soloq.

We don't really play heroes that we don't like. I think the only exception would be yorick for me because this is just a stupid and boring hero to play. Other than that it is really important that you enjoy playing the hero because you will perform way better. If you don't like a hero you won't play it that much in soloq as well, so you won't have a lot of experience with it.

The last general question: fruity, do you prefer playing duoQ as a jungler because you can practise how to gank or do you prefer soloQ so there is a bigger challenge on the gank?

Acer | fruity: Of couse I perfer douQ, I hate playing a game like League of Legends alone. My ELO is around the 2300ish mark, so I've been trying to get a few 1800-1900 ELO accounts to douQ with Boris (laughs). And when you play soloQ you probably don't know how they'll play (unless you know them already) and how they perfer to have their jungler playing.

Thomas, there are two matches upcoming for you the next week. If you win both, you are probably already qualified for the play-offs. What's your attitude towards those matches?

Acer | Schabs: We are really looking forward to those 2 matches, especially considering that one of the opponents is the team from the "Nachrückercup", so we are the favourite against them. I hope we earn 6 points next week!

Alright guys, that should be it for today, but please give me 3 words which lead to success in League of Legends as the last 'question'.

Acer | fruity: Teamplay, tactics, mechanics

Acer | Schabs: Synergy, commitment, micro

Thanks for your time.