I first sat down with [R]eason Gamings Jonas “Trashy” Andersen to talk about the upcoming games…
Hi Trashy, first up a question about this weekends tournament, who do you feel is the stand out player on your first opponent, Cloud9.eu?
k0u for sure. He is really solid as a player, and often carries their team, which is also why I enjoy playing against him, because it’s a real challenge and I always learn a lot from it!
Interesting that you should say that, based on scrims you often seem to control the pace of the game with early aggression junglers, which is a similar style to k0u. Considering this, and the current 2014 season patch, do you think the game will be decided by which team dominates the jungle?
I think in the current meta most of the players in the jungle tend to play the aggressive early game champions which means you have to create plays in the early game. So yes I think having the better jungler is the most important part right now, because at this level of play laners shouldn’t die in a straight up 1v1 or 2v2 situation, so its mainly up to the jungler to influence how the lanes will perform.
Aside from yourselves, and C9.eu, who do you think is a team to watch out for in this tournament?
Ocelotes team (lolololol) is definitely top tier. In addition I would say that you have to look out for Heavy Botlane and maybe SuperTeam EU Kappa too. I’m not really sure how the EUNE teams will perform, maybe Eternity Gaming will do well, but it is hard to say without seeing much of their play.
To finish up, if the some of the usual top tier junglers, such as Lee Sin, Elise and Vi for example are banned out, which champions do you think make good picks and why?
Then you can either go for a more farm heavy utility jungler as Amumu, or go for other early game aggressive junglers as Jarvan, Olaf, Xin Zhao or even Shyvana if she is open (which is unlikely). Personally i would probably go for aggressive junglers, because i believe thats how you win games at this point.
Have you got anything else you would like to add?
We are hoping to qualify for the Coke Zero Leauge, I really think we have a great shot of doing it. So #believe, I’m sure we can make it.
Thanks for your time Trashy, Good luck in this weekends tournament!
I also took Laurent “BarneyD” Baiverlin aside for a chat about the upcoming tournament, as well as some insight on his opinion on the current state of the game..
Hi BarneyD! First off, Cloud9.eu’s support player, Voidle, played for Gambit while they attended the season 3 world championships, do you think this could give their botlane an advantage in a straight up 2v2 laning situation?
Playing against some of the best players in the world gives you a lot of experience and he also has his practice with Gambit too so they’d have that in their favour. However I think that Kris and I are strong enough to face them.
How is playing with Krislund as your marksman different to playing with motroco who you were with during your time on TCM?
The main difference has to be their playstyle, motroco is very passive and doesn’t like to take risks but he would deny and zone people really well in lane, and then transition to being strong in teamfights, while Kris is much more aggressive and prefers to make plays.
Moving on to some more general Support questions, Do you feel that the current trend of “AP Carry” style supports, such as Annie, Zyra and to a lesser extent, fiddlesticks (after his nerfs) will carry over to the tournament, or will we start seeing a resurgence of more traditional supports?
Ap supports are the extension of the ‘traditional’’ supports from last season. This is because there is more gold, so you can provide the same amount of utility, while also doing a lot of damage. This weekend I think we should see a lot of AP Supports like Annie, against tanky support matchups like Leona.
Who calls the shots in bot lane?
I would say that there is no shotcaller in our duo lane. We both try to communicate as much as possible. and we will discuss if we want to fight or play more passive during the laning phase.
Since the changes introduced in the Preseason, it is not uncommon to see tanky supports starting with a Doran’s shield in place of a gold earning item, such as, ancient coin or relic shield. What are your thoughts on the current starting items?
At the moment I think that Doran’s shield is stronger, the advantage it gives you in the compared to the gold you earn over time with the gold items is just too great to ignore. In most cases if you walk into lane with a gold generating item against a doran shield you will lose lane, either by giving away kills or at least getting denied a lot of minion farm. The only cases where I see it being worthwhile is when you are sure you can lane swap and even then it could be better to go for a doran shield depending on their jungler.
Thanks for answering my questions, before we finish have you got anything to add?
I would just like to thank Reason Gaming for taking us aboard to help reach our full potential, and of course our sponsors Steelseries, Mobafire,Duality media, Esports Clothing and IT rentals.
