After two complicated splits in the LEC - the League of Legends EMEA Championship - in 2024, Thomas “Exakick” Foucou was placed on the SK Gaming bench before the start of the Summer Split and replaced by the Korean player Cho "Rahel" Min-seong. The AD Carry spoke at length to Sheep Esports about this change in an exclusive interview that can be found in full on our YouTube channel. You can find an extract from our interview with the French player in this article.

You were left out of SK Gaming's main roster before the Summer Split. How do you feel now and how are you preparing for your return?

Thomas “Exakick” Foucou: "I'm doing well. Kind of bored at the moment. I mean, not bored, but I'm starting to get the feeling of wanting to compete again. For now, I'm focusing on making my brand grow in a way. I'm streaming almost every day, six to ten hours of solo queue or random other games. I'm playing a lot with Trayton (Jean Medzadourian) and Caliste (Caliste Henry-Hennebert) also. So I'm still playing League, almost all the time, but I'm not playing it like “full try hard”. I'm focusing on streaming and stuff and then, when the stream will be very big, or decently big, I will probably take some time off, or maybe go to Korea to prepare for the off-season. When the offseason will start and teams will start to contact me, I'll be in great shape. [...] Right now I think I would be at 60 percent. I’m just trying to have fun. If I really want to be at my peak, I will maybe book one month in Korea for bootcamp, I will review all the pro players' replays, I will review my replays and then I will be at my peak. That's what I was doing in LEC when I was playing. So yeah, right now I'm kind of chilling, taking some time off but then I will grind really hard. It will be in September or October, something like this.

How did you find out you'd been benched?

Exakick: When you lose, you just go some days off, then you have some individual meetings to say what are your thoughts on the season, what would you change, etc. So we did this. Then I was planning to go to Japan because I had some pretty rough splits. Winter was fine, at the beginning, then it went down, and Spring for me was not very good. I really wanted to reset mentally because I wanted to be ready for Summer Split, and I think the way to do this is to take some time off League, reset, and refresh myself. So I went to Japan. Between Japan and Europe, there is like seven or eight hour difference. So for three weeks, I was constantly asking management what they would do, what was their plan… They told me “We don't know, we need some more clarity, we will tell you when we know” And I think the way I found out was I woke up at 7.AM in Japan and I got a DM from a manager. They told me I was replaced because the other option lowered the buyout so they could go for it at the last moment. They told me it was very unlucky for the timing, they were sorry, and that if I wanted to, I could play in the academy.

What explanations were you given?

Exakick: One of the reasons I was given that I don't really agree with is that I could not adapt to Korean support because of the language barrier (Ed: Korean support Lee "Luon" Hyun-ho also replaced Mads “Doss” Schwartz at the same time). I think that's kind of fake but also I kinda agree with the way that it’s better to put two Korean players in the team because they don't feel disconnected. In the beginning, I was really mad because to me, they kind of took random LCK Challengers League players. But now I see them play and I think they are pretty good. Especially Rahel, he has very nice mechanics, so I'm less salty than at the beginning.

After the bench, you refused to join SK Gaming's academy, SK Prime, in the Prime League. Could you explain this choice, especially given the importance of playing the Summer Split to prepare for the following season?

Exakick: I saw a lot of people talking about ego issues when a player went back from LEC to ERL. But for me, it's more like I want to compete seriously and to have a project that I believe in. Also, going back to academy halfway through the year means benching players that didn't ask for anything. They were performing decently so just going in on this roster, breaking the dynamics for me is not how I want to do things. I'm down to play in ERL as long as it's with players I believe in. And for the Summer Split parts, first of all, I was just really mad at how it was done. I felt like, not my career, but my year 2024 was fucked because there is nothing you can do unless playing in academy. But that wouldn't have been my choice, more like: “Oh we buy someone else, but you can play here if you want “. And also as a French player, I would rather play in the LFL than the Prime League. I understand the changes if SK wants to make Worlds. As you said, Summer is the most important split because of the off-season coming after Worlds, and that is like the split that everyone remembers.

How are you working to regain your confidence? Are you sensitive to criticism?

Exakick: First, I want to talk about the solo queue. I can relate to this cause for me, if the solo queue is not going well, then I feel like I'm not going well and not confident. I think there are “confidence steps” and the first step is performing in solo queue and having a good rank. It should be the case for every player. For example, when I see that the top 10 of the ladder is mostly composed of LFL players and not LEC players, for me, it's not normal. But I think I handle criticism pretty badly. It also depends: I don't really care about international criticism but in French, I don't know what happens in my brain, but it's different when it's in your native language. [...] The French fans are really nice, but there are some times when you don't perform well and then you get claimed on Twitter, it's very hard to handle. Pro players should take the example of Noah (Oh Hyeon-taek) and what he did when he stepped away from social media. That's very good, we should do it more and I should have done it as well. But it's very tricky because as a pro player, you are a brand. So you need Twitter, you need socials. So yeah, I think I should improve for the future on this stuff.

By refusing SK Prime, you put an end to your duo with Doss. Could you tell us more about the formation of this botlane and what you learned from it?

Exakick: I was very a big fan of Doss in 2019 because it was the time when he was Rank 1, 70% winrate and I really wanted to play with him because of the solo queue part. I wanted to play duo queue - because back then you still could duo queue - and then I wanted to play LFL with him. I guess in a way, it was kinda like love at first sight. Then they offered me a substitute position in Misfits Premier which I declined because it was like a three-year contract, complete shit stuff at 16 years old. Then I started playing in LDLC OL, I was playing with Yellowstar (Bora Kim) at the beginning but I was like a shit kid to be honest, pretty hard to work with, very cocky. I'm still kinda but back then it was even worse and we made changes and took Doss. Then I just kept playing with him. In 2022 we were big so when we went to LEC, it was pretty obvious for me that we would go together. In 2024 I had a choice and I took him again because I was confident that we had a good synergy and I think we could do even better than we did in 2023. And the thing I learned the most is that you have to talk a lot with your support about the game. Review a lot after the games, and ask the other guy what he thinks so you're on the same page.

In 2022, you joined SK Gaming at a time when you were attracting interest from other teams, in particular Fnatic, one of the biggest teams in the LEC. Why did you make this choice?

Exakick: I would change a bit what happened. Fnatic was really interested, and SK was also interested. Vitality was interested and then they stopped. And there also was MAD Lions. I had the contract of MAD so it was more advanced even than Vitality but Mac (James MacCormack) told me that they were waiting for Carzzy’s answer and Carzzy just took MAD Lions, so I was back to Fnatic and SK. For my choice, I remember I was watching the SK office and I really liked it. And the salary was pretty nice, even though I never asked Fnatic to check the contract, which I should have done. I should have checked at least what the contract was, but I was so confident of going to SK because I could choose my support. Not to say that rhuckz (Ruben Barbosa) was bad, but [...] I didn't think rhuckz would be a very good fit with me. I think Doss would have been better. Let’s say Fnatic would have not locked rhuckz in the first second of mercato and I could have gone with Doss in Fnatic, I would definitely have chosen Fnatic. [...] I mean, looking back now, I would have chosen Fnatic if I could go back in time. Just because of what happened with SK.

You're friends with Caliste, who is currently shining with Karmine Corp Blue in the LFL and is set to move up to the LEC next year. What do you think, and aren't you worried that he might take one of your spots?

Exakick: I’m hyped to see him play in LEC because I think he's probably in the top 3 ADCs in Europe right now even though he's playing in LFL. My top 3 would be Hans sama (Steven Liv), Caliste, and then it would be Ice (Yoon Sang-hoon), Rahel, or Carzzy. If things go how they are supposed to go for him, he will just go to Karmine Corp so I don't think he will take one of my spots. He’ll just take Upset’s (Elias Lipp) spot so the question should be, is Upset gonna take one of my spots? And I think I can compete with Upset so I'm not really scared. Caliste is right now probably better than me, he's just at his peak, he has very nice mechanics, and he's smart about the game. He's better than most of the LFL players and the only AD Carry in LFL that can match with Caliste is probably Hans SamD (Lee Jae-hoon), who probably might go to LEC as well because he's very good.

What do you think of all the hype surrounding Caliste as the “next Caps” (Rasmus Winther) ?

Exakick: It’s very hard to be the next Caps because, back then, no one was as good as Caps. Caps was very far ahead of the others. People are getting better now, there are many good players. But in a way, being 17 years old and being as good as he is is pretty impressive and I think he might be the next AD king of the LEC. Also with all the Korean imports, you could say the same with the Koreans because they are just way better than the average European ADCs. He could be the next Caps but he still needs to work hard and I think it's like a big motivation for me, he’s like a rival you know."

Header Photo Credit: Michal Konkol/Riot Games)