Having finally reclaimed their throne, Team Liquid has ascended to the top of the Americas, securing their first title since Spring 2024. Despite recent struggles, the reinvigorated squad made the League of Legends Championship of The Americas (LTA) Grand Finals look effortless, sweeping 100 Thieves with a 3-0 victory last weekend. In an exclusive interview with Sheep Esports, the team’s midlaner, Eain "APA" Stearns, reflects on how he overcame his rivals, shares his expectations for First Stand, and discusses the team’s growth since January.

Was it a mistake for 100 Thieves to let you play so many comfort picks, like Ziggs?

Eain "APA" Stearns: "At least for Ziggs, definitely. The Aurelion Sol and Neeko picks were a bit harder to avoid since they had a lot of other things to ban that made those champions viable. But for the first game, I was really, really surprised they let me have Ziggs.

Do you think the "Spawn Effect" is real? After his return from Australia, some people joked that his belt could be the sixth player of the team, helping you turn things around and look completely different now.

APA: I think that kind of discredits his influence when he’s coaching remotely from Australia. He’s still very much involved and remains the head coach. But it is nice having him here in person—everything just feels better that way.

That said, I don’t think it was purely him coming in that made the difference. On the last day of scrims, a lot of things just clicked for us—how we see the meta, how we want to play, and a lot of our silly mistakes just disappeared. So, while Jake definitely deserves credit, that shouldn't take away from how the team and I performed.

During the press conference, you described this split in three words: tryharding, stress, and depression. Could you elaborate on that and share your thoughts on the split overall?

APA: The first word makes sense—all of us tryharded as much as we could. Most of us were still putting in 14, 15, sometimes 16-hour days whenever possible.

For stress, it was mostly because we weren’t winning as much as we did last summer. We finished fourth in the LTA North, and losing is always stressful, especially in a competitive environment.

As for depression, that was mostly just the last two weeks. We were getting our shit kicked in during scrims, and it really got to us. Even earlier this week, it was the same—we were losing hope. But then, on Friday, we had a really good scrim set against 100 Thieves, and that gave us a lot of confidence. It solved a lot of the problems we were struggling with.

Do you think it helped that you were able to defeat 100 Thieves, especially after what happened in LTA North?

APA: Yeah, I mean, once we knew we were facing 100 Thieves, we understood how to beat them. Looking back at our previous loss, I honestly feel like it was more about us losing the series rather than them winning it. That said, Quid (Lim Hyeon-seung) had a really, really good series back then.

Going into today, my goal wasn’t necessarily to gap Quid—it was more about keeping him in check. He’s a specialist on certain champions like Yone, Sylas, and Akali, which he plays really well. But outside of those, he becomes more of an average player—not to be rude. And I think you saw that today. His Orianna and Viktor were just… average.

This weekend was pretty eventful for you. Against Cloud9, there was that nearly hour-long pause, and in finals, your ADC broke his glasses during the match. Did it feel like the universe was testing your patience a bit?

APA: I don’t know, really. We all came in ready to play until the series was over. To be honest, the pause felt a bit bad faith since we were up like 10k gold, but it is what it is—we still won. And the glasses thing was just a little silly. I don’t think it really affected us too much.

You're returning to Korea for the first time since Worlds 2023. Do you have any particular feelings about this?

APA: I’m just excited for another international tournament. I want to make it clear that I’ve personally never missed an international event so far. It’s true—I’ve gone to two Worlds, MSI, and if you count EWC, I’ve been to that too. I’m also coming to the First Stand. So, it’s not really a shock for me, but I’m still excited because it’s always fun to play against the best players in the world.

Does it feel strange going to the First Stand without having played a proper best-of-five? Today’s 3-0 didn’t really feel like one, right?

APA: Yeah, it definitely feels a bit weird. I wasn’t a big fan of the format. I watch a lot of LPL and LCK, and you see these incredible best-of-fives from the Eastern regions almost every night. So knowing that our only BO5 is just a 3-0 stomp feels like we might be going into the tournament a little underprepared. But we’ll do our best to catch up.

Do you have any thoughts on the teams you'll be facing at the First Stand? Have you been watching other regions like LCK, LPL, and LEC?

APA: I've seen that Hanwha Life and the Flying Oysters qualified. In Europe, I think it's most likely that G2 or Fnatic end up qualifying. Personally, I’d like to see Fnatic go because we’ve faced them so many times, and we’ve kind of gotten the better of them. It’d be fun to face them again and beat them once more. For China, honestly, I have no clue who’s going to make it. I’d like to say BLG because I think Knight (Zhuo Ding) is truly that region's GOAT, but genuinely, I have no idea. It could be anyone.

How do you see yourself fitting into the landscape at the First Stand in terms of power level?

APA: To be honest, I have no clue. That’s just the best way I can put it. I don’t know if we’re going to be the best team, or if we’ll be the worst. We could be the best because it’s such a small tournament, or we could be the worst. I really won’t know until we show up and play.

Like Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in said, there are five teams, each with a 20% chance to win.

APA: Yeah, 20% chance.

What do you think about the LTA trophy? I saw a lot of people joking that it looked like the McDonald's logo. Did it still feel nice to lift it?

APA: I mean, those are all people who’ve never lifted a trophy in their life. I thought the trophy was pretty sick when I was lifting it. So, to me, they’re just all losers.

Do you have anything you want to say to your fans?

APA: This split has definitely been a rollercoaster. So, honestly, just thank you to all the fans, and especially my new Brazilian fans, for supporting us throughout the split. People might underestimate it, but when we were walking on stage and saw the crowd difference—cheering for Team Liquid compared to 100 Thieves—it was just such a nice feeling. I’m sure it made the 100 Thieves players a bit nervous too. It gave us a little more confidence."