Team Liquid suffered their second defeat of the
First Stand Group Stage on Thursday, falling to CTBC Flying Oyster on Day 4 of the competition. In the post-match press conference, midlaner Eain "
APA" Stearns and support player Jo "
CoreJJ" Yong-in addressed their team's disappointing performance, acknowledging
the impressive level of play displayed by the Pacific region—historically considered an underdog in international competitions.
In what aspects do you feel that the level of individual performance demand is high in this First Stand?
Eain "APA" Stearns: "Every international tournament, individual performances matter a tremendous amount. It tends to be—at least in the non-Eastern regions—that teams will win but have one or two weak players. So when they go into internationals, those weak players can be exploited in various ways. Individual power, from laning, has to be very strong, especially against Eastern teams, but even against every team, because every team coming in tends to be really good at least at one specific thing.
How do you see the LTA teams compared to the LCP in terms of gameplay level and style?
APA: Firstly, LCP teams tend to be quite solid. For example, last year at MSI, PSG Talon went to a game five against Bilibili Gaming, which was a very, very good team. So it's not just that they're sniping wins off of us. They're good teams with good players. Our level should be higher than what we showed today. I don’t think we showed up to win today, to be honest. It felt like we were playing not to lose. CFO is a really good team, so they didn’t let us not lose, like we could in the Americas. It’s a bit frustrating to play this series today.
What do you think you need to win against LPL or LCK ?
APA: Our team concepts were fine compared to the Eastern teams. A lot of times, it just comes down to individuals. I think individuals on our team, myself included, need to perform better when we're facing tough opponents. And that’s not just against Eastern teams. Even against teams like CFO, or during the KC Series, there were points where we weren't winning that hard, and those games were still loseable. I think individuals just need to perform better throughout the entire tournament.
Why did you choose to put Sean "Yeon" Sung on Ziggs, while the champion is an APA's signature pick?
Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in: I can’t tell you a lot of things, but this is what we’ve been practicing. Since APA is a really good Ziggs player, we can flex the champion to get better matchups.
TL is often described as a team with very ordered and disciplined playing patterns. The criticism the team faces tends to come when the gameplay deviates from these patterns and is left to individual interpretation. Do you feel that the team lacks creativity in-game?
CoreJJ: The biggest difference at the international stage is that League of Legends changes every single millisecond. It requires really fast decision-making from every moment and for every champion you’re looking at. This is definitely something we weren't good at. When we play against weaker teams, we have enough time to think things through and make a plan, and we're quite good at that. So, there’s an area we need to improve on. I always believe there's no team without individuals, so we’ve got to get better at it."
Header Photo Credit: Christina Oh/Riot Games
