MAD Lions UNF0RGIVEN: “I feel like there are more good teams [now] than in spring”

MAD Lions ended Week 4 of the LEC with a perfect 2-0 record to cement their position in second place. The team are now just two wins away from matching their spring record with 8 games left to play. Esports.gg spoke to MAD Lions’ William “UNF0RGIVEN” Nieminen after their dominant win against Team BDS in the LEC.

Q: I want to start by saying congratulations on the win today. We’re almost at the halfway point in the summer split how do you feel about the first half so far?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: I’m good, It feels pretty good. I feel like we’re playing pretty good for the team and it is going pretty good. I’m excited to go into another half of the split, but I think we missed out on a few games like we should have won, in my opinion, two of our losses in this split in particular.

Q: Speaking of the losses, the Rogue and Misfits ones were those games you could have easily won on any other day. What is your analysis of those games?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: The Rogue game is just pretty much don’t flip elder dragon and we win the game because I think we won the entire game at every point of the game. We got Herald, every Drake, every tower, we literally won the entire game and then we lost. In the Misfits game, the snowball began better but instead of like a random fight maybe fight instead for dragon and it should be good.

Q: This is the first game you’ve had to play remotely for the first time since spring. How was it for you to have to adjust back to remote play?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: It doesn’t change anything. If I play like on this stage or from the office, the only thing is it’s way more fun playing on stage. In the office is kind of boring, like is not the same feeling it’s way more fun to play on stage. But for me, it feels kind of like I didn’t really have to prepare for it.

Q: So you’ve been playing with Kaiser for almost a full season now. What would you say is the biggest difference between then and now?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: There are a lot of things. As a duo with Kaiser, there’s wave management, trading, playing together, playing more champions and being better on them. Apart from the bot lane, there’s also other stuff, how to move on the map, what to contest what to give up. I learned a lot this year.

MAD Lions Kaiser and UNF0RGIVEN at LEC studio. Image Credit: Riot Games

Q: How would you rate the teams back in spring compared to summer?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: I feel like the top teams are kind of the same but the bottom teams changed. For example, Excel was considered probably like a bottom team, maybe not the bottom but like mid-bottom and now they look like one of the strongest teams in LEC.

And then Astralis the team that everyone expected to go 0-18 last spilt seems to be doing pretty good lately. So I feel like there are more good teams than in spring. The last split was pretty much Astralis, BDS. It was like when you’re against them, you can expect to win.

Excel was considered probably like a mid-bottom and now they look like one of the strongest teams in LEC.

Q: We’ve seen a different MAD Lions this summer. How would you describe the team dynamics now?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: I think it’s better, I think Nisqy’s a good fit to the team and inside and outside of the team. Yeah. He has helped with what we lacked.

Q: You’ve gone from a rookie now to a more experienced player in the LEC? How has the transition been for you?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: I don’t know really, I feel like there’s nothing special. It’s just I’m playing in a good League. I’m playing with better players and having better players on my team. I think that’s pretty much it. I’m playing against other players and I’ve seen them in Europe for example, but I wouldn’t say there is like anything more it’s just better competition.

Q: In your opinion, what bot lane champions are most suited to the current meta?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: I think Zeri then probably Kalista. I think Zeri, and Kalista are like the broken ones. And then I don’t think they’re more broken champions but there are a lot of good champions right now.

MAD Lions UNF0RGIVEN at LEC studio. Image Credit: Riot Games

Q: So MAD Lions have had some trouble converting early game advantages to mid-late game wins. Is that down to communication like what’s going wrong there?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: It’s probably communication, us fighting for like, not a good reason. I remember against Misfits we just dived under tier two with officially no reason to fight. For example, like Dragon is spawning in like one more minute when we can just base be on the map first. And then we just get a free fight on Dragon if they want to contest, we fight we’ll trick [them] in. If they don’t contest, we get the drake for free and keep snowballing gold, taking camps and keep going.

I think sometimes we are a bit clueless as a team on what we should do and we take a fight for like no reason at all. And I think a big part is probably on me that I’m not calling it off. It’s like, not everyone can just call it off that we should not fight here. We’re following the call without thinking a lot of times and fighting for no reason.

Q: My last question is on Elyoya. I know he has stepped up to the shot-calling role more in a lot of your games. How has this been having him be the shot caller?

MAD UNF0RGIVEN: Elyoya as a shot caller is really good. And he does really good calls. But I think he might go like too far and sometimes you need to call him off. But he does really good calls and we love having him as a shot caller in our play.

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