Cloud9 Blaber: “I think that he will become one of the best mids in the league someday.”

Last Updated on: 14th February 2023, 03:45 pm

After his third game of the split, I had the opportunity to sit down with Cloud9’s Blaber. How was he feeling after the first week of play undefeated?

I was able to ask Blaber about the jungle meta, his thoughts on Elise, and what it’s like playing with a rookie mid-laner this split compared to a veteran last split.

A big thank you to the Cloud9 organization and Blaber himself for sitting down with me after the first game of the week. If you’re curious about what he said to me, you can find the transcript of the interview below.

READ MORE: Team Liquid Honda CoreJJ: “I think by the end of the year, we’ll be the best team in the LCS”

Cloud9 Blaber interview transcript

Any questions will be in bold font and Blaber’s answers will be in standard font.

Coming off of the victory against the formerly undefeated Counter Logic Gaming, how was that game? It kind of looked one-sided from the viewer’s perspective.

The game was very easy, I think their draft was quite bad, to be honest. They did pick Seraphine, which we weren’t expecting, but it wasn’t a bad pick there. I think they were able to wave clear very easily against Caitlyn and Kalista. The game was pretty easy, but I guess we should have expected them to pick Seraphine, they play Seraphine all the time.

I want to ask you about your bottom lane. You have the former T1 trainee in Breserker down there. We recently saw T1 pick Kalista and Draven in one of their games. In this game, you picked the Kalista support as well, though with a Caitlyn this time. Are you guys trying to show T1 that you can do it too?

As many people already know, Kalista is one of Zven’s best champions in his whole career. I think that right now that the bottom (lane) champions are really good for us. All the ranged supports, non-standard champions like Heimerdinger and stuff like that is what Zven’s really good at.

He’s definitely a lot more skilled than all the other NA supports, sorry to say to them. He’s going to play these champions a lot better, and it fits our playstyle a lot better.

I want to ask you about the jungle meta. You guys are playing on patch 13.1B this week, which had a nerf to Udyr. We haven’t really seen him a ton in pro play. We’ve seen a lot of Vi and Maokai, who was also nerfed in this patch. What do you think of Udyr as someone who’s played him a ton in the past? Do you think that we’ll see Udyr in the LCS?

I personally love Udyr as a champ, I always have, because I love farming, and he fits my playstyle perfectly. I think he’s strong in solo queue, but he takes a bit too much to get online in pro play. I’ve tried him a couple of times in practice, but it’s just a little bit hard to play him in pro play I think. If you see it, it’s going to be in a solo lane first.

You were saying how it takes him (Udyr) a bit of time to get online, and it seems that a lot of the hard farming champions have not been in the meta, such as Graves and Udyr. Instead, it’s been a lot of early ganking champions like Elise, for example, a lot in the LCK and the LPL, but not so much here. Without leaking too much, are we going to be able to see you play Elise?

Well Elise was played two games last week, and was banned in the first three champions today. Elise is a bit overpowered, so you’ll definitely see Elise unless it’s permabanned.

I want to ask about Diplex. What has it been like playing with such a young and new mid-laner compared to Jensen last year, who is a veteran and doesn’t need that much time to adjust to the big stage because he’s used to it?

Well, this is my first time playing with a rookie mid-laner. I guess he’s a rookie even though he’s played in academy for two years. All of my mid-laners have been much more experienced than me. Now that I’m becoming more of a veteran, or getting older, it’s going to happen more and more where I’m with younger mid-laners.

It’s been really good working with him. He’s really easy to work with. He receives feedback really well, he tries to improve, he plays a lot of solo queue because he’s a really big grinder, and I think that he will become one of the best mids in the league someday.

READ MORE: 2023 LCS Spring Split day four recap

Again, a big thank you to Cloud9 and Blaber for sitting down with me last week. If you would like to follow Blaber on Twitter, you can find his account here, and the Cloud9 Twitter page here as well. Cloud9 and Blaber will be on-stage again this Thursday at 2 PM PST against TSM.