G2 Brokenblade: “I don’t think that it’s too special to think like that as a player.”

During the first week of the 2022 League of Legends World Championship, I had the opportunity to sit down with G2 Brokenblade, the top-laner for the team.

I was able to ask him questions such as the differences between the last time he was at Worlds on TSM versus now on G2 Esports, the other top-laners in his group, his thoughts on the meta so far at Worlds, and how far he thinks his team can go in the tournament.

Thank you to the G2 Brokenblade, G2 Esports organization, and Riot Games for making this interview possible. Below you can find the transcript of my conversation with him.

G2 Brokenblade interview:

Questions for G2 Brokenblade will be in bold font, and answers will be in a standard font.

Now that your first game is in the books, how does it feel to get the first game nerves out of your system?

I mean I’m not feeling great. I think we all expected something better with our draft. We got behind really fast, and winning the game at that point was really hard. We accepted that, we knew that the game was going to be really hard now.

We were like okay guys, let’s try to scale up now, maybe we can still win late-game team fights, which we didn’t. I think Damwon played really really well with their comp once they got ahead. It felt like they knew what they had to do.

I want to ask about the last time you were at Worlds. It was 2020, and you were on the TSM team that went 0-6. Now you’re on a different team at Worlds, you’re on G2. How do you want this trip to go differently?

I think it’s already different from the last time I was at Worlds. I think the environment is very important. On TSM, I wouldn’t say that we had a bad environment, but it was very stressful to be in. It felt like every game that we had in practice was always in a bad mood. That’s not something that was always there, usually, we were in a really good mood when I was on TSM, and everyone had a lot of fun, but when there’s a lot at stake, things can get a lot more stressful.

READ MORE: 2022 League of Legends Worlds Groups day four recap

So far on G2, we are not at that state, and hopefully, we won’t ever reach it. Where the environment gets really tense and bad once you start losing. I think everyone else on the team feels the same where yeah it obviously sucks losing but we have more games to play anyway. Everything is still out there and if you think that our chances are over that’s a bad sign already.

I think that’s the biggest difference for me. I’m still looking forward to playing the rest of the games out and hopefully it won’t be a 0-6 like last time.

Today you faced off against Nuguri, who is one of the strongest top-laners at Worlds and in your group. There are a lot of good top-laners in your group. There’s yourself, 369, Impact, and Nuguri. Out of the three in your group, who are you most excited to play against?

I was very excited to play against Nuguri actually. Unfortunately, I was playing Ornn in a Camile matchup, which is a bit boring. I do think that I did pretty well up until we had the herald fight where everyone on their team got really ahead. It was just me trying to farm up, I wasn’t really trying to fight back anymore after the early game. I think the trades I took were really good.

369 is obviously another top-laner that is very respected. That’s going to be the new challenge. I’ve played against Impact already. I already know how it is against him, maybe I can use that against him to my advantage. I think it will be exciting to play against all those players.

Lots of predictions have put you guys in third place in your group. What do you think? How far do you think you’re going to go in the tournament?

I mean that’s something that we don’t really think about. If you ever think that you won’t make it out, then there’s no point in playing in my opinion. What’s the point if you don’t think that you can make it out? I think for us it’s just important for what we do day-to-day.

What we’re going to do today and what we are going to do tomorrow. What happened in the past we are going to use that to do better. We don’t think about if we’re going to place first, or second, or third. I think that is very irrelevant from the player’s perspective.

Obviously, from the outside perspective, from the fan’s perspective, or anyone that’s not a player, it’s easy to always discuss where a team will end up, but I think once the player themself thinks that they aren’t going to make it out or that they’re not going to be first, it’s already bad.

For me, at least, I can say that I’m not really thinking about that. I’m thinking more about how well we do, what we can do better, just very standard stuff. I don’t think that it’s too special to think like that as a player.

What do you think of the meta so far, besides Aatrox, who is the champion that has defined the top lane so far? We’ve seen Ornn, Sejuani, Camile, and more. There have been lots of variations from carries to tanks. What are your thoughts on the meta, and where do you think it’s headed?

I think it’s very flexible in my opinion. It’s very obvious that it’s Aatrox right? He has the highest presence in solo queue, and maybe pro play, I’m not so sure. Other than that, I think that the top lane is very open. I think you can choose to be weak side or strong side, it’s all about what your team wants to go for.

There are also attempts to counter the Aatrox with Fiora and Camile. There are many ways that you can go draft-wise, for the top lane at least. It’s really nice, it’s not really boring in my opinion.

READ MORE: 2022 League of Legends Worlds Groups day three recap

A big thank you to G2 Brokenblade for sitting down with me after his games to talk with me. You can find G2 Brokenblade on Twitter here, and G2 Brokenblade’s twitch channel can be found here. You can catch G2 Brokenblade on stage next during the second half of the round-robin to decide his group on Friday, October 14th.