"It's not a sprint, it's a marathon at this point" — Reapered on KC's Win Over Vitality, Unlocking Canna, and Working With Zeph
Photo Credit: Karmine Corp
Karmine Corp kicked off their Spring Split with a win, but it wasn't clean. A dominant game one from Vitality, a nail-biting game two, and a decisive game three that finally showed what this team can do when things click. Bok "Reapered" Han-gyu spoke to RFT.GG right after the series, touching on the slow start, the progress — and lack thereof — on playing through Canna, the relationship with Zeph on draft, and what the schedule ahead looks like.
How are you doing today?
It's fine. It was a bit of a stressful day — some banger action in game two. But in the end, game one was a sweep by them and game three was a sweep by us. Fair. We won, so I'm happy.
Canna and Yike didn't look up to their standard, especially in early game 1 and 2.
Yeah. I still think that as a team, we just need to get used to being on stage — the scrim vibes and the stage vibes are totally different, as I can say after ten years in pro play. Once we get used to it, we're going to consistently play better.
But also — we just came back from the break and our schedule is going to be extremely tight this Spring, between the EWC qualifier and potentially MSI. So we took an extra break for the team to manage the schedule. We've been prepping for this match with only one week of scrims. It's no surprise we're struggling a bit at the start.
And I'm okay with that, because it's not a sprint — it's a marathon at this point.
The schedule ahead is so tight, and we already made the final last split, so we have to keep all that in mind.
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Caliste told me the team's main takeaway from Versus was that the team needed to make better use of Canna — the most isolated top laner in the league. Do you agree?
Yeah. We had an end-of-season meeting after we lost the final and we discussed what went wrong, what went well, what we want to carry over, and what problems we're going to face. One of the clear things is that Canna individually plays great — amazing — but we want to involve him more in the team gameplay. Whenever we have an advantage on his side, we want to push it. That's a big team goal: utilising our top laner to be able to carry the game.
Obviously if it's a Gnar vs K'Santé matchup like, let him be isolated, let him do whatever he wants — eventually he'll have a four-man Gnar ultimate...
But when top laners start throwing Yasuo into his Gnar or Aurora...
Yes, then we have to take action for these scenarios.
G2 and MKOI were doing exactly that against us — attacking toplane with their junglers — and it worked. But when we are doing it, it doesn't feel the same.
So we want to open up the conversation that we are willing to take top lane's 2v2, 3v3, and I want Canna to vocalise more so that he's involved in the game. Even if it costs us some games, it's fine. We just keep trying, keep making sample sizes, and eventually it'll feel better up there. Because I believe that Canna, Yike, and kyeahoo as top-side players are very strong. Everyone knows how to play the top game. It's just that the chain has to be aligned to our style.
Some issues that happened in the final happened again today against VIT, I felt like. Losing the early, coming back in midgame... Is the early game the main area to work on?
The early game is basically very flippy in League of Legends right now, especially around the second crab. Those timers are very coinflippy, so we have to pay more attention. But to be really fair — today's early game issues did not come from that. It wasn't a flip situation. We were just wasting tempo, not keeping up our gameplay. So today's game and the final were not on the flippy side — it was totally on us.
But I believe my players can play those situations way better. I don't want to be a coach who goes 'Hey, Caliste don't die 2v1 on Ashe when Seraphine wastes her tempo' — obviously everything in that sequence was bad, but that's not how coaching works.
He knows about it, they know about it, everyone knows. What I want is for them to understand it's more about dealing with the pressure in the moment. Trusting that your teammates can play it out.
So Seraphine doesn't go for the help in midlane, she knows kyeahoo has Flash and that he won't die, so she just recalls and goes back to lane to play the 2v2.
It's about the chain again, right?
Yeah. It's the chain. I'll keep mentioning it anyway, but I believe my players will play better every time they get used to this kind of situations.
How is the relationship with Zeph on draft working out? I know he is eagered to change the LCK mindset of always playing what's meta, right?
Yeah, I think we've been working well with Zeph — including the Korean players, and including myself. Right now every single one, two, three picks involve Botlane. Botlane plus Jungle, or Bot plus Top, or Bot plus Mid. Bot is very, very strong right now. So we're trying to figure out our Bot priority picks, and I think we showed it a bit today in draft. It's been easy to work with because everyone clearly knows what they want to play and what they want to play against.
And the Korean players are getting used to it — if we have these champions, Zeph wants this champion and these combinations. We're already discussing conclusions together. I'm also encouraging my Korean players to talk with Zeph and start those conversations, and I'm improving my own communication with him as well.
So Zeph keeps control of the draft, but there's room for everyone to speak their ideas and we drive it that way.
Sometimes it might get screwed up because of the many opinions, but we have enough leadership to say 'we're going this way today.' For now, I'm very happy with how it works.
Photo Credit: Hara Amoros/Riot Games
One more thing I want to mention about Zeph — he talks too much. I think if he becomes a streamer for KC after he retires, he will be very good. He's a great coach right now — obviously. But once he decides to retire, he should be a streamer. He talks non-stop... *laugh*
Your schedule starts slow then ends with all the top four in the last week. How do you see that?
I mean, honestly it's not black and white. Let's say we play the top four teams at the end, and we also have a really tight schedule there — three games in a row, then maybe an EWC qualifier. If we win every game from there, it's obviously going to help us. But if we screw something up, it'll ruin us *laugh*...
It is what it is. We have a defined path right now, we know the schedule ahead is going to be tight, so we just have to be ready, play it out, and see what happens.
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