"We should play in a way that we can look at ourselves in the mirror." — GrabbZ on Fnatic's Spring Split
Photo Credit: Riot Games
Fnatic returned to the win column with a victory over Heretics, lifting Grabbz's side to roughly 15% playoff odds. Speaking to RFT.GG after the match, the head coach broke down Fnatic's early-game progress, what Odoamne brings to the staff, the improved Razork–Upset dynamic, the EWC qualifier loss to Solary, and the team's stubborn inability to carry their scrim form onto the stage.
You just won against Team Heretics, how are you feeling about the team right now?
Relieved that we can show some signs of life. There's a big gap between how we perform in scrims and on stage, and we don't really know why — but there's still a small chance and we know it. We'll do everything we can to maximize it. This was a big step.
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Your early games have been better recently — Vladi showing more in lane, Razork being more creative — but it often turns into a messy mid game. Is that your current focus?
Right now, yes. But as a team you have to go step by step. Our performance isn't great right now, but think back to Winter, when our early games were atrocious — there was a meme about us not getting any heralds or drakes.
Now statistically we're top five in the league for early game.
Most games we have two free drakes, or it gets to that point. You can't buy yourself anything for those improvements. Now that we've stabilised those segments, we're looking at mid game, where we made a lot of mistakes in Paris. If we'd been there earlier, we could maybe have won. But that's life in sport — you can only tackle one thing at a time and improve slowly.
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Odoamne joined the staff for Spring. What does he actually bring on a daily basis — preparation, in-game reads, player management?
Many facets, especially top lane. He talks to Empyros a lot about matchups he should play. He also has a very easy way to talk to players, because he's been a player himself — that's always valuable, and it's something we didn't have. Neither I nor Gaax played at a high level. It's also funny because he brings the lingo from Los Ratones, sometimes from stream — we have memes about how he talks. He's very easygoing, whereas me and Gaax are a bit more strict.
Just having another person who can specialise in something is so important. If you want to be a good team and you have a lot of stuff to work on, it's really hard to cover everything with two people. Now Gaax talks to sololanes a lot, I talk to Iván one-on-one, and I can take people out of review to do one-on-one — which with only two staff is really hard. We just have more hours in a day. And Odo is very competent, so it helps.
You said at the start of the year that Razork and Upset often pulled in different directions on how to read the game. The bet was to keep them both but bring in new voices. Is the squad on the same page now?
I wouldn't say we're on the same page, but the relationship between Razork and Upset is way better. Other people bringing opinions helps a lot — and that's not even about judging who's right or wrong.
Last year, basically only those two were talking. Every point was a fight between them.
They didn't mean it maliciously, but at some point you get annoyed, because you're always discussing against the other person. Now more people speak up. Vladi is very vocal, also very emotional in review sometimes — a different issue — but it helps refocus the team on a certain aspect, instead of just the dynamic between Upset and Razork. Between those two, I think it's going really well, and I think it shows. We still play to bot in a certain way, but it doesn't feel as forced as last year. That's my view, at least — maybe from the outside it looks the same.
You're sitting around 15% playoff odds. What does the team need to do in these last weeks to actually get in?
it's not in our hands but what is in our hands is making sure that after the games against Heretics and Vitality, we can tell ourselves we showed what we're working on.
No pressure, play aggressive — which was an issue last week too, where we were a bit too scared. That's the main goal.
We were shocked. After dropping to the lower bracket, the loss against G2 was a bit harder, and that's why it was hard to come back — we were having very intense weeks with the Paris road show on top of it. We didn't have any scrims because we didn't have time. We had some health issues going into Paris, and still.
The truth is, it didn't really register. It registered as a really bad result — no disrespect to Solary, who played really well for an ERL team, but we shouldn't lose to them. That's a fact, for the view we have of ourselves. But the shock isn't really there yet, because we don't have time to think about it. We lost, and we said: okay, the weekend is coming, we play two more games, what do we do? We didn't even scrim on this new patch — so if something was broken, we wouldn't know.
What's your opinion on Solary's level? There's always this debate about the gap between LEC teams and top ERLs.
I mean, I just lost to them, so I think they're pretty good. I'd hope they wouldn't beat us that often in a Bo3, but compared to other teams in the league, I respect them a bit more. Heretics today showed way less resistance than Solary could. They have good players, and the coaching staff is doing good work.
I've always been an enemy of franchising, and a team like this deserves the chance to show more often how good they are.
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I hope we'd beat them more often, but maybe they're just that good. It's a bit sad we don't see those teams more often. The gap between them and the rest of the ERL scene is pretty big — they're clearly the best ERL team.
For the Fnatic fans watching all this and looking for answers, what would you tell them?
If they want answers, I can do a stream after the season. Right now it's hard, because playing for Fnatic — being in Fnatic — brings responsibility, and the atmosphere around us isn't the greatest. Everybody tries to shield themselves a bit from social media, stay away, focus inside.
All I can say is that we are actively working together. The unity, even after these results, is higher than it ever was last year. We're still pulling in the same direction, or trying to, and the conversations about how to improve are ongoing. I've said this since Winter:
Our scrim performance is better, but for some reason we're still a bit scared on stage. If we can overcome that step, we'll be a way better team.
Other teams are also improving, so I'm not going to sit here and say, "Guys, believe me, we'll win somewhere." We have to prove it. We have to prove that we work well. The next step to prove it is against Vitality.
Just a big thank you to the fans who are still patient with us, who still believe in us. Even today the guys in the studio were amazing. I'm very grateful. I'm aware that this organisation has been longing for a victory for a long time, and we're still trying our hardest every day to make it happen at some point.
