"We're Always in a Position to Win The Game — That's What Matters" — Melzhet Before MKOI's Madrid Road Show
Photo Credit: Riot Games
Movistar KOI needed three games to dispatch Shifters, a team already eliminated from playoff contention. But head coach Tomás "Melzhet" Campelos wasn't alarmed — because the process, he says, is working. RFT.GG caught up with him right after, as MKOI prepare for what could be the most important weekend of their regular season: the final week in Madrid, in front of their own fans, against the top four of LEC Versus.
It was a very rough win. How are you feeling?
I'm good. I know that right now this is part of the process we talked about this week. We knew it was going to be a rough one because they have a really strong toplaner, and we needed to blind pick because we knew they were going to give us first pick and they were going to counter. You can never ban everything. And they also like to have a strong botlane. It kind of matches what were our strengths so we knew it was going to be about that.
Would you say Myrwn is having a rough time playing weak side? Did you feel like you had to put him on a counter or a strong champion in lane otherwise he'd be in bad conditions?
I think it's the case for every toplaner right now — when you want to focus on getting the toplaner into a counter matchup, you can do it. Vitality are doing it. YAnd now probably we're going to start seeing even more of that — like played TF in the previous game, maybe now we start seeing other picks like Zeri top or I don’t know. It's going to be a lot more variety.
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ou can always do it. Right now there's Vayne, Varus, Jayce, you can play crazy stuff like Yasuo, Aurora. There are 20 million things you can play.
What we need to work on right now [for toplane] is coordinating the waves and recalls better with the jungler pathing. I really trust Myrwn on that.
Myrwn has been working with Alphari since the start of the year. Are you seeing improvements internally even if they're not fully visible on stage yet?
Yes. I know it's hard to see from the outside because people aren't watching the scrims, but in this case we're getting great results in scrims — which is usually the opposite for us. We're making certain mistakes that show up even more in official games because the pressure is higher. We just need to slowly translate the scrim performance to officials. Of course, if we don't translate it, it's useless.
But I really trust this team.
What I'm telling them right now, and what happened today, is that we're always getting into a good position to win the games — whether we start from behind or ahead. We just need to be calmer, play with confidence, and fix the details.
Would you say the bot lane meta — where supports are kind of forced to stay in lane — has affected Elyoya's influence on the map and exposed some underlying issues in your bot lane's laning phase?
In previous years we were focusing a lot on swapping — the wave management was completely different, the pathing was different. They also changed the waves spawn timers. And now because you can't swap, you are kind of forced to play the same matchups. That's why we're seeing these setups to have hard control on the botlane. There are only very few junglers that can impact the early game — like Pantheon and Jarvan — and that make it easier to play engage supports, because you can play into a strong bot lane if you can gank them. But if they respect that and know how to play it, it gets tricky. And in draft you're forced to find counters, and you need to balance — ok, if I have a squishy carry on top, then both sides might be exposed because you might not have hard engage or frontline to create space. Those were tools we had in previous years that we now need to adapt on and relearn. Jungler pathing is also different now and you need to adapt it to the lanes, the wave clears, and the wave manipulation.
For example in the last game — Elyoya stole two camps successfully, then Sheo had free time, and in that window we should have just pushed three waves and recalled on top. He's not going to die. And then Jojo was going to be able to help. But there are certain times the enemy jungler has tempo and you don't — you need to respect it, manipulate the wave. He wasn't respecting the Naafiri that much and played too aggressive in the lane. That's a human mistake. But those are the details we shouldn't push on — we should be calmer, play the game normally, understand the advantage we already have, and we're going to win anyway.
So the bot lane laning phase isn't specifically an issue in your opinion — it's more of a global team thing?
It's a lot of things. A lot of concepts.
Also in teamfights — we were so used to Alvaro being the one who engaged, and now someone else must be taking that role. You need to have confidence to see the angle and go in.
Again, League is always changing and you need to adapt. That's not an excuse — what I'm saying is we are following a process and we need to improve. We're already seeing that progress in scrims, but it's not translating to officials yet, and we need to make that step up. If not, it's useless of course.
Jojopyun has been performing very well individually. Do you see a gap between his performances and the rest of the team so far this split?
I think Jojo might be the best player in the league right now.
That's fine. But we're a team, so it doesn't matter if he's outperforming. I think he's outperforming maybe every single player in the league right now, but that doesn't mean anything. He still needs to translate it to playoffs, and he can still do a lot of things better. He knows it and he's working on that. Right now he's living up to his talent — which is kind of what we should normally expect from him.
First of all, what I want is to see what we're doing in scrims translate to officials. That's the test before playoffs for me. It's a very important weekend. I'm not concerned right now about qualifying for playoffs or finishing 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. I really care about seeing that translation happen.
The expectation is always that you win perfectly or flawlessly, but I think what matters more is: are you in a position to win the game or not? And right now, even though these matches looked rough, we've always been in a position to win — either by coming back or holding a lead.
I don't care as long as we win. I don't care if we're stomping from the start or coming back from behind.
They asked me what I thought about renewals after those exact day’s matches. And I said: if they play like they did in those exact two games, they're not renewing.But that doesn't mean one or two games is the deciding factor — it's about the whole year. I think people overreact.
I can't say it publicly, but I'm the coach who literally made one change in three years. And then some coaches swap players without even telling them, why is that better? Being honest is better.
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We had those conversations before. It's not like they were suddenly astonished by hearing it. They knew it was a question directed at me — someone asked me what I thought about renewals after games where they played terribly. But I'm not deciding renewals based on one game. Of course not. What we agreed on as a group is that we want to compete internationally. That requires very high standards. If someone isn't reaching them, that doesn't mean they're a bad player or a bad person. They know exactly what I'm asking of them — not just 'play well,' but specifically this, this, this and this. If you're not doing it, yes, we need to sit down at the end of the season and talk. I can’t make everyone happy. What I care the most is what I am telling my players. I really believe that as a coach you need to be honest, and let the players know that they are not alone. Like never putting it as: ‘You need to play good and that’s it.’ No: ‘You need to play good, I am here, what do you need? You have coaches, psychologists, a performance coach, managers, everything. What do you need? I'm here, let's do it.’ But if they’re not reaching it...
They are adults. They are not kids, they are getting paid a lot of money for this. They are professionals, and I need to demand from them as professionals.
Rapid Fire Questions
A rapid-fire round to close out — yes/no answers, with optional context.
Riot should get rid of franchising and open the league. → No.
Myrwn is better at playing weak side than strong side. → No.
KC fans are louder than MKOI fans. → No.
Alvaro is currently good on enchanters. → Yes.
Everyone on the team is underperforming currently. → Not everyone.
Building an academy system is the only way for EU to consistently compete internationally. → Yes.
Scrims are useless. → No.
Some players in the team are playing less well than they should because of pressure. → I can see that.
Soloqueue is useless. → Depends on the type of player you are.
Honesty is the biggest quality of a coach. → Maybe.
This MKOI roster still has the potential to be the best team in the world. → Yes.
If the team doesn't make it to MSI, there will be changes before Summer. → No.
