NAVI Parus on the current meta: "It's kind of my patch"
NAVI came up short against G2, lost 2-0 and settled back to 2-2. But their support isn't reading it as a setback. RFT.GG caught up with NAVI's Polat Furkan "Parus" Çiçek after the defeat to talk about the gap to the LEC's top two, a meta built for his champion pool, the "one-dimensional" label following NAVI around, and a MKOI side whose season could end at his hands.
How are you feeling after that game, and about the start of the split in general?
The start of the split, I feel okay about — except maybe today. Against KC I think we played better than today. We won the early games, we did some really good stuff, we just didn't close the games out, but it was fine. We played well against SK and , so overall I'm pretty happy. But today I think we played way worse. They gapped us a lot in the mid-late game, and maybe in the early game of game two as well.
We weren't decisive enough, we weren't creative enough, and they punished us for it.
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At the end of last split, GotoOne told me there was still a long way to go to reach the top two. You've played and lost to both, but with a good showing — especially in the early game. Do you feel the gap is closing, or is there still a lot of work to do?
There is a gap between KC/G2 and the rest of the league, for sure, and it's a decent one. You can see they play way more confident, way more decisive than other teams, especially mid-late game. It's usually hard to close games against them — you can't find creative plays, they don't make easy mistakes, and it's hard for rookie teams or teams that aren't decisive enough to punish the mistakes they do make. But I don't think it's an unclosable gap. Against G2 it's an experience gap for sure, and I think they move around the map way better than every other team. KC is a bit different — maybe they skill-check you more and they're more confident in the plays they make. That's the difference between the two.
You ended your Spring split against KC in the playoffs. What were the biggest takeaways from Spring, and what did the team work on during the break?
The most important thing is the jungle-support connection — we didn't do it best in the first two splits. We worked on it a lot and we're doing well, but it can still be better.
In the early game we're the best jungle-support duo
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After minute 15 we fall off a bit, we're not together as much. Other than that, being decisive enough — I still see we're not good at it. We don't pull the trigger when we call, we're not fast enough. But overall I'd say we improved a lot.
I think you're first in jungle proximity as a support in the league.
I saw I'm first with top, jungle and mid — but I'm last on bot lane. [laughs] In the new meta, the bot lane is completely useless, kind of. In game one today we didn't go bot at all, we just played mid and top. Have fun in this meta. It's also about the champions we pick, because we don't pick Lucian/Milio or Caitlyn — if you had those, you'd go bot more. So it's my playstyle, the patch, and the picks we choose.
You made your name in the LFL on aggressive support picks — Pyke in particular. This meta brings a lot of those champions back. Does that make you one of the best supports in the league on this patch?
Yeah, it's kind of my patch.
If I get Camille or Shen — Pyke is usually harder because it depends a lot on the draft, and Pyke is mostly a champion you need to snowball early with. But on those champions I'm really confident and I'm really happy about the meta. I hope it doesn't change too much, because I feel like we can actually go top three this way, since we're snowballing really well and those are my champions. There's nothing bad about it right now.
Photo Credit: Michal Konkol/Riot Games
Something that comes up a lot around NAVI is that the team can be one-dimensional — that the game runs through Rhilech, and if he doesn't get an early advantage it becomes hard to win. Is that still true, and is being less readable something you've worked on?
We know how the other teams see us, and you kind of have to be that way, because in the early game Rhilech is a bit greedy, he wants to play around himself, and he makes good plays early. If you look at our early games, you can't say we shouldn't play around him — we're always getting it. We just don't know how to close the mid-late game. But I don't think we can only play for Rhilech. We can play for our mid and top — maybe not the ADC, because it's an AP meta right now and you don't go bot that much. Today you saw Maynter play Ksanté and he smurfed so hard he almost won us the game by himself. But most of the time we play around Rhilech because it works.
On a personal level, coming from a struggling season with BDS, how would you rate your season so far, and what are your biggest improvements?
Everything is better than it was back at BDS. I'm playing more confident, more aggressive
At BDS everything was going badly, and when it's all going badly everyone loses confidence. You play safer, you don't want to do much, you don't want to be too aggressive in case it ends badly. Here it's easier: I'm more confident, I trust the team more, and we play more for each other than we did at BDS.
Photo Credit: Alex Webber/Riot Games
If you had to name one flaw in your gameplay that absolutely needs to improve, what would it be?
For a support, the really important thing is knowing when to show and when not to show. If you're really good at that, you can put so much pressure on the enemy team. I'm working on it, but I don't think I'm doing it best yet — there are players who do it better.
At this stage of the split, nobody has taken the third spot behind G2 and KC. It's between you, Vitality, GIANTX, even MKOI. Would you say you're the most convincing of that group right now?
If you look at scrims, GIANTX usually show the better performance, but when they go official they don't show it. So right now I'd say us and GIANTX are the most consistent. MKOI fell off really hard — I don't know what happened there, they're not playing well at all, I'm kind of surprised.
Speaking of MKOI, they're your next match — and if you beat them, they're likely out of top-four contention and won't attend their own road trip in Madrid. Does that add excitement?
I didn't know that — it would feel really sad for them, I'd feel kind of bad. But also, if they don't deserve it, they shouldn't go. If it depends on us,
Photo Credit: Alexandre Weber/Riot Games
Good luck to them, because they're not showing good performances and we're doing well.
Do you think you clearly have the edge in that match?
We have the edge. I wouldn't say 90%, but I'd give us a 70% chance of winning right now. I'm confident. I think we'll win.
