The margin for error is gone. A loss to Team Heretics leaves SK Gaming at 2-5, ninth in the LEC Summer standings, with only KC and MKOI left on the schedule — meaning playoffs would now take something close to a miracle. Assistant coach Baguette sat down with RFT.GG for a candid debrief on the defeat, the inconsistency that's haunted SK all year, the team's shift toward playing through bot, and the lessons from his first year in the LEC.
Mathematically, I'm not sure what we need to do. I know it's a story of matches to win, of the number of games won versus lost. We have to focus match after match and see what we can pull off.
Obviously, if we want to make playoffs, we have to beat teams like Team Heretics.
I think we don't play well around our strengths in draft. We play Pantheon and Nautilius in game one, we put everything on a Leona for no reason. We use our cooldowns very, very badly in game one. There are two or three moves where we have a Volibear roaming from top, we can dive the Orianna mid — she basically has no flash... In game two, we flip a first drake where Vi turn level six while bot I think it's going fine — I haven't fully reviewed it. Mid, we base, that lets the Vi enter for a 50/50 smite or something.
Honestly, we just play badly. There's not much more to say — we're just not good. It's sad, because I think we have potential and we just don't use it enough.
It's true that from an outside and analytical point of view, we're not consistent at all. We can play great games, bad games. I think we sometimes have different approaches, a slightly different vision on certain things — some players want to do A, others want to do B, and we end up doing a disgusting mix of the two. That's a bit of what explains the inconsistency. I don't know how to answer that question fully.
Yeah, I think that's it. First, we need less help mid now, so we can play a bit more around the bot lane. I think our bot lane, on good matchups, on good setups — you see it even against good teams — plays well. So naturally, when your bot lane has decent priority, when you can play through bot because the 2v2 goes well, when you can draft a bit more around them and give them more keys in draft, it's going to work out for them. So those are the things that mean we play through the bot lane more now.
I joined late, and I joined from LFL Division 2, so it's a bit of a particular thing. I think the expectations were: go for playoffs, go pick up things here and there, bother the big teams while beating the small ones. I think realistically we can bother the big teams with slightly exotic drafts.
That was it: to bother the big teams. But we didn't manage to stabilise against the smaller teams to be able to take that step.
It's good to want to do fun things sometimes, or try exotic picks, but if you're not stable against the worse teams.. That's it, it comes back to the lack of consistency — behind that, we didn't manage to stabilise everything to then have that. In terms of expectations, it's disappointing. Even more so after the roster change, where when you change your mid, I think you could expect to do better, especially with the level of the league. Disappointed, overall.
Yeah, I think it's not bad. Compared to the start of the year, I've obviously taken up more space. We'll see what the future holds — I have a two-year contract, I still have another year with SK and Own3r. So we'll see. Compared to the start of the year, I've taken more space. I'd like to take even more, but we're a staff of three and everyone has their roles. I think I'm well in my place and I enjoy it.
Overall, I do a lot of the bridge on everything data-related, and even tool creation. We try to develop a lot of new things that staffs often don't really have, or try to have that approach — and everything related to draft and scouting the opposing teams. Overall, gameplay is more on Duffman and Own3r; I'm more on analysing teams before matches, trying to find an angle of attack, whether through draft or vision, early wards, that kind of thing. And also developing a lot of new tools, whether to improve reviews, to analyse properly, to give feedback on drafts.
Definitely. In terms of gameplay, you're obliged to — even if it's not my main role, just the fact of scrimming all the time, always being with them, being in the mix, understanding, listening to all the reviews, sometimes bringing points, it taught me a lot. I also find it cool to get the feedback of the players or the staff on the tools I propose, whether on data analysis or on lots of new tools we build on the whole data side. It's really cool, because we have guys like Mikyx coming out of G2 who tell us 'this was good, maybe we could try to redo this.' I spend a week trying to redo it, and we get a result they like. Those are real, interesting feedbacks for my job.
Wish me to keep going in the right direction. I'd like to keep bringing more next year. This was more of a learning year, let's say it that way. I learned lots of things, in and out of the game. There are plenty of aspects that are really great, so it's cool. And yeah, to keep going in the LEC, try to progress, reach playoffs next year. After playoffs, go to Worlds. After Worlds, win Worlds. But you have to go step by step. I just want to win, I just want to give everything. I give it my all to make it work.
