"We Lost to Ourselves" — Pad on Vitality's Defeat Against KC, Humanoid's Role, and Why He's Betting on Spring
Photo Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games
Vitality lost to Karmine Corp on the opening day of the LEC Spring Split (1-2), in a series that drew uncomfortable parallels with their defeat against the same opponent in LEC Versus’ playoffs. Minutes after the game, RFT.GG caught up with head coach Patrick "Pad" Suckow-Breum— still processing the loss, but completely honest.
The conversation covered game three's draft, the distinction between Humanoid and his predecessor, whether Vitality can genuinely break into the top three before Summer and much more.
How are you?
That's a good question. This one is frustrating. It's very frustrating.
It looked a lot like the series you had against them in LEC Versus’ playoffs. Same feeling?
Yeah, it did. I would say we played better in both game two and game three, but outside of that, the series looked very similar — with potentially some better drafts from our side as well this game. F*ck I'm actually tilted *
Loading comments...
nervous
laugh
*...
How do you explain the third game exploded that way?
We had a really good early game, we played it out well — and then we trade Karma Flash and Annie Flash before level six. And that's the story of our early game. We make a very bad early game decision that makes the early very hard to play after Nocturne hits 6, because without flashes on double immobile lanes, we have to perma-respect.
Maybe it's going to sound like the Braum-Seraphine draft all over again. But the game obviously looks completely different if we have Flash mid, if we have Flash bot — because we have item advantage on bot, and with Naafiri, we can look to play around baiting the Nocturne ult and counter-engaging. But when we burn both flashes in this lane and we can't play into K’Santé-Rumble, we can't play the early game at all.
Loading tweet...
I know you draw inspiration from LPL playstyles. Do you take a lot specifically from BLG? Because outside of them and maybe a few other Chinese teams, I feel like almost no team in the world plays through top that hard.
The whole narrative about me taking inspiration from BLG is certainly true — I love BLG to bits and I'm so happy they won First Stand.
But this split, we've been much more inspired by Gen.G than by BLG. Because we had a change in lineup.
If you look at my previous mid laners, we made the mistake of trying to play LPL style with Vetheo — because he's obviously much more suited to a slower game, control mages, a more stable playstyle. But when we signed Czajek, that wasn't the case. And when you have Naak Nako plus Czajek, you have a very similar iteration to a BLG team where they had, what was it — Yagao plus Bin. But this year with Humanoid plus Naak, we still have certain set pieces inspired by Chinese LoL. For the majority though, the way we approach draft, the way we approach map movement — it's much more linked to Korean League of Legends.
Though I still feel like you play way more aggressively than Gen.G. You play to win every lane, you don’t hesitate to put Lyncas and Humanoid at the service of your toplaner in the early game… That was my impression at least.
Yeah, we play like that. And I think that was actually part of our downfall today. Why I'm both frustrated and happy with today is that it felt like we lost to ourselves. We didn't lose because the enemy team was faster on the map, out-macroing us, moving better — we lost because we overplayed sequences. Rather than being aggressive in a smart way, we overreached.
Loading tweet...
And for me, that's actually a wonderful thing. When I catch my breath and I'm not emotional about the loss — the fact that I have to turn down the aggression rather than find ways to pull people forward, it's always easier to fix.
I want to come back on LEC Versus as well. Overall, were you happy with your first split with this team as head coach?
I was happy. Not happy with the placement — I think we felt like we were a top 4 team in Versus. We were at a stage where we could take games off MKOI, off KC, off G2, but we weren't consistently beating them. For every other team though, whether it’s GX or NAVI we felt like we could beat them any day.
And if you told me that during winter boot camp, when I signed the black sheep Humanoid and kept my support that everyone wanted to change… I'm very happy. And if you look at how the meta shifted into an enchanter meta: if you ask anyone last year whether Fleshy was going to look good in an enchanter meta, no one's going to say yes. So yeah, I'm very happy with the team and the development so far. My first split as head coach — I was happy with it.
Some people raised concerns when you signed Humanoid — because you mentioned in a Hotspawn interview that Czajek wasn't tryharding as much as you'd have wanted. People worried you'd signed someone with the same issue...
Yeah. And you know what, this is probably why I'm not allowed to do these interviews without checking with upper management first — because I'll just say whatever is on my mind. But for me, there's a really big distinction between these two players. One of them was lacking intensity, amount of practice, and willingness to put in the hours it takes to improve.
Photo Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games
The other has the same reputation, but he's a completely different player. What Humanoid brings to this team is that he's our mid and late game shot caller. He's moving the map for us. If we're playing slow, he calls us out. He is an in-game leader. Czajek's role was much more of a facilitator.
So when you have someone who doesn't necessarily put in as many solo queue hours — and it's not to say Humanoid doesn't, this split if you go look at his solo queue he's completely fine, he's doing well — but even when he doesn't, there has to be a trade-off. And for us, that trade-off is that we've gained another voice inside the game. For me it's not even a question: if I have to choose between two mid laners where one leads the game and the other is a facilitator, specifically for our team — it's a very easy trade. For another team, maybe a facilitator is better if you have a strong voice elsewhere. But specifically for us, it is an easy trade.
He's also always been a slow starter — in every team, he tends to peak in Summer and make Worlds in the end anyway. Is that also part of why you brought him, to have someone else with this experience in important matches?
Yeah, for sure. I don't know exactly what my org's end goal this year is — I think it's top four — but for us it's top three. And in order to get there, we agreed after last year that we had to make a change, and the change I was able to get was Humanoid.
There's not a single year he failed to make Worlds while playing actively. Hopefully this is not going to be the first one.
A lot of people consider the top three locked — G2, KC, MKOI, and no one moves them. Do you think Vitality could genuinely surprise people, given your form in Versus and today?
Yeah. For example we took a game off MKOI, and then we had a chrono break incident where we probably should have taken another. The big question now is whether GIANTX or NAVI are closer to the top three. We'll figure it out.
But the only team that has really solidified themselves and will probably do it again is G2 — G2 will always show up.KC and MKOI haven't necessarily proved they're a stable second and third place.There's room to contest them. GIANTX failed last split and their players were very vocal about it. We lost to MKOI and KC, but even in our first split with this lineup, we showed we can take games off these teams.
We just have to believe in the process and outscale them over the year. You either scale well, stagnate or you get worse. I'm banking on scaling.
Do you think you’ll be able to do it in Spring, or might we have to wait until Summer?
No, I'm confident. Super confident. You saw how Naak is playing, even today — this guy is something. We've also expanded our champion pool since Winter, so we don't run into Braum-Seraphine angles as much *laugh*. And we're doing all the right work with our positional coaching — Lukezy for botlane, Garih for jungle.
Photo Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games
I'm still learning this whole head coach thing. Last split, my drafts were shit. First split was about learning how to delegate properly as a head coach — making sure everyone does what they're good at well. This split, the big focus area for me is making sure that by the end of it, the drafts will just be good.
