Kikis: "I have made two big mistakes in my career"

Kikis: "I have made two big mistakes in my career"
Kikis: "I have made two big mistakes in my career"
Geposted von MrAw3som3_GER,
We had an interview with Fnatic Academy's top laner Mateusz 'Kikis' Szkudlarek before their important match against Paris Saint-Germain eSports past Sunday. Among many other topics he talked about fatal mistakes from the past, his old trademark, his German-speaking skills and a former idol. The following interview took place before the EU Challenger Series playoff match between Fnatic Academy and Paris Saint-Germain.

Hey Kikis! First of all: Thank you very much for lending me your precious time right before such an important match and also for being my first ever interviewee. I appreciate this a lot.

Let's get right into it:
You went from being the Spring Split Champion 2016 with G2 Esports and Fnatic's starting top laner for the Summer Split in the same year to being put into Fnatic Academy to qualify for and then play in the EU Challenger Series in 2017. Some might consider this as a huge downgrade, but taking your social media activities in regard, you seem to be quite happy and also be going well with the team.

In hindsight - can you describe your feelings about this transition? And what is the secret behind not playing on the biggest stage and still enjoying yourself as much as you do now?

Kikis: I have made two big mistakes in my career because of my pride. The first one was leaving UOL in summer split 2015, but fortunately I turned it around, made good choices and tryharded to make it work afterwards and went from Challenger Series to winning the EU LCS in one split. The second one was leaving G2. Even though the situations I have been put in in both cases haven’t been ideal, I wasn’t able to suck it up and go through with it for a month or two - that would have made my career look a lot better in the public eye.

What most people do not know, I have been around playing tournaments since 2011. Every year I manage to play better and have better results. The results could have been a lot better if I did not made those two decisions, but I am still really motivated to keep going and do even better this year, and it is up to me to turn the second decision around and keep going strong in my career run. The most important to me is that I learned a lot from both of these scenarios and grew as a person and as a player.

I do not see going to the Challenger Series as a huge downgrade in the Spring Split. It was a decision I made and I much prefer playing in CS than playing in a weak LCS team. I feel really happy with my team and we have good mix of atmosphere. We are having fun with each other, but everyone still knows we are here to win and everyone tries their best.


Back then you left G2 because you had to share a lot of scrim and play time to the newly added Expect. Feeling not fully appreciated, you changed the team to be able to play at a full rate again. At Fnatic - later on in the Summer Split - it was Deilor's decision to swap in the substitute top laner Werlyb from time to time.

How did you feel about this? Was it hard to handle or would you say these two situations are not comparable at all? Has your view on sharing a spot on the starting lineup changed over time?

Kikis: Those two situations are vastly different, because in the first one I felt like my worth and trust was betrayed. In Fnatic I knew the situation from the get-go. The only thing that I was not okay with personally, but of course it was not my decision, was to let Werlyb play on stage even against a statistically worse team at such an important point of the season, where we needed 1 more win to secure third place to have a better shot at worlds. So late in the season and at such an important time, there is no room to test people on stage where you are not sure how they will perform. It had to come to this point to make the decision obvious to let me play full time on stage and in scrims.

I much prefer to have full play time and full scrim time, but I understand the merits to having to share play.

On Sunday you will be facing Paris Saint-Germain in a Best-of-5 to determine which team then qualifies for the EU LCS Summer Promotion Tournament. Can you give us a quick prediction of how the series will end?

Kikis: It is always hard to predict what will happen on stage on game day. Everyone thought Schalke will bulldoze Misfits Academy, and here we are, where everyone witnessed how wrong everyone was and how Schalke got destroyed. You should never see a different answer than the team being confident in winning, because we should not be here if we are not expecting to win. It’s hard to gauge how both teams will play on stage since there were a few weeks off from playing, but I am confident we will take it either 3:0 or 3:1, though I am sure both teams will fight for their lives to win.

Before you became a League of Legends professional player yourself - did you have any kind of player you looked up to? Maybe a role model or at least someone that influenced your play style a lot?

Kikis: The only and ever player I looked up to massively before was HotshotGG. I started playing at the beginning of season 1, and that was the time he was getting famous as a streamer and later on as a player. His personality was really entertaining to watch and it was a pleasure to watch him play Nidalee and make insane outplays. Because of him Nidalee was and still is one of my favourite champions to play, but I deeply miss being able to play Nidalee top with the old Guinsoo's Rageblade and Lich Bane split push and jump all over the map.



You played competitively both as a jungler and a top laner. Which is your favorite champion for each of the roles and why?

Kikis: My favourite champion for top lane is Ekko. I got really good at this champion and
showcased my ability on him at Spring playoffs 2016 with G2 in the finals against OG. Running from multiple enemies and surviving or landing a clutch 3-4 man stun in a team fight on stage really makes your heart skip a beat and fullfills you with somuch excitment.

As a jungler it was Nidalee, I am pretty sure I was the first one to play it on stage in 2016 and I still remember how broken she was back then that she had to get nerfed so many times and is still seeing a bit of play from time to time. It was a lot of fun to be able to shut down enemy junglers and hunt them down in their own jungle. In one of our matches against SK in week 6, I was able to go into Svenskeren’s jungle and chunk him down and force his recall every time he tried to contest having full jungle control.

While playing for the Unicorns of Love, your personal trademark was wearing a scarf on stage. Why did you stop that and are there any chances that we might see a comeback of it some time in the future?

Kikis: It started off simply because I felt cold on stage and decided to wear a scarf, then it became a thing and I just kept going. At one point I stopped because I felt it’s ridiculous and I didn’t feel cold enough to wear it. I do not think I will ever come back to it to be honest, I don’t need it to be my thing.


Since this is an interview for a German site, a lot of our readers might be interested in how you like living in Berlin? Other than gaming, what do you like doing the most in this city?

Kikis: Last year I did more stuff than this year. I used to go to bars and the cinema with friends once a week or so. Right now my everyday looks the same and I don’t really have time or want to put time into doing much else. My routine is to wake up, go to the gym, go to the office to play until 10 pm, come back home, rest and do it over again. While I’m in Berlin, it is my work time, and when I do not have work time, I go back to my home city to do different stuff there. The only thing I do is to go restaurants or rarely shopping.

In addition to that: Does living in Berlin teach you a thing or two about the German language? How good is your German right now and - if you have any - what are your favorite German words?

Kikis: To be honest, I had German in school for a few years but I never bothered to learn and make myself remember all the things I have learned. I know a few sentences to get me by in a shop or in a taxi, but my German skills are at an all time low. I can get by because I do not have to use it often or even then, a lot of people speak English here, but I might want to change that in the future to be able to communicate in German!

That's it. I wish you the best of luck for Sunday's matches and I guess I speak for a lot of German fans by saying we hope to see you on the LCS stage again soon.

A special thanks goes out to the manager of the Fnatic Academy team, Michael 'Garki' Bolze, who arranged this interview between Kikis and me.

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