KOI has failed to defend its LEC title. After the team finally claimed the trophy last Summer Split, the organization suffered a defeat against both G2 Esports and MAD Lions in the 2023 LEC Winter Split playoffs and had to make do with a bronze medal. Mid laner Emil “Larssen” Larsson is disappointed with the end result, though he says he gave it his all during the last series. After being eliminated, Larssen spoke with Em Dash to review KOI’s Winter Split in the LEC. The young Swede also discussed the scrim issues that plagued KOI, and why he is particularly motivated to make it to the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational.
Eliminated by MAD Lions
Welcome, Larssen. Unfortunately, the loss against MAD Lions eliminates you from the tournament. How did you feel heading into the series? I recall Szygenda saying that you felt you had an off-day against G2 earlier in the playoffs.
I felt very good today. Against G2, I was a bit sick and had been a bit sick during the week. I didn’t have energy on the day. It’s hard to play macro-wise and help the team win when you don’t have energy. You can still perform decently individually, but I didn’t.
Today I felt really good, but we just didn’t play well enough as a team. I think our macro was lacking a lot of times. I think both game two and game three are free wins if we just play good macro. We did some pretty simple fuck-ups that made us lose the game. The series wasn’t lost in game four. The series was lost in games two and three. We should’ve won those games.
“The result is definitely not what we wanted. We always want to win, right? But, top three… It could’ve been worse. We could’ve been Excel or Fnatic.”
What ‘simple fuck-ups’ are you talking about? Did something go wrong in the communication or something like that?
I wouldn’t say it is communication. It’s more about the fact that our scrims haven’t been too great for a while. You kind of lose some habits, you don’t play well as a team macro-wise. The simple things that you usually know, you lose. That’s what happened, I think.
The first game looked very convincing, especially from you on Tristana. In games two and three, you kept playing Varus, which became a topic of controversy because it kept falling short. Why did you go back to it?
Coming into the series, we thought Varus was a very strong champion for us. Maybe we changed our minds a little bit during the series. I’m not exactly sure what happened. I think you need to play very well macro-wise. Varus doesn’t scale that well—you’ll lack some damage later in the game. We just fucked up a few times, which made the game really hard because we didn’t have that much damage. It made it hard to play fights. I think [Comp] got very big leads in the lane, both times. It definitely looked very strong, but we just didn’t snowball correctly, which made it look bad. But we should’ve won from the laning phase.
Larssen’s view on KOI’s progress
Looking at the season overall, I think it’s fair to say that KOI took its time to ramp up. I’ve already spoken with fredy122 and Szygenda about the reason for this; you guys took a long break and started scrimming late. But, now that you look back at the Winter Split, how do you feel about the overall performance?
I think it was an ok season. The result is definitely not what we wanted. We always want to win, right? But, top three… It could’ve been worse. We could’ve been Excel or Fnatic. At least we have a decent start to the year, where we got some good points for the rest of the year. We’re not in panic mode. We are in a fine spot.
Obviously, we want to do way better. We were in a position to win the whole split. We’re not happy with it, that’s for sure.
In light of that unhappiness, do you regret taking that long break before the season started?
Definitely not. Practice in December wouldn’t have been very useful for us. I think it’s useful for the first two weeks of the LEC, but we’re now in week six. It doesn’t matter anymore if we scrimmed in December or not. That’s not something I regret. It was very important for us to take a break after such a long year for us.
How do you feel about KOI overall, this year? In terms of team environment, working together with a slightly adjusted lineup, et cetera.
I think the dynamic is very good. We just have a few issues. Sometimes we int a lot, and we don’t get very useful practice. It also reflects on the stage. The week we went 4-0 in the Group Stage, we had really good scrims and it showed on stage. We definitely need to get better scrims and then we can maybe smurf on stage all the time.
That’s the main issue we have: our scrims are not that good. Some good habits then disappear when you go on stage. Even though MAD, apparently, had like a zero percent win rate in scrims. [Laughs] It’s probably true. But when you have it for a long time, it’s not good.
“Last Summer Split already, we had some big issues in scrims. We were not playing well and we didn’t have enough energy. That has kind of kept going this year.”
It’s curious that that’s such a struggle. In previous years, your team used to be known for being really good in scrims. Why is it different now?
We used to try very hard in scrims during most of our Rogue time. But last Summer Split already, we had some big issues in scrims. We were not playing well and we didn’t have enough energy. That has kind of kept going this year. That’s something we need to address for sure.
Why did those issues arise back then?
Well, we have some ideas about it, but you can’t fix them just like that. You just need to work on them.
Eyes on the Mid-Season Invitational
I have to say, for someone who was defending LEC champion and just got eliminated, you’re pretty calm and down-to-earth about it.
Yeah, sometimes you just react differently. I’m definitely not happy, but I’m doing my best for the interview. [Laughs]
[Laughs] I appreciate it.
Today, I felt like I really gave it my all to help the team win. Communication-wise, energy-wise, I really tried everything I could. It was hard to do a lot more. Obviously, you can always play better, but I felt like I gave it everything I could. It just wasn’t enough today.
“I’m a big football fan, so it would be really nice to go to England. Even though it isn’t in Manchester—I’m a Manchester United fan—I still hope I can see some games.”
You’re now heading into a short break: what will that look like for KOI?
I think we take a one-week break and then we start again. I’m not sure how much the patch has changed things, actually. It feels like I still see so many AD supports in regions where the patch has changed. We’ll see how much it changes. Most teams will take a small break, I think. If you keep going until the next split ends, at the end of April, then you go to MSI exhausted.
We’re heavily aiming to go to MSI. I saw a player say that they really want to go to a football country, England. I think it was Oner. It’s the same for me. I’m a big football fan, so it would be really nice to go to England. Even though it isn’t in Manchester—I’m a Manchester United fan—I still hope I can see some games.
[Laughs] You want to go to MSI, so you can watch football games?
…. No, of course not. [Laughs] It’s a bonus that it’s in London. It’s just a bonus. I’ve never been to London. Also, Worlds in Seoul will be really cool. The cities motivate you a little bit as well. When we went to Iceland or were in quarantine in China, it was not as fun. So, I’m hoping we get to go to London.
KOI plays its first game of the LEC Spring Split on Saturday, March 11th, at 9 PM CET against Astralis. You can watch the game on the official LoL Esports site.
