BDS Crownie: “We need to play better on 2v2s”

After their win against DetonatioN FocusMe, I spoke to BDS Crownie about the series and his overall feelings going into the next match tomorrow.

BDS Crownie: “We were cleaner in our approach”

BDS found themselves in the losers’ bracket after a somewhat surprising loss against Team Whales in Round 1 of play-ins. With the back against the wall, the LEC #4 seed managed to dominate DFM, showing that the series against TW was probably just a bad day.

ADC player Crownie wasn’t the main protagonist for the majority of the series until he ended DFM’s run at Worlds by picking up a pentakill on Xayah. He was happy with that, but he seemed even happier about how the team performed overall:

Compared to the previous series, I think we were cleaner on what we wanted to play, our approaches and we did what we needed to do. As for my play, I think I died once in Game 1 where I shouldn’t have. In the second game, we also died level one but then we kind of stabilized and in fights I played well. The game felt easy because top and mid were winning so I didn’t have to do much. In the next series, I need to play better with Labrov on 2v2s because we are playing against pretty good opponents. That said, if we play like we do in scrims, I think we should be good.

Fans weren’t really worried about this series but the loss against TW did mess up a bit the expectations of the entire play-in stage. According to the Slovenian player, though, it was just a bad day:

I think we optimized things like having more draft talks and be more on the same page between games. We decided to play stuff with more agency, especially in bot lane with Xayah over Ezreal because I think we were banning it against TW when it was one of our best champs. We were much cleaner on what we wanted to play, how to play it, and we also predicted what they wanted to play so it was good overall. 

Ever since BDS started playing at Worlds, Crownie played 5 games on Ezreal, 2 games on Xayah, and 1 on Sivir. Up until this point, the team still hasn’t picked up Kai’Sa, despite having the chance to do so. When asked about it, the player said they weren’t in the specific situation to play her, and that he has the pick ready: “I played her in the LEC and I’ll play her in this tournament. I also have some other picks prepared that I didn’t show them”.

The Worlds meta changed quite a lot compared to what LEC teams played in playoffs. When asked about whether he’s happy about the Worlds meta, Crownie mentioned it is “pretty fine”:

I think the Spring meta was best for us with Jinx, Aphelios, Zeri as I was pretty confident on all three, but I think this one is also pretty fine. Now I think Xayah is probably my best one, as well as others that we still haven’t shown yet. 

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Setting the eyes to the series against CTBC Flying Oyster

BDS will now advance to the losers’ bracket finals where they will face the #2 seed from the PCS, CFO. The team lost to Team Whales as well in the upper bracket so it will be a do-or-die moment for both teams. When questioned about the upcoming opponent, Crownie put a lot of focus on the enemy bot lane:

Their bot lane plays explosive picks like Draven-Blitzcrank so I think they are the ones that can make stuff happen early. Labrov and I need to play better than we did today to have a good series against them: it will be the key for tomorrow’s series.

When asked about personal prediction on the series, he said that it should be 2-0 if they are “on the same page and they don’t make stupid mistakes”. That said, he also added there is always a chance to drop a game.

While the path for the team to advance to the Swiss stage looks rough, Team BDS still remain one of the favorites to go through. With that in mind, I questioned Crownie if there was a particular player or team that he wanted to face at Worlds and why:

I mean, for sure, there are Ruler, Gumayusi, Deft, Aiming, and Peyz. I think that if we make it, there’s a big pretty good chance I play against Ruler so that’s going to be fun. I’m not really focused too much on that, though, as I’m just trying to stay focused on the next Bo3 and then Bo5 against a pretty strong team (PSG Talon) so my mind is not too much in the future. 

If BDS were to win tomorrow against CFO, they will need to play a Bo5 series against PSG Talon. Despite being a longer series, the ADC player thinks it will actually be an advantage for them:

I think it will help us to go to Bo5 because if you mess up, you have more cards to adapt for the next games. And now that we’re more on the same page, I think playing more games will benefit us. 

Before rounding off our interview, we went over how Crownie is adapting to life in Korea and if there was anything that changed in how he approaches the matches compared to when he was in EU. He said he is playing more than ever:

For sure I play more solo queue here than I did in LEC. I think I have the most solo queue games in my team. I’m spamming it because it’s pretty fun like it improves my mechanics and I’m playing against LCK and LPL players that I never had the chance to face before so it’s always nice to face new players. 

BDS and Crownie will face CFO tomorrow October 14 at 12:00 CET. To watch the series, head over to the official LoL Esports channel. Rebroadcast will be availalbe starting from 21:00 CET.  

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