The LEC playoffs never cease to amaze League of Legends fans. And it also seems like April 3 may be a cursed date for G2 Esports.
MAD Lions beat the perennial LEC champions 3-1 last weekend. Exactly a year before this most recent showdown, on April 3, 2020, MAD Lions knocked G2 down to the losers bracket in a much tighter series where they won the fifth game. But despite that victory, MAD failed to reach the finals of the 2020 LEC Spring Split playoffs.
This time, one year later and with a roster featuring two new players, the team led by Mac has made it to the grand finals of the 2021 LEC Spring Split playoffs following their win over G2. They now have to wait to see who their opponent will be following the Rogue vs. G2 matchup on April 10.
One of the common denominators in both of MAD’s previously mentioned victories over G2 has been Carzzy, the team’s AD carry. And the 19-year-old ADC talked with Dot Esports right after the win about the series and his thoughts on his team’s performance so far.
Last year when the “rookie team,” the label on MAD Lions at that time, beat G2, many League fans attributed it to the lack of a face-to-face format in the playoffs. Historically, there’s always been the thought that less-experienced players benefit from playing from their facilities as opposed to on stage. But with MAD’s latest victory, this narrative has been completely dismantled. In fact, Carzzy said he prefers to play on stage despite not being one of the most experienced players in the LEC.
“I like playing offline and I think that I can speak for everyone from our team, everyone is more comfortable while playing on stage,” Carzzy told Dot Esports. “It makes the game more entertaining even for the players, not even for the viewers, so it’s just 10 times better. That’s it.”
The fact that their recent match was set to be played on stage wasn’t the only reason why some fans doubted MAD Lions heading into this best-of-five, though. Carzzy was one of the players who most notably struggled during the regular season, which clashed heavily with the great first split he had last spring. But the Czech ADC attributed this performance to a lack of motivation.
“I don’t really care about negative comments from the people,” Carzzy said. “I definitely agree that I had a poor regular split, but I kinda found the games from the office boring, so there wasn’t as much motivation as there should be and now once I’m playing big on stage I feel much more motivated and also more confident. During the regular split, I also think that we didn’t have the right look at the game on how we should play as a team, so I don’t think I could be able to shine because we were playing just for something else in the team, and I was playing more in the supportive style ADC, which is not viable.”
Aside from Carzzy, the two newest MAD Lions players have been crucial to the team’s success. In particular, Elyoya, an inexperienced player in the big leagues, has surprised many fans and is the main candidate to be the rookie of the split. And Carzzy thinks his new teammate will eventually be the best jungler in Europe.
“I don’t have much to say about Elyoya because this guy is just really insane, and he is learning really fast,” Carzzy said. “He has even greater mechanics than most of the players. I think he is just going to be the best jungler in LEC soon.”
MAD Lions will battle for their first LEC title and a ticket to MSI on Sunday, April 11 at 10am CT. They’ll face the winner of the series between Rogue and G2, which will happen on Saturday, April 10 at 10am CT.
You can check out the full interview with Carzzy on the Dot Esports YouTube channel.
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