I have always been preparing for the chance to play in the LCS, even during the early days of my career playing in the French amateur leagues. I always believed I was building towards that moment.

Those amateur experiences taught me a number of important lessons that I still draw from today, how to play as a team and how to play under pressure, for example. Every tournament final was played on a big stage with a public audience, but winning Dreamhack Tours in 2016 with Melty Esport club was a particularly special moment for me, since the team we beat in the final, Millenium, were considered to be the best team in France at the time.

Winning the EU CS with Fnatic Academy was the real career-changing success for me, however. Heading into the Summer Promotion Tournament, I felt that I had to win something significant before people would actually recognize me as one of the best rookies in the scene.

Once we qualified, the LCS was finally within my grasp, I finally had the chance to play on the EU LCS stage, my first “big” achievement as a player… or so I thought.

After the joy of our promotion success, in the beginning, I truly believed that I would be facing the challenge of the EU LCS alongside my group of friends, that we would all stay together and continue to compete as a team.

But you can’t always predict what will happen, especially not in esports. Emotionally, at first I was sad to learn that the roster was going to disband to make way for Ninjas in Pyjamas, but later, I also felt weirdly unsettled by the thought of starting my LCS career with four completely new teammates and having to build our synergy from scratch.

In Fnatic Academy, the team atmosphere was light. We were having a lot of fun and the general mood was far less “tryhard” than what I would later experience with Team EnVyUs, where I felt I had to constantly give my best since they had given me the chance to prove myself in the LCS as a rookie.

Synergy, communication and, above all, friendship are the most important things to establish within a new roster, but they take time. Being friends is the first thing that you have to focus on when you build a new team because, without it, you can’t expect to improve either your own or your teammates’ game. In my opinion, if you’re not friends, you cannot expect to be a top team.

Fortunately, that’s not a problem we have at Splyce. The environment here reminds me a lot more of Fnatic Academy than Team EnVyUs; my new teammates are all cool, chill people.

It’s a bit different with Xerxe since we are both young and still consider ourselves to be rookies in many ways. We make fun of each other as there is still a lot that we don’t know about the game, I make a lot of jokes at his expense, I laugh when he makes a stupid decision, but I see that as part of the team-building process!

After fighting my way into the LCS as a rookie, the World Championship is now in my sights and I will achieve my goal by working harder than anyone, improving as much as I can this year; to be a top 3 mid laner by the end of the year is my personal challenge.

The team ambition is, of course, qualification for Worlds, but first, we have to establish ourselves as a top team in Europe. In my opinion, our top and bot lanes are all amongst the top 3 in the region for their positions, but Xerxe and I aren’t quite there yet.

I’m really confident that we’ll soon be one of the best mid/jungle duos in the region if we keep improving together. Importantly, we both share that goal and we keep trying to help each other in every aspect of improving our play.

We’ll get there, it’s just a matter of time.

Image Credit: Riot Games