Fnatic decided to take StarLadder ImbaTV Minor as a testing ground. They arrived in Kiev with the team coach, Adam”343” Shah, as a stand-in for Johan “pieliedie” Åström and we had the chance to talk to Adam about this sudden decision. The Interview was conducted a day before the tournament start.

Hello Adam, and thanks for accepting this interview. So, you’re in Kiev. Everyone was taken a bit by surprise by the Fnatic announcement and I would like to talk to you about this because it was short and we are not exactly sure what’s going on in the team right now. From the outside, looking at your games in DreamLeague and Jakarta Minors all looked good, so why the need to make a change now?

First of all, this is an experiment. It’s nothing decided and we wanted to try this now because the minor points are not that many, so we won’t get hurt too much. The team wants to test and see how I fit in mainly because I have a very different personality than Pie.

Ok, and if you are to replace him in the end, is this a risk everyone is ok with? Because you will have to take the open qualifiers road for TI8.

Open qualifiers are always risky, but then again, we didn’t decide anything yet. It’s still up to them if they want me or Pie. The main goal is actually to win TI, so after this tournament, if we think the change is beneficial we will probably make it, if not, not.

You’ve been with Fnatic for a while now and for the past couple of months, you’ve been the team coach. EnVy is quite the different player than the rest of the pros and his drafts are also a bit special. Did you have any challenges in working with him?

Me and EnVy have very different views about the game and I guess the biggest challenge for me was to understand that I have to stop fighting for my perspective to be adopted by the team. In the end, I come to realize that my role is to help everyone in the team to understand and follow EnVy’s views. The great thing about EnVy is that he is willing to admit when he is wrong. He is also a good listener so it’s really easy to have a conversation with him. He always takes into consideration what I tell him but my role here is to be more of an assistant for EnVy if you want to put it that way.

Can you describe each of the Fnatic players in one word?

EnVy: Tryhard

Abed best – talented

UNiVeRsE: Professional

DJ: Carefree

Pie: Cool



And how would you describe yourself?

In one word? Calm

You are playing on the second day of the event here, which is more likely to happen on a new patch. How do you feel about the bi-weekly patches being dropped on Thursday?

Bi-weekly patches are extremely good but the day choice is really bad. They should put the patches up on Monday or Tuesday, almost no events happen on these days. At the same time, I can understand that having a patch on the first or second day of an event makes the tournament much more interesting and more fun to watch. It also gives more chances to all the underdog team to surprise with something.

Last question: Do you expect Techies to be added to the CM with this patch?

I see everyone is spamming Techies in pubs right now so, I think all of us expect him to arrive in Captain’s Mode.I really hope it doesn’t happen but it will probably happen.