After a disappointing performance in the Promotion Tournament and failing to qualify for the LCS, eUnited acquired Korean stars DanDy and GBM. With their two new players, they have so far dominated the Summer Split of the NA Challenger Series. BreakTheGame’s Natsu talked to the team’s AD Carry Matthew “Deftly“ Chen about eUnited’s dominating record, his partnership with Zeyzal and what his Korean teammates bring to the team.

Natsu: The Summer Split of the NA Challenger Series has been great so far for your team. What would you credit your success as a team to? Is it DanDy and GBM joining the line-up? Or have you guys just found your groove as a squad?

Deftly: This split’s results are a joint effort from all of our players improving since last split, as well as DanDy and GBM joining. I don’t think there is one particular thing to credit our success to, I think we’ve all improved and learned to play better on our own. Combining the knowledge and skill of GBM and DanDy just guaranteed our success.

N: Which team are you most afraid of facing in the playoffs and why?

D: I’m not afraid of any teams. I think if we play our own game in the playoffs and practice hard, we will beat any one of our Challenger opponents.

N: What is your partnership with Zeyzal like? Who has more control in the lane? How do you guys determine how you should play out match-ups or situations?

D: My partnership with Zeyzal is very analytical and not very personal. He will usually dictate how the lane should be played and engage the all-ins, while I’ll focus more on the minor trades and tell him what I need to push my advantages. We usually have the same opinion on match-ups going into it since we’ve been together for so long now. If we disagree on a match-up we’ll just play it out and watch the VOD after to see what we did right or wrong. Situationally we’ll disagree on how something should have been played and usually we’ll both back off or accept that one of us was wrong. I’d say that he has his ups and I have my downs!

N: What is it like playing with a former World Champion such as DanDy and a veteran like GBM? Does it push you to practice even harder?

D: Playing with DanDy has been an interesting experience. At first he was super shy and didn’t really speak a lot. It was a bit weird since our entire team kind of felt he wanted to be left alone and we respected that. Gradually he started to communicate more and tell us what he needs. He’s almost always right where he needs to be without even being told, which is super easy to play with. Playing with GBM is entirely different, he talks a lot and is super outgoing. He’s very smart in game, and always knows his win condition better than any other player I’ve played with. Playing with them definitely pushes me to practice a bit harder because I don’t want to be the player that was carried into LCS by two imports.

N: Is there any player that you look up to? What about them do you find inspiring or great?

D: There’s a lot of ADC players I look up to. It started out as Deft as at the time he was mechanically insane. Doublelift was also one that I looked up to, for the same reason. He always put himself in risky situations and when he outplayed them it always drove me to try harder. I think I mostly focused on mechanics as inspiration before, but now I’ve started to realize why players like Bang are so good and why I find his play much more inspiring.

N: It feels like in the current meta there’s more options when it comes to AD Carry champions. Previously there was a lot of priority towards marksmen with engage such as Ashe and Varus. Right now we’re starting to see other picks like Tristana and Twitch. Do you like that there’s more choices now or did you prefer the previous meta?

D: The current meta definitely has a lot of variety for AD. I think the meta shift is because of the ability to lane more easily with Tristana and Twitch as well as nerfs to Caitlyn. Doran’s Shield buffs just allowed easier laning and the general AP support nerfs gave room for melee supports to come back. I definitely like that there’s more choices, since it gives me more power in both competitive and solo queue.

N: If you could make any sort of change to an AD Carry champion (whether it’s a buff or a nerf), what would it be and why?

D: If I could change an ADC champion, I’d want to nerf Twitch. Playing against him in solo queue is super unrewarding, since even when you pressure lane, the Twitch will just roam mid and kill your team over and over. Then he outscales you and it’s lights out.

N: Is there any team or player that you want to play against?

D: No players or team come to mind mind, though last relegations versus Doublelift was super fun and I learned a lot from that.

N: What is your long-term goal as a player aside from the obvious one of winning Worlds? How do you plan on achieving it? What do you see as the biggest obstacle towards that goal?

D: Short term goal for me would be to make the NA LCS. Outside of winning Worlds, I want to be recognized as one of the best AD Carry players North America has produced.

N: Any last words or shoutouts?

D: Shoutout to my family! Without them I would have never had the opportunity to do this for a living and I am very grateful towards them.

Stay up to date with Deftly on Twitter: @deftlylol

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Photograph by Riot Games