Podcast video topics and time stamps:

3:00 What a win over Team Liquid means for a team in GGS' situation

8:53 Relegation was "pretty f--king terrifying" in the LCS

12:04 Who shotcalls on Golden Guardians, and when?

13:21 Life after Locodoco, what responsibilities have fallen to Hai

16:30 Did Hai actually drop out of school to go pro?

18:45 How Sneaky was more reserved and shy back in the day

24:49 How a call from Jack Etienne prompted Hai came out of retirement

32:04 How an LCS teams builds a brand, beyond simply winning games

Hai "Hai" Lam and the Golden Guardians secured the biggest upset of the NA LCS spring split last weekend when they beat Team Liquid, earning the second win of the split. Hai is the veteran glue that holds together one of NA's newest teams, and it was on the back of his late-game shot-calling that the Guardians beat Liquid.

Hai spoke to theScore esports Podcast about how the Golden Guardians are feeling after their big win, what his leadership role on the team looks like after Locodoco's departure and went deep on what it feels like to play without the threat of relegation looming over everyone's head.

Find theScore esports Podcast on iTunes.

Click or tap here to listen in on SoundCloud.

The Golden Guardians started the split with a disappointing 0-7 record. In previous years this would strike fear into a roster, with the possibility of being relegated and losing their jobs looming over them. With the NA LCS freshly franchised, teams now have the kind of security that allows for a poor start like the Guardians have had, with the room to make the necessary adjustments to improve for the future. Under the previous system there would be pressure on them to make sweeping changes to avoid putting their players and organization at risk. Team Liquid's short-lived roster changes in the 2017 Spring Split come to mind.

Playing without that fear is something Hai said is a big relief for players.

"Teams haven't necessarily ever had the opportunity to try out a new roster or newer players or untested players for an extended period of time," said Hai. "Now that relegation isn't there you have the ability to try and build up a roster from the ground up."

He said that in the past relegation could virtually end an organization's footing in League of Legends.

"You can look at the past when you know relegation was looming over our head and that's honestly pretty f--king terrifying," said Hai. "You can look at Team Liquid they bought Doublelift or something for a month to save them from relegations and it's just, back in the day relegation was almost like a death sentence to your LCS team, unless you had like huge members on it, or other esport teams."

The downsides of the old system aside, Hai also discussed the upside of how the franchised league will help Golden Guardians rebound from their slow start.

"Having that threat over you is kind of like, almost career ending in a way. It was just so much pressure back in the day to play in that setting and environment," said Hai. "You didn't really want to make mistakes, you didn't really want to go super hard because you didn't want to be the reason why your organization got kicked out of the LCS. But now with that being gone, it's a lot of pressure relief and allows us to play more freely."

The Golden Guadrians have picked up both of their wins on the season in the last two weeks, since their head coach Choi "Locodoco" Yoon-seop was let go. Hai said that in his absence he's taken on a bigger load as the role model on the team.

"There's a bit more pressure for me to just try and keep the team level-headed, keep their morale strong and try and keep or mentality strong throughout practice, throughout LCS. And just kind of being, you know, a good leader or role model to the team," said Hai.

As far as in-game shot-calling goes, Hai said that early on in the game the players are generally sorting themselves out and communicating what's going on in their respective lanes. But, when the game goes late, Hai's voice leads the team.

"In general, the later the game goes the more I'm probably talking as the game goes on," said Hai.

Hai also spent some time discussing his return from retirement to play for Cloud9. He even revealed the exact circumstances that lead to his return for the first time. C9 Founder and CEO Jack Etienne asked him to watch some of the team's scrims to figure out why they were struggling, one thing lead to another, and Hai returned to the Rift.

"I was watching the scrim and I just remember watching them play and it just seemed like, and it was their first game of the day, and their very first game they were all tilted already," said Hai. "I could tell that they were tilted because there wasn't very much communication between any of the players. At that point it's more like solo queue than it is practice or an LCS match.

"Meteos wasn't feeling well at the time I guess, so he asked if he could step down for one game and Jack was like, 'I know you haven't played Jungle in a while but if you're interested we'd really appreciate if you'd play one game for Meteos."

Keith Capstick is a news editor for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.