By Amanda Stevens

Special to VPEsports

Fnatic’s Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau knows it’s not how you start (well mostly), but how you finish. After a start Fnatic would much rather forget, the Europeans stormed back picking a couple of wins. Reporter and Interview Amanda Stevens fond Bwipo and asked a few questions about he and Fnatic’s turn-around.

Fnatic had a pretty rough start to the Mid-Season Invitational, starting to 0-2, but today you were able to take home wins versus both Kingzone Dragon X and Team Liquid. How were you all able to mentally recover and reset for day 2 of group play?

We knew the apparent issues on the day were caused by the choices we made in the draft, and what style we wanted to come out with. After a team decision to look to draft for a more standard set up that we were used to running in the Spring split, the problems we faced up against the day before evaporated as soon as we got the level one advantages.

Not many people had Fnatic to win versus Kingzone but it seems you had a clear strategy going into that match. For you, what was your plan versus Khan?

I was planning on holding the line from the start. Once the matchups were locked in I knew I’d be able to mitigate his impact on the game. However, the first blood and ocean drake made it possible for me to pressure and gain more significant advantages. Not to mention the failed teleport attempt which got me really far ahead in gold and experience.

Your coach Dylan Falco brought up in an interview with Sjokz that you guys have been scrim’ing with Team Liquid a lot and that the TL we’re seeing right now isn’t their ‘final form.’ From what you’ve seen, what do you think is holding TL back on stage right now?

It’s difficult to say, as I’m not quite sure what’s going wrong. I haven’t watched too closely to what the problems are for Team Liquid, rather than watching what’s giving them a chance to win games. As long as we make sure we deny them those opportunities, that’s good enough for Fnatic, and getting us out of the group stage is what I’m looking to do right now.

You, personally, had a pretty shaky start to MSI – especially versus Flash Wolves. But today you played predominantly tanks and excelled. Do you think that’s just the meta for MSI or was day one just unfortunate match ups?

My matchups in lane were great, but our bot lane had to suffer as a result. I couldn’t translate the advantages I got out of the top lane, and even dropped teleport advantage. Both games, this is what lead to our tower dropping bot lane. The RNG game I wasn’t forcing flanks due to inexperience, and the Flash Wolves game team fights were almost impossible to navigate for Swain. Game one, bad performance, game two was really difficult to execute. I think I had opportunities in the RNG game, but dropped the ball.

This is your first international event. When we last spoke before the EU LCS Spring Finals, you said your goal was to make sure you didn’t bring the four man core of Fnatic down. Is that still the game plan here at MSI?

I’m going to elevate our four-man core. Make sure that the plays we do opt into are unpunishable, through improved communication and gameplay.

Conversely, you have access to Rekkles who has a wealth of international experience. Has he been giving you any advice on how to make the most of the experience?

I haven’t gotten much advice on what to do on the international stage because Rekkles doesn’t really see me as a rookie player. However, he does make clear what he LIKES seeing from me. Whilst the trust is there for me to play the carries, he prefers me on a tank as the games “feel easier”, as he’d say. So, in a way his advice is to play tanks as he’s confident that he can carry if I provide him with breathing room in the game.

How do you think you, personally, stack up compared to the rest of the Top lane field at MSI?

People mostly overestimate how important the laning phase is. I think it’s natural for all 6 top laners to be able to lane against each other, regardless of matchup. It’s always good to ban out the counters to make the champion have more impact, but there should never be a case where a player is invisible due to a bad laning phase. Following that ideal, I’m confident I can take all of them on in the laning phase regardless of matchup.

Today’s games prove how outside sources heavily impact the matchups, as my Ornn game I got first blood as well as an ocean drake. This made laning for Khan much more difficult than it should have been. Same happened when I lost flash and my potions vs Impact against team Liquid.

Tomorrow you get to have your revenge against Royal Never Give Up, any chance we’ll see you take Yasuo in the Top lane and show Caps how it’s done?

Actually there’s a chance! I used to one-trick Yasuo back in season 4, so don’t count me out just yet! That all being said, he’s really on another level right now, so I’ll forgive Dylan for giving it to Caps.

On a serious note, how are you feeling about Fnatic’s ability to take home the win with the momentum you have now?

This is a really difficult question as of now. I have no doubt it’ll take playing the carries top lane to win the whole thing, and as of now we failed on that strategy. If we can manage to execute top lane carries, we won’t be as reliant on our carries to perform, so I hope that’ll work out for us in the near future.

If we are capable of pulling it off, I think there’s a realistic chance of a very competitive final. Now, I’m confident our carries will perform, but in a Bo5 I can imagine them getting targeted.