TheScore eSports had a chance to talk to Cloud9's Will "Meteos" Hartman on March 15, 2015 during the final day of the IEM World Championships in Katowice, Poland. It was conducted by Matt Demers.

How does your mindset change going from week-to-week best of ones in the LCS to a tournament such as IEM, where there is a possibility of playing multiple best of three series in a day?

Meteos: Well, we only played best-of-ones here, so it’s not that different, you know, it’s just playing games. When we scrim we play way more games than any competitive setting per day so it’s not that bad.

Why do you think that your team seems to struggle a little bit internationally?

Meteos: Well, we play better people at international events so I don't know if it’s us struggling or other teams being better but the past few weeks we’ve just sort of been on tilt as a team so we we’re playing bad.

Where do you guys go to escape the burnout of constantly playing League?

Meteos: I don’t know if it’s burnout — it’s just more of a slump than tilt. We are just not playing well. I don’t think any of us are getting burnt out, it’s just that we are not playing correctly.

Do constant losses make it harder to identify what the problem is?

Meteos: Not necessarily, usually it is easier to learn from losses than it is from wins.

With the LCS wrapping up, you guys have a full next few weeks. Is it difficult to balance between fan interaction and team practices?

Meteos: It’s nice to meet fans but it does take a lot of time out of the day. After the event we haven't really got much time at all to solo queue and then there is a lot of travel too.

So there is a lot of things that go into these live tournaments especially when we have to travel to them. It takes up a lot of time and then there’s jet lag so it’s pretty rough physically, we don’t get great sleep and we’re not used to the food here so it’s kind of difficult in that sense.

How important is the mentality of getting through the grind of day-to-day travelling to being a player in general?

Meteos: I think being in a sound state of mind outside the game is really important to how you play in-game and when you have to deal with jet lag it can be pretty hard, especially for scrims when everyone is super tired and you are not going to be as focused as normal. It can really wear on you.

Is that something players can learn? Or do have to come into being a pro with that fortitude? What if some players are not equipped to handle that?

Meteos: Well there are things you can do to combat jet lag. We try to come as early we can to the event. We flew out right after LCS and actually last year we didn’t have this problem because LCS was Thursday-Friday so we had two more days to be here before we had to play.

This time it was a lot shorter — we barely had any scrims in and we were super jetlagged all the time so it’s just not really the best experience for us here but I say every time you have to deal with it, the next time gets a little easier so I guess you can build up resilience over time.

What is like to interact with non-English speaking fans?

Meteos: Interacting with any fan is pretty cool. It’s sometimes harder to connect with the fans that don’t speak English very well but it’s nice to see them come out and support us.

What is it like being on such a big stage? I know LCS seats around 200 people but that doesn't compare to a giant stadium. You guys haven't been on a stage like this since Worlds, so what is it like stepping out there for the first time in a while?

Meteos: The big stages are cool. You don’t really notice it much when you are in-game though. It’s not like other sports where you are directly seeing the fans the whole time but there is still the roar of the stadium.

You will feel the vibrations coming through even with noise-cancelling headsets. It’s a cool experience. I enjoy the events but I wouldn't say there is a huge difference between this and LCS as far as nerves go, we sort of tune everything out when we play.

I am just thinking about when they brought you guys out on stage during the opening ceremony. Did you "feel" the sound of the crowd hit you?

Meteos: It is definitely a nice feeling having everyone there cheer for you but like I was saying we were pretty tired and jet lagged when we were up there so it was maybe not as exciting as it could have been.

Were there any teams that you would have liked to face in the tournament?

Meteos: I would have liked to face a lot of teams in the tournament. We didn't get to play any European teams and we didn't get to play World Elite who are doing very well. We only got to play two games and we lost.

With the lack of international tournaments, it is harder to further the debate between NA vs EU? Do you think that is a weakness that system?

Meteos: I always see the NA vs EU thing as kind of troll. Any time a North American team wins anything they will be like “North America is better than Europe” even when its NA LCS when of course NA is winning. I don’t care too much about it. I figure every team is trying to do their best regardless of where they are but I guess it’s a fan thing. It doesn’t matter too much to me.

Is it hard to improve and experience more strategies when you are under your fans scrutiny?

Meteos: The fans impression of pro players almost never affects anything because they only see what the spectator stream sees and you don’t even see each team's own vision, so obviously some plays will look very bad when you have all the information but when you are playing you have to go for stuff with imperfect knowledge all the time and so it’s a lot easier to learn from your own knowledge rather than what other people will say, because a lot of times they are just not that informed.

Being a top placing NA team, is it hard to live up to your fans high expectations?

Meteos: I guess in the sense of having high expectations can be a negative because either a lot of people like to see us lose or they are disappointed if we don't do well rather than getting excited if we do win. That can be a little bit demoralizing but for the most part after losses and even sometimes after wins I just don’t go on social media that much because it can affect my mood hearing what people say.

Obviously everyone says you are supposed to ignore the haters but it’s different when it’s actually happening. The best way is just to not pay too much attention to it and focus on myself because I don't really need the negative things affecting what I'm doing.

Do you guys have a support network outside of your team or anyone who is involved with League of Legends?

Meteos: My family is very supportive. When we lose they will message me and be like “sorry about the game” and “how are you feeling”. I talk to my brother usually when I am just trying to take a break from League related things and that’s what keeps you grounded because your family just knows who you’ve always been. They don’t have this expectation of you trying to be the best jungler all-time or what not.

Older or younger brother?

Meteos: Older

Does he think you have the coolest job in the world?

Meteos: Yeah, he thinks what I do is pretty cool.

Matt Demers is a Supervising Editor for theScore eSports. You can follow him on Twitter.