Following Splyce's Week 1 loss to Team SoloMid at the 2016 World Championship, mid laner Chres "Sencux" Laursen spoke to theScore esports about the mid lane meta, Group D and going 0-3 in Week 1.

You guys had a really good start to the game and got ahead, which hasn't been happening for your team lately. Did you have more of a set plan going into this game?

In general, we targeted the jungle and forced them to give us Syndra or Rek'Sai. We banned Syndra and we pretty much got the free jungle Rek'Sai, and then there shouldn't be that many junglers left. Skarner shouldn't be able to pressure early.

The only thing was, when they picked their four picks, I thought Malzahar would probably be better than the Cassiopeia. It will be kind of hard to get in with long range because Cassiopeia will kind of just get poked out and in general be really hard to play the fights. Malzahar will be fine, but the thing is he won't pressure Cassiopeia ever early. Cassiopeia is supposed to get ahead actually quite far, but I was pretty confident that I would just stay around 10 CS behind. That would be a win for me in a way.

The early game went fine, and then I saw bot lane solo kill them. We had some miscommunication on blue buff where they died, but besides that I think the early game was fine.

Speaking of Malzahar, we're seeing more stationary lane picks, which is a bit surprising since it can be a bit harder to roam with these. Can you describe how the meta shaped up for mid lane?

I think it is kind of this roaming thing. Cassiopeia will get the push, and she'll roam, but then we have to force a defensive play in a way. If you can't make something on the other side, then it's just defend the side where they try to rotate into. I feel like they could have committed a bit more on the roams. They never really hard committed when they were pretty much 4v2, so I think that was kind of a failure of theirs.

In general I do think it's kind of a roam meta where there are Syndra-like push mages, and then you roam around, and then you group together as a team.

When you're playing a mid lane champion without an escape and have to roam around, what pathing-related decisions do you have to consider?

In general you get really, really punished if you make one small mistep. There was once in this game where I had to bring Ghost because I was a bit greedy with running into mid. In general when you play against good players that will win the 1v1, you just have to really be careful. If you know you can win the 1v1, and there can be no one near you, and you can just run around and have fun.

When I interviewed Trashy after the loss to Royal, he said he felt less upset by it than the Samsung loss because against Samsung he felt you guys should have been able to win. How do you feel about the loss to TSM, was it particularly rough?

I'm pretty upset because, in a way, that game should have been 100 percent ours and there should have been no way they should have won this game. I was so insanely fed that if we just played out 1-3-1, I think this game should have definitely been ours. Kind of took some stupid fights, got caught here and there, and they got back in the game and started winning fights.

Which team do you kind of feel is the strongest team in the group?

I think for us it was RNG. We got pretty dumpstered by them. I think for mid lane, Bjergsen was the best I played against, but the bot lane Uzi and Mata was way better than the two others in the group.

It's really hard to come back from 0-3, but going into next week do you feel like you've gotten a good read on some of these teams and can do better?

Yeah, I think we got a better read of them, but the same can be said for their teams — maybe not RNG cause they pretty much rolled over us — but TSM and Samsung can take a bit. It goes both ways. It will always be hard because it's the World Championship, and it's not bad teams.

It's been a difficult tournament for Europe in general. Is there one thing Europe has been doing wrong or is it a combination?

[NOTE: This question was asked after Splyce's last game and before the final day of Week 1 when G2 lost to ANX]

For us, the group draw was pretty rough, and I think everybody knows that. I think in general G2 and H2K had kind of an off day the first day. I definitely thought they would both win there. I think G2 had a good showing today, but lost late. They should get a win tomorrow. In general, EU just disappointed. We gave hope, and then we took it back.

I think in general G2 and H2K can both make it out. Their groups [are] still really open. Now that INTZ beat EDG, it's even more open in their group. CLG lost as well, so I still believe H2K and G2 can make it. For us it will definitely be really hard.

There have been a couple game like this where a team gets really ahead early, and then teams throw around Baron — not in your game, but G2's for example — there's been this kind of odd Baron fixation thing. Why do you think teams aren't splitting to side lanes as often in this tournament?

I think in general when teams don't have TP, they kind of panic in a way. Baron is really strong. Baron can pretty much win you the game like in one Nash, and the good teams will always know they need to cheese to win the game, so they try random stuff. That's kind of what happens. They tried twice this game, one of them it backfired, but in general good teams just try other ways to come back than maybe ones you're used to in your region, and that can throw you offguard. I think that's sometimes why.

Is there one thing you've taken away from coming to Worlds so far that you've learned about yourself as a player?

In general, just play a bit more confident on stage. That's been one of my problems, and I feel like I still had a fine run here at Worlds. I'm okay with it, but today was a rough loss.

Kelsey Moser is a staff writer for theScore esports. You can follow her on Twitter.