Following an interview with Fnatic’s coach Luis “Deilor” Sevilla Petit by Gamespot's Travis Gafford, fans were quick to criticize his responses to Fnatic’s loss to the KOO Tigers. In the interview, Deilor focused primarily on the Fnatic's shortcomings rather than KOO's successes, making comments like “I feel that we could actually draft anyway, in any okay way, and if we had the proper mindset we would have won.”

Many have called Deilor’s response unsportsmanlike or uncharitable to KOO, but for me, the primary question that comes to mind is how well can we measure Deilor’s claim? Player mentality is difficult to track by simply watching games, but there were moments that suggested a lack of focus. Deilor himself said, “I think we're kind of exhausted, and you can see this in our decision-making.”

Likely what Deilor means by this comment goes back to the initial game Fnatic played against KOO. As a result of several extended fights, Fnatic managed to acquire a 6,000 gold lead at 16 minutes. At this point, Kim “Reignover” Yeujin engaged under KOO’s bottom turret, then flashed for a re-engage after seeing the Teleport blocking his exit. Heo “Huni” Seunghoon packed in after him, and the rest of the team initially followed, then disengaged, resulting in a triple kill for Lee “KurO” Seohaeng’s Kassadin.

Fnatic made several similar errors following, including an instance where Lee “Hojin” Hojin got caught out, but due to double teleports KOO were able to collapse. This fight happened after Fnatic managed to eke back into the game with a successful Baron play, but their mistakes allowed KOO to equalize the gold with their own Baron.

In an interview where I spoke to AD Carry Martin “Rekkles” Larsson, I asked him about the forcing in Game 1. He said that the team didn’t even realize they were forcing so many fights until after the game. Looking back, he said “we were just forcing things to force things,” and “somewhere along the line, we just made...rushing decisions, and they ended up taking over the game super quickly.”

These rushed decisions can partly be attributed to a rough mentality. In the past — both in the European LCS and earlier in the World Championship Group Stage — we’ve seen Fnatic make questionable decisions from behind. Huni has awkwardly engaged with a disadvantage that perhaps the team couldn’t measure. It’s been much rarer for Fnatic to make these mistakes from ahead.

In the past, Reignover was known in Korea for rash decisions with a lead, earning the nickname “Game Over,” but again that behavior has been much less common this year. It’s possible that with a poor or exhausted mentality, this type of decision-making might re-emerge.

During the third game between Fnatic and KOO Tigers, caster Joshua “Jatt” Leesman commented that “Fnatic has been making a lot of superior calls, but KOO has just been playing better in the moment.” While I don’t completely agree with his assessment, there’s definitely a case to be made for it. Fnatic had a tendency to make strong early game calls, especially in the first game, where KOO have been known to struggle in the past. KOO came back with sharper mid-to-late game play where Fnatic looked much more scattered and confused. Typically, in the European LCS, we’re more used to crisper team fighting from Fnatic.

Rekkles commented that, in the best of five scenario, it was difficult for the team to come back after the first game loss. Their poor mentality seemed to get worse after that. As the games became increasingly one-sided in KOO’s favor, even after Fnatic recovered somewhat after a second game drafting blunder, it lends some credence to the idea that Fnatic’s mentality worsened over time.

It isn’t, however, completely fair to say that Fnatic would have won the series if they had only maintained a proper mentality. Going into the series, I predicted a KOO Tigers victory based on the team’s ability to draft well and take advantage of a few of Fnatic's errors in the mid game.

One of the strongest cases in KOO’s favor is the double Teleport strategy. Until this semifinal matchup, Fnatic had yet to face a team at the World Championship with a strong grasp of double Teleport execution. Though EDward Gaming employed double Teleport (and in one case triple Teleport), in all of their games against Fnatic, their execution failed. In Game 1 of quarterfinals, EDward Gaming could have won off the top side Gragas play had they used their Teleports intelligently.

KOO used double Teleport strategies very well to create collapse opportunities in fights. In both the examples I mentioned where Fnatic forced fights in losing scenarios, KOO used their Teleports around Fnatic to trap and isolate members of their team. In the first instance, Reignover’s seeming “panic flash” occurred after a Teleport began behind him.

Fnatic were clearly not used to the double Teleport situation presented. Even with a strong mentality, teams in the past have reacted poorly to unfamiliar situations, and many of Fnatic’s engages could have been fruitful had KOO only brought one top lane Teleport. Fnatic’s early game 4-3 kill victories resulted from extended fights where Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten had time to walk across the map to the fight. KOO picked up the early kills by using their Teleports, but didn’t have the damage to wipe out most of Fnatic before reinforcements arrived until later into the game.

Eventually, KOO were able to clean out Fnatic’s existing members before players without Teleport arrived and swung the game. Failing to account properly for KurO’s ability to arrive at the fight at the same time as Song “Smeb” Kyungho had a strong impact on the series’ outcome. KOO made up for persistent CS deficits by always securing an early man advantage in fights.

In addition, KOO did have crisp drafting. Drafting decisions can be affected by a wearied or poor mentality. In his interview, Deilor made a point of acknowledging Fnatic’s poor drafting in Game 2, but emphasized that mentality overall had a larger impact. Game 2 especially featured Fnatic picking Skarner into Veigar and Tahm Kench, drastically limiting Fnatic’s engage options. Game 3 also saw a Sivir pick to counter the Ashe engage, but if a team’s goal is to use their AD carry to block engage, that can often be a risky decision.

It’s hard to say if drafting mistakes resulted from a poor mentality. Considering KOO’s drafting has seemed stronger throughout the tournament than Fnatic’s, it’s likely that it played a larger factor than Deilor acknowledged. Deilor still agreed a baseline successful draft as well as a stronger mentality would have been necessary for Fnatic to win.

Even though I did predict a KOO victory, it isn’t unreasonable to say that this quarterfinal was winnable for Fnatic had they come into the matchup stronger and not attempted to force so many fights against a double Teleport composition. While I’m not sure whether Deilor intended to be dismissive of KOO’s successes, it’s very possible Fnatic’s coach preferred to believe his team had control over their own destiny in some way. In the short five minute interview with Travis, Deilor spoke more about his team’s problems and preferred to think of the matchup as winnable under different circumstances.

On a different day, it’s likely Fnatic could have beaten the KOO Tigers. They didn’t this weekend. Mentality very likely played a large factor in their loss, but even with confidence and more careful play, Fnatic may have still stumbled in the draft phase and made poor decisions against double Teleport.

KOO won. For now, that’s what matters.

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