You've had a few roster changes now. How's the new team feeling for you so far?

It's feeling really good so far. There's not really any arguing or any people not being on the same page. Everyone listens to the coach, and everyone listens to each other for the most part. We're just doing a lot of improving and it feels like we have a lot of room to grow.

There was a lot of talk during the offseason about the players on the team, about how they worked with the rest of the team and with the coaching staff, but you were pretty quiet. How did you see that stuff unfolding, and what's your take?

My take on it is that the whole debacle is pointless, and what's important is the teams, and performing, and competing. I try not to focus too much on the drama, it doesn't make me look good and it doesn't make the other person look good. It doesn't make anyone look good. And at the same time, it's not productive. There's a lot of better things to focus on, like my improvement and the team's improvement. I just try to focus on that and stay away from the drama. That's how I see that. TSM looked pretty good today, so hopefully we can meet them in the finals.

You brought HuHi as the starting midlaner and Stixxay is playing right now as ADC – have you had time to scrim much with this roster?

We didn't get as much scrimming as we'd like. We got a couple days against TSM, but no other teams would scrim us because it's on the patch that's not relevant to the majority of competitive play. So we only got a couple of days against TSM. It was minimal on the scrims, but I think we still got to a decent spot as a team and we understood where we are as a baseline.

The switch at ADC takes out someone who was very experienced and very distinct, both in personality and playstyle, and brings in someone who doesn't have a lot of experience on the big stage and is growing into this role. How has that transition been from your perspective so far?

It hasn't been that different, because Stixxay actually plays very similar to how Doublelift plays. I think he has a lot of potential and his attitude seems to be in the right place. He's got a different personality, that's for sure. But I think he's definitely gonna be one of the top AD Carries in the split. I can definitely see top 3 or top 2 by the end of the first split.

The NA LCS has really changed very suddenly with a lot of teams bringing in talent and a lot of owners changing hands. How does the new lineup look to you guys – is it gonna be even tougher than last year?

I think there's gonna be even more talented teams, because a lot more money's coming in and a lot of people from other regions are coming in, so it's going to be a little bit stronger. I feel like what's important that a lot of teams don't realize is having that actual synergy, having that teamwork built up. We've already got a pretty good foundation that these other teams are trying to build up, so it's our edge on these other teams.

CLG has always talked a lot about how rather than just importing top players they want to make sure that everyone has a good rapport with each other. You guys had HuHi throughout the whole last split – did you play with him a lot through that time?

We didn't really play much with him midlane, it was only the occasional scrim every once in a while. We mostly played with him for jungle when he was supposedly going to sub in for Xmithie if his visa didn't go through. Besides that we didn't really play with Jae that much, he mostly just watched our scrims and helped us.

And he was living with the team during that time?

Yeah, he's been living with the team the whole time since the summer split.

So you guys are all good friends, and it was pretty straightforward to just bring him in?

Yeah. I think it's really clear how much talent HuHi has.

Where do you think you guys have to grow with this roster right now, before the NA LCS starts or throughout the season, in order to reach the #1 position you guys had last split? What are your current deficiencies?

Well, the game's gonna be changing and we're still playing on an irrelevant patch for Season 6 so we're going to have to have some time to catch up. That'll probably be the biggest problem for us, but besides that we just gotta ease ourselves in. The whole season building up to playoffs is kind of just building up our players and our roster to be the best we can for Worlds and MSI.

And doing that will include working with a changed coaching staff; Coach Chris was cited a lot last split as being a big part of bringing the team together. How has the change worked for you guys so far?

We haven't brought in our new coaching staff yet, so we're just working with our head coach Tony. We don't have everyone in place, but it's going pretty well so far. Chris definitely was a benefit to the team, but as soon as we flesh out our coaching staff we'll be set again.

Just to talk about the game going forward a little bit – I know you've been focusing on IEM, but how much of the preseason have you been playing?

I've been playing the occasional game but I've been trying not to play too much because it's not relevant to now, but Jax seems really strong which is really nice because I love that champ, but he's probably gonna get nerfed.

A lot of people were saying that this was gonna be the patch of the AD Carries because of all the Marksman changes, but it seems like the top lane split pushers like Jax have been strong as well. How do you see the new patch overall and how CLG's going to play it?

It seems like people thought AD Carries were going to be stronger while in reality they only got a little bit stronger, as the top side of the map got even more important and a lot of these items are really strong on top laners. I feel like top laners are getting even stronger and I'm not exactly sure how that'll change the game but it'll be interesting to find out.

So aside from Jax, who else do you think is really strong right now for top lane?

I think Nidalee is really good, but I don't think a lot of people play her. I think she will take a lot more skill than playing Jax, Irelia, Renekton, Fiora, so you probably won't see as much Nidalee at the start, but pretty soon you'll be starting to see a lot of Nidalee top.

What would you recommend for aspiring top Nidalee players to build?

You build Rageblade on every champion you can, so Rageblade Nidalee is pretty good.

Teleport was the big thing for the whole split, and it got a bit of a nerf. Do you think it's still going to be pretty much essential all the time, or is there any chance we'll be moving back to Ignite top at all?

As a top laner you can always dream that Ignite comes back, but you can't discount how strong Teleport is in a competitive aspect so it's here to stay unless some big change happens to Teleport. The nerf was nice, like a little nice nerf to TP, but they need to do something more than that if they want there to be variance.

Before Season 6 actually starts there'll probably be a lot more iteration – a lot more nerfs and changes. If you could talk to the Riot balance team right now, what suggestions would you give them?

Nerf Teleport, nerf Rageblade, and... honestly, I need to play on it more. Besides that, buff support itemization. Support itemization and support strength is pretty weak right now. I feel like the sightstones and all that don't really make your item choices that impactful and I feel like supports could have more impact not only in their item builds but in their impact in the game.

Just to finish up, you're no longer ZionSpartan – you're Darshan. What brought on that change?

As I've matured as a person I've kinda realized that I don't really like my gamertag that much. It wasn't that special of a reason that I made that gamertag in the first place. I just prefer being on a more personal basis with my friends and the people I know. I'd like to extend that same friendliness to my fanbase and everyone else, so I prefer being called Darshan over anything else.

Gonna have to update all the “teacher” memes, then.

Yeah, and part of that was the teacher memes dying out. Hopefully that gets swept under the rug.

Lastly, do you have any final words, shoutouts, anything you wanna say to your fans?

I wanna say thank you guys for supporting me and supporting CLG for the coming years, even through all the changes and ups and downs. Hopefully we can make you proud at IEM.

Enjoy These Interviews?

We have plenty of exclusive interviews with your favorite players so why don't you register on LiquidLegends.net and keep up-to-date with the discussion on our forums!