Despite a 3-0 loss to H2K in the League of Legends World Championship quarterfinals, Albus NoX Luna has been the talk of the tournament through three weeks. Slingshot’s Vince Nairn caught up with Vladyslav “aMiracle” Scherbyna to reflect on the season and what this worlds run meant to him and his team.

Vince Nairn: I know it was a tough match today, but how would you sum up this experience overall?

Vladyslav “aMiracle” Scherbyna: Well, each game in this tournament was a big experience for us because it’s the first time we made it out of wild card to (worlds). So the level of opponents grow up as well, so we took a lot of experience during this tournament, and I guess it will hope us a lot next season.

Kira told me during groups that the early game was difficult for you guys a lot during the season and you were a lot better the last two weeks. What kind of happened tonight, as H2K seemed to get good early-game leads?

VS: Pretty much, the most of our advantage from other games was because our jungler didn’t fall behind. The enemy jungler, because of that, he didn’t make a lot of plays. That’s why during the group stage our early game was good. The lanes weren’t losing. Our jungler might pressure. This way, we took a lot of advantage in early game. N this quarterfinal vs. H2K, Jankos did a really good job to remove our jungler from the map. So every time we wanted to force some stuff, the enemy knew where our jungler was. This is part of the reason why we couldn’t win bot because three games on bot were really close, but it wasn’t enough. The enemy jungler was the main reason we didn’t take an advantage.

VN: You guys really became the story of this tournament and got really popular kind of overnight. Did anything change for you seeing all the support people were giving you?

VS: For me, not really anything changed, only a couple of interviews after the games. I don’t use a lot of social media, so it didn’t make a difference. But in general for our team, we’ve had a really good opportunity to show ourselves at the world tournament. So we actually got a lot of fans now. Many sponsors looked at us, and we could make a good contribution now in the region. As far as changes, the number of interviews went up a lot. Our jungler and support are using Twitter like 24/7, checking updates about our team and talking to our fans. Likkrit checks Reddit every day, so that’s kind of all.

VN: I know you said not a lot has changed, but what did it mean to you to see the entire community really get behind you guys?

VS: It feels really good because every time we walk on the stage, or even when we lost (to H2K), everyone was screaming “ANX!” That’s kind of good to feel that people trust in you and people believe that you can win no matter who’s your opponent. It helps us to feel ourselves more comfortable.

VN: And what does this experience mean for you guys going forward? You mentioned sponsors and stuff like that. But what does this mean for you guys going forward?

VS: First of all, we solved a lot of our mistakes, a lot of things we should work on. It’s not about the sponsor money on our team. It’s more about our players and our team to improve ourselves to show the better result. Other things, I guess is just a bonus and motivation to don’t stop wherever you’re at.

Cover photo courtesy of Riot Games