As the gauntlet kings, Cloud9 once again finds themselves in the World Championship Play-In Stage. As one of the stronger teams in the Play-In Stage, it’s C9’s stage to dominate. Despite that, Cloud9 actually had a close series with Japanese representative, DetonatioN FocusMe.

We chatted with Cloud9’s rookie jungler, Robert “Blaber” Huang about the game and his first World Championship appearance.

First, I’m going to ask you about that bit of a clown fiesta in your first game? Why was that game so close?

So, I think they played pretty well, but we had a lot of early and mid game mistakes. I remember, one time I died invading blue buff and another time when we were doing rift herald, so that set us back a bit. Mid-game, we lost a couple of fights and they ended up getting baron off one of the fights we lost.

There were a lot of misplays that allowed them to get an advantage, but everyone believed the whole time we could win. Eventually in the late game, we played off Lissandra flanks and TP wards so that’s pretty much ow they came back into the game when they were sieging.

You left the Ziggs up and did an interesting thing with the Lissandra flex and Irelia mid. What was the thought process behind that?

I don’t actually remember… well we talked about it before the game that he plays Heimerdinger and Ziggs, but I don’t think we were too worried about Ziggs. I’m not quite sure, but Lissandra has been a pick that has been around in Korean solo queue and scrims for a while. I think it’s a pick that you can flex both top and mid — it’s strong in both lanes.

That’s pretty much what we talked about. When they picked the Ziggs, we were just talking about what counters could be used against it since we wanted to send Lissandra top instead of against Ziggs.

You guys still had a pretty good day overall. How does it feel to go from academy to the Worlds Play-In Stage with Cloud9?

Firstly, it’s pretty unexpected for me. I feel really good about it and I’m excited, but I don’t really know if I deserved to be here, I guess. I expected to play in academy for a half-year to a year before I played in LCS, but I played academy for three or four weeks before LCS. It does feel really nice to be at Worlds and help my team though.

When you say that, maybe not necessarily insecure, but do you ever feel like you’re not ready competing at this kind of level? Or do you just feel confident?

At the beginning, I didn’t feel super confident — I didn’t feel I was super ready even when Reapered believed in me. But now, I definitely feel more confident in play and I do think I can play at the World Stage.

You’re a new player, but I talked to Jensen recently and he said you play more like an experienced player. What do you think about that? Do you work well with Jensen and that you really fit in with the team?

Yeah, I think I fit in. Cloud9 as a whole, is a sort of like a family. We are all really close and really good friends. I do think that I work really well with Jensen. He has helped me learn a lot about mid/jungle synergy and I think we use our advantages pretty well together. It has definitely been a pretty good experience playing with him.

This is your first international competition. What is it like to be able to play against new junglers in solo queue, scrims, and at Worlds. Do any impress or are there any you want to play against?

The Korean junglers that have impressed me are Score and Tarzan — I think they play really well. From solo queue, I played against Peanut a couple of times and he did really well against me — I think he’s a good jungler too. Yeah, I’m always excited to play against better junglers from different regions and hopefully I continue to in groups.

How do you feel about play-ins at this point — how do you feel about the strength of emerging regions and do you think you and Cloud9 are going to make it into the group stage?

Emerging regions looked decently strong today. I do think that the four major regions will make it out of play-ins. Hopefully we make it out of play-ins. I do think emerging regions are getting stronger every year, but we haven’t seen the other two major regions play. Either way, I think we have a good chance getting out of groups.

Actually, as the other major region — what do you think about G-Rex? I don’t know how much of their games you watched, but what did you think about them today?

I watched both of their games. They looked really strong. Gambit was supposed to be one of the stronger wildcard teams, but they beat them pretty convincingly. Not super convincingly, but they still took advantage of them. Empt2y actually impressed me today. He played really well on Skarner and Gragas. They seemed pretty strong for sure.

Did you know that he’s technically an NA jungler?

Yeah, I heard he’s Canadian or something.

Yep, he’s got that NA rep.

Yep (laughs).

Lastly, it’s your first World Championship — the first time all of Reddit will be watching you during the World Championship. Do you have any words for the NA fans supporting you and the ones that will inevitably be upset?

What do you mean? We’re winning worlds, dude (laughs). Anyway, yeah, thanks for supporting us and keep cheering us on through the play-ins and hopefully groups.

Photo: (Riot Games, lolesports)