Team ROCCAT’s fate had already been sealed heading into Week 9 of the European League Championship Series. ROCCAT has been in last place for much of the split and as a result has been sent to the relegation tournament Thursday, where it will play Millenium in the elimination round.

Slingshot’s Alexandre “DrPuppet” Weber had the chance to talk with ROCCAT jungler Jonas “Memento” Elmarghichi about ROCCAT’s Week 9 games, his LCS experience with ROCCAT and the meta going into the relegation matches.

Alexandre “DrPuppet” Weber: You came from the Challenger Series qualifiers, to the Challenger Series and now you ended up on ROCCAT playing for the first time in LCS. How has your time been at ROCCAT?

Jonas “Memento” Elmarghichi: It’s really good, actually. I feel really excited to play in the LCS, and I’m learning quite a lot. So I’m really enjoying it, and I could learn so much game wise. Before you join the LCS, you have the imagination all the LCS players are some sort of mechanical, or some kind of gods in general, and when you are there you suddenly realize they are just normal human beings like everyone else. I used to be really threatened by the LCS players that they are so good, because I thought they are some kind of gods. When I realized that (they’re not), I could play a lot more comfortable on stage.

AW: How long did you need to adjust to the LCS environment?

JE: It only took me one week. The first week was a lot for me to process, because they messaged me on a Saturday that I’m going to play in the LCS, and “We are flying you over tomorrow” on a Sunday morning, and you are playing at 3 p.m. scrims against LCS teams. I also only scrimmed Challenger teams and some Turkish teams and some LCS before. I couldn’t pack my bag because I was so confused; it was simply a lot to process. That moment of knowing I’m going to play in the LCS felt unreal. So I want to stay in the LCS and just become really good.

AW: You guys tied against the Fnatic, but in the Game 1 Fnatic played a fairly unusual composition for the last patches. How was it to play against Fnatic’s protect the Kog’Maw composition?

JE: We weren’t ready for it. We played against some in scrims, but they have been so out of meta for a long time that we weren’t prepared to face it in the match. So we got caught out of surprise, so we didn’t know how to approach it, because if you don’t get to the Kog’Maw and kill him immediately, he auto attacks you to death. Even if you manage to get to the Kog’maw, the Tahm Kench can still use E on him to save him. So we had like a mental block and didn’t know what to do. So we decided to take some fights and risk it. Some ended up doing well for us, but after they took Baron it was over.

AW: So how did you guys approach Game 2 between the games? Did you find some answers in case they bring out a different type of protect the AD composition?

JE: Honestly, we discussed a few possibilities before the game, but only Kog’Maw does disgusting damage. He can literally burst someone with his auto attacks. Would they pick any other AD Carry we would have been fine with it.

AW: Did you guys expect them to play a protect the AD comp, since they decided to play with their sub Werlyb, who is famous for his Jax and mainly a carry top lane player?

JE: So we knew that Werlyb isn’t the typical tank top lane player, so we expected him to play any kind of carry top laner like Fiora, Jax and even Gangplank does the case, but he didn’t have much impact with it after the lane swap.

AW: You guys decided to play the Ryze in the second game, what did you guys prepare to be able to play that pick?

JE: We literally didn’t prepare it much. We only played it twice in scrims and Betsy said he wasn’t doing too well with it in solo queue, but we had some success with it in scrims so we decided to play it. Like Ryze gets super strong if he gets a lead early and his ultimate is super confusing, so we wanted to cheese Fnatic. We thought Fnatic didn’t have any experience playing against so we went for it even though we also didn’t really know how to play him really well.

AW: Could be the meta changing into a more protect the AD style, and will we see more Ryze’s picked?

JE: I think Ryze is going to be in the meta soon, as soon people start figuring him out more, because he is really op. About the protect the AD carry compositions, I don’t think we are going to see Jinx played. I think only Kog’Maw, who is insanely broken right now.

AW: What about Tristana? She has seen more and more play lately.

JE: I think Tristana is an answer to protect the AD Carry compositions in general. I think Tristana is better than Kog’Maw late game because of the ultimate and the extra mobility she has over Kog’Maw. Plus the ranges are almost equal, so she can kill in about three auto attacks in the late and keep him from auto attacking with the ultimate. So that’s why people are picking her into that matchup, but in general I think Tristana is a decent champion. I wonder why she isn’t picked that often. However Jhin and Lucian are still a higher priority.

AW: What do you do think about the lane swap changes?

JE: So I didn’t really think about it too much, since we already got the confirmation that the relegation matches will be played on patch 6.14. So we ignored the patch completely for now and are focusing on improving in the current patch.

AW: Do you have any shout outs left to fans, family and friends?

JE: I want to thank everyone supporting me, it is really to have people supporting me and I really appreciate that, so thank you very much.

Photos courtesy of Riot Games.