FLY Inspired on changes to the game and pro play: "Worse teams now have an easier way of snowballing the game"

The first season of League of Legends has been the talk of the town these past few weeks. Atakhan, Feats of Strength, a new Summoner's Rift... the new additions are endless. Changes to the game, however, affect professional players to a whole new level.

Strafe Esports got the chance to talk to talk to Kacper "Inspired" Sloma, jungler for FlyQuest, prior to the start of the inaugural LTA season in North America. During the conversation, Inspired had the chance to discuss how the most recent changes to the game are expected to affect pro play, as well as how having several new objectives affects him as a jungler more specifically.

Inspired and FlyQuest won the last LCS trophy. Now, they are ready for the LTA. (Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

*The following interview has been edited slightly for clarity and length.

[Strafe] To start off, could you give me your initial thoughts on the new season of League and how you expect it might affect pro play?

"I mean my first idea about the new season was that the the game is gonna be way more volatile because of the objective spawning at 20 minutes, which is more squishy than the Baron used to be at 20 minutes. Which means it's easier to take, so the winning team will usually just start it.

And then Nash also spawning at 25, which means at 25 minutes your carries have better items and they are able to actually do the Nash. So, I thought that it's gonna be like a lot of fighting for the objectives, like objectives are very important, also because of Feats of Strength. So, it's like really important to fight for Grubs and then get First Tower and play for Rift Herald at 16 minutes.

That's kind of how it looks like so far. And, so far the game looks very snowbally. Like the team that gets the Atakhan and the Nash pretty much wins the games like under 30 minutes. But I'm not sure if it's gonna happen like that on stage, because I feel like on-stage, maybe people will play a bit safer and there will be less gold in the game, which means the objectives won't be as easy to take as they are in practice, because in practice it seems like everyone is just killing each other.

Then everyone is strong so objectives like Atakhan or Nash just die pretty much one shot and then the game is pretty easy to finish. So Yeah, I'm looking forward to see if the stage is gonna be similar to scrims or it's gonna look a bit different."

[Strafe] A lot of the changes made in the new season involve the jungler directly. There's a new Baron timer, a new neutral objective, there's increased prior on first blood. Do you think junglers in the LTA will feel a kind of increase in pressure this new season?

"I mean, I do think that the jungler can be way more active now than it used to. I feel like the macro game doesn't really exist that much for the jungler especially, like past 16 minutes. Because at 16 minutes you have Herald that usually teams play for, then at 20 minutes as a jungler you kind of have to be on the same side of the map where Atakhan is because if you show yourself on the other side of the map it's really hard for you to get through the whole map, so the enemy team can just rush the objective.

So it seems like you just have to show up on the objectives and be ready to fight all the time, which means that you don't really have time to either farm too much or try to look for picks on side lane and stuff like that. It's more like you're forced to teamfight.

So, maybe people that are better at teamfighting and have better mechanics in the skirmishes will like the meta more. Because, yeah, I think the game should in theory be faster, that's how it is looking so far now. But I'm not sure yet.

I don't really like the meta too much because I kind of liked playing the a bit slower game and waiting for enemies to make mistakes and try to surprise people with some sneaky engage somewhere on side lane or catch someone in the jungle or maybe play for both sides while Nash is up while now I feel like it's kind of harder to do."

Do you feel like this new season with all the new objectives forces junglers to take specific routes and takes away from the possibility for more creative pathing?

"I feel like it doesn't really affect the early game too much, I think still as a jungler you just want to get as strong as possible in the early game to be strong at the Grubs fight. I feel like if you manage to get the lead in the jungle early just by better pathing and getting a bit more farm, you can maybe get level 6 off of the first Grub and that way you can impact the fight on the Grubs really easily. Like, if you are level 6 on a jungler and enemy isn't 6, you most of the time will win the fight. And if you manage to find that angle you get a big lead for your team, so I don't think the whole new season changed the early game too much.

I think the first blood change does matter for the Feats of Strength. But I feel like it's not easy to get the First Blood usually when you gank in the early game. It's just to get a flash off of the enemy champion, and then you can manage to have an easier fight at Scuttle or on the Grubs. It's very rare that you just gank a lane and get a free kill at level 3 because I think you have to surprise enemies really hard. They have to really not be ready for it in order to get a kill. Or you have to have really strong champs for level 3 ganks, which means that enemies will usually play way safer than usual. So yeah, I don't think the changes are that big for the jungle for the early levels."

You guys have proven to be such an such an adaptable team. Would you say that all these changes coming in are almost like an advantage for you?

"I'm not sure. I feel like we are an adaptive team, but there are not that many changes that we need to adapt to. I feel like it's pretty straightforward, the changes this season. It's just like more fighting and that's pretty much it I don't think there are any changes. I mean, there are not many changes with items. There are not many changes with the mechanics of the game. It just feels like objectives are easier to take which means worse teams can have easier way of snowballing the game. Like, if enemy champions are just stronger than yours, they will just start the objective and there is not much you can do about it.

That's how it feels at least right now. So, that obviously favors the bad teams, because before when you played against a weaker team that didn't really know how to play side lanes well and how to apply pressure from side in order to get towers you could just stall out the game because they were not strong enough to do Nash well. Now, if they're stronger, they will just start an objective and force you to come there, and I think that just makes snowballing easier You guys obviously had such a strong showing at worlds, right."

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Image source: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games

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