Origen Kold has some advice for NA teams after Rift Rivals

Europe was crowned the Rift Rivals champions for the second year in a row.

The grand finals saw Team Liquid defeat G2 Esports, but it wasn’t enough to hold back the LEC. Still, the performance made Origen realize that North America may have more to offer than the team previously thought. 

WIN.gg spoke with Origen’s jungler Jonas “Kold” Andersen about the LEC victory and his advice to North American teams after their Rift Rivals performarnce. 

How do you feel about the LEC taking home the Rift Rivals trophy? 

Kold: It’s always great to win. It feels good. It doesn’t feel super satisfying.

Why do you say that? 

I would have loved to, at least personally, played against Team Liquid in a more serious environment. We were hoping to play them today. 

What made you want to face Team Liquid? 

I would have loved to at least play them when both teams were trying their hardest. It would give us a better grasp of how good they are. They showed a good performance today. But other teams didn’t show as good of performances. It’s easier to say EU is better than NA, but I would have loved to see how we personally would do against the best NA team. I think it was clear the EU region would win in five games, pretty much no matter what.

Was it clear to you even before Rift Rivals began? 

It wasn’t so clear beforehand. Not for me at least. It was just when we got here and practiced against them. Then playing on stage, it felt like we had a big advantage. 

Why weren’t you sure until this weekend? 

It’s always hard to evaluate how strong teams are before you play them. I knew that the three teams that EU sent were all very good. But we knew Team Liquid would be a team who could compete against all of us.

I wasn’t as sure about Cloud9 and Team SoloMid. But C9 had some issues with illness. So it was kind of hard to evaluate. But it’s clear TL could compete. But the other two teams had a much harder time. 

What do you think was holding TSM back from winning their games? 

I feel like TSM definitely has some weaknesses in their early game. I think the way they utilize their jungler in early game is rather weak to me. It doesn’t seem like they have good plans, except for that one game against Fnatic where Akaadian played Elise. But you feel you have so much freedom playing against them. We could literally beat them by playing macro.

For me, it seems like there is some issues in their playstyles. They lack the fundamentals of League of Legends. 

On the other hand, how was your team able to excel? 

We just spend a lot of time discussing these things. We spend a lot of time watching replays of, not only ourselves, but the best teams in the world. Seeing how they set up the map. We have a lot of experienced players on our team. It just comes naturally if you have that knowledge. 

Do you think you learned anything from your matches at Rift Rivals? 

Honestly, we didn’t learn really much from the games themselves. At least, not from playing opponents. But you always learn some things from playing on stage in a competitive environment. We took some stuff away from this.

We had the mindset to experiment. We got some clarity on how good some of those things are, that we previously hadn’t tried. It was learning by doing it. You can do that in any environment if you have the right mindset. 

Now that Rift Rivals is over, what will the team be doing up until LEC resumes? 

We have two more days in Los Angeles. We have some content we’re going to create. Then we have some free days back in Denmark. Then we’ll start practicing again for a week until LEC starts again.

It’s just a lot of traveling back and forth, getting ready for the LEC. We still have a lot of things we have to do to get to the World Championship. The grind doesn’t really stop because this tournament is over. 

What will you do tomorrow in Los Angeles? 

We came a little early to LA, planning to spend the first day outdoors. We were expecting some good weather, but the sun wasn’t shining at all. Tomorrow we have a full day off. I expect us to go to the beach. Get some relaxation time in. Other than that, it’s not often you get a free day in LA doing whatever you want. We just want to enjoy the day. 

Is there anything you want to say to the North American teams? 

You have a good team in Team Liquid. You should learn from them. If you want to compte at international tournaments, you have to not only get to their level, but boost yourself even further. That not only comes from grinding the game, but watching what other teams are doing. There’s some very easy things to pick up on, at least in my opinion. It’s back to practice for North America. 

And anything you want to say to your fans? 

I hope they enjoyed Rift Rivals as much as we did. They got to see some new sides of Origen. Hopefully we can bring this back to Europe and stay at the top of Europe.

Thanks for the support.