Contractz talks Golden Guardians improving, integrating FBI and Huhi

Olivia Richman Published 29/07/2019

Golden Guardians dominated OpTic Gaming today, resulting in another win for the team this weekend. The underdog squad is well on their way to the playoffs, and well on their way to not being considered the underdog for much longer.

Juan “Contractz” Garcia spoke with WIN.gg about his team’s slow rise up the ranks of North American League of Legends and why people are wrong to underestimate them now.

How do you feel about the win over OpTic today?

I thought it was okay. I think we played our mid-game not so well. We started Baron three or four times, but didn’t talk about if we should tank it or not. We had to reset, come out from the base. I think we have to better identify what we have to do in mid-game.

All of the analysts were pretty sure that OpTic was going to take this one. How does it feel to prove them wrong?

I mean, it’s always nice to prove people wrong. They have low expectations. When we do well, they’re really surprised. But overall, I don’t care too much about what analysts say. We are focused on ourselves and our own gameplay.

Why do you think people have these low expectations?

I think we just haven’t been playing too well recently. We were in a slump the past two or three weeks. It’s understandable why they think OpTic would win, based on the past few weeks. They’ve been doing pretty decently, despite the loss yesterday. But our practice coming into this week has been a lot better and we’re being more proactive in our play.

OpTic is known for having control of the map. Was there a plan to deal with their style?

We didn’t have a plan specifically for their style. But our game plan was to play for early dragons and generally play around our bot side early. We have Kai’Sa. Our skirmishing in early game is pretty good compard to theirs. They have weaker champs that rely more on item spikes.

That was our plan going into early game, and we executed that decently well. We got a couple games this weekend off bottom and early dragons.

There was a really successful team fight before you took Baron, but you did lose Froggen in it. How did you know it was the right time to engage with OpTic?

I actually think we didn’t have a lot of engage angles. Our comp doesn’t have any engage really. But they gave us the fights by engaging on his first. That’s more ideal for us, since I’m Trundle. I don’t really go in, but I can ult when people come in on me. They can’t really kill me that way. Eventually, when we got baron, we don’t have to engage. Then we just take turns with Baron so it was pretty easy.

You were also able to defeat 100 Thieves yesterday. Huhi said that he was confident your team could take them on. What do you think helped you guys defeat 100 Thieves?

We just had a better draft than them. They had to snowball hard early game. We weren’t giving them any angles and were playing well around their vision. Once we get into team fights, we had a clear draft advantage over them.

Are you confident that your team will make it to the playoffs?

Yeah, I think we’re feeling pretty confident. We won’t be underestimating the teams next week though. We have a lot to improve on. Cloud9 will be a tough opponent, even though they haven’t been playing too well. But we have to be on our A-game if we want to 2-0 next week.

You’ve been with the Golden Guardians for a while now. What have you seen improve with the team during that time?

I think a lot of things. The management has been getting better, the coaching staff. It’s the everyday flow of GGS. We have a lot more structure and a lot less downtime.

Nowadays, it’s just easier to actually focus on League.

Huhi and FBI joined in July. How has it been having two new people on the team in the middle of the LCS season?

I think it’s pretty good. They’re nice guys and we get along really well. It was easy to integrate them into the team. There were growing pains for sure, in order to get 100 percent comfortable with each other. But after the few weeks of us slumping, we were able to just say what’s on our mind to each other without anyone being offended or getting hurt by it.

What do you like about being a part of the Golden Guardians?

I think we’re all just five great players. Everyone gets along really well. We just joke around in-game a lot. If a game is going badly, we’ll say, “This is when we have to go monkey. If we keep farming we’re not gonna do anything.” We just get along really well and it’s always a fun time to play together.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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