Smoothie says the key to winning over EG was to stop trolling

Olivia Richman Published 09/02/2020

Counter Logic Gaming broke their losing streak after beating Evil Geniuses this weekend.

In a segment before the match began, Raymond “Wiggily” Griffin admitted that he was having difficulties communicating with his team. Speaking with the jungler after the interview, he told the LCS talent crew that they had won today thanks to “over-communicating.”

This was something that Andy “Smoothie” Ta was quick to agree with in a post-match interview with WIN.gg. The support main discussed language barriers, improving their drafts, and the problem with Monday Night League.

How do you feel about your first Spring Split win?

Smoothie: I’m feeling pretty good. We kind of handicapped ourselves for the first four games. Not to excuse our losses, but we were playing extremely hard-to-execute comps that have to snowball early game. Our early game plans fell through. In team fights we had to be really, really good. During that time, we weren’t good enough.

Now we’re playing comps that suit our style more and champions that fit our playstyle. It’s been going pretty well for us.

Now your team is focused on totally different comps?

Yeah, we kinda stopped trolling. We realized we were just trolling the drafts last week. So we started practicing differently and realied we’re fine.

Wiggily said you “over-communicated” this game. Do you feel the same way?

I came in expecting no communication.

Why’s that?

From what I heard before joining CLG, the only person who spoke up and was a leader was Wiggily. So I expected just him to say anything. But everyone’s learning slowly.

There were issues before regarding language barriers. Their confidence in their English is not so good when they scrim so they’re hesitant to say some things. It’s hard but we’re working on it and it’s getting better over time.

Biofrost was known as having a strong voice on the team in previous years. Are you taking a similar role this season?

From what I heard, he didn’t have that strong a voice. Wiggily did a lot of shot calling last year. I can see how that works because he does talk a lot with me. The misconception is that I flood comms, that’s my trigger. We bounce ideas off each other really well.

This team doesn’t have a lot of vocal players. So having Wiggily, it’s nice having someone to bounce ideas off of. I’m a shot caller because I like my carries to focus on carrying. I like to do the other important tasks. Everyone is doing their part.

How do you like playing with Stixxay?

Playing with Stixxay is a pretty big difference from my previous AD carries. We’re really similar as people. We do a lot of similar things and live similar lives. That’s kinda weird. Like our interests and what we do outside of League are pretty similar. I ask him about real life stuff all the time.

When it comes to League of Legends, he’s very instinctual. He relies on instinct a lot rather than doing things by the book. When he sees something he thinks is right he’ll do it. He’ll be the first guy to try and outplay you. He’s really confident in his mechanics and he always is the guy doing the clutch play. He’s really reliable at it when he’s playing well.

I’m the opposite. I lean more towards doing what statistically has a better outcome. I think we’ll be a good bot lane together. Our contrasting playstyles compliment each other pretty well.

Why do you think you guys were able to communicate with each other better today?

We were comfortable on stage today. We made some small individual mistakes, like dying level 2 mid, but we played pretty well and close to scrims. I’m pretty happy about that.

What do you think is holding your team back this season?

If I’m being perfectly honest, I think it was our drafts. We were playing comps that are particularly bad in North America. Being realistic, every comp is playable and you can still win with them.

But with our skill level currently,- not saying we can’t get there at some point, but we’re not going to be perfect the first few weeks of LCS. Now that we have a plan in draft it’s a lot easier. It’s a lot more fitting to how North America functions.

You’ll be playing Immortals on Monday. How do you think that match will go?

We practiced against Immortals a lot in the past. They’re okay, but we actually had good results against them. I’m going into that game pretty confident. I think my team will do really well against them.

How are you feeling about Monday Night League?

If it does yield good viewership and it’s good for the fanbase that’s great. We play for the fans.

The only one issue is that pros don’t like it because scrimming on Sunday instead of playing two straight games in a row is kind of weird. It throws off our schedule. The following week, if you want a break on Tuesday, you only have three days of scrims. It’s hard to accept. We want to practice as much as possible.

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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