Esport – League of Legends – Targamas: “We have revenge to take”

Raphaël “Targamas” Crabbé agreed to exchange a few words with The Team at the end of his victory against Astralis. The next day, she unexpectedly defeated the team in first place in the table, Rogue, ending her week with a perfect score and getting back into serious contention for the top 6.

“Congratulations on your victory against Astralis. What does the end of your losing streak mean to you?
It’s a relief, because we were four losses in a row and it was starting to become stressful to see that we were falling in the rankings. Of course, there are still games. There’s no point in dwelling on the ranking now, but it’s still weird to see it. We started the season first, then we went down every week until we were ninth. So it’s nice to have this victory to regain confidence.

Astralis (which is in sixth place, with Misfits Gaming and Fnatic) still pushed you around in this part.
We respect all the teams: we are the only one to have lost against BDS, which is last, and against SK, which was ninth. Astralis have also proven that they can win against big teams. This part did not convince us, we did not play very well, but we remain reassured by finishing on the backdoor. It was a very important victory, we’re getting back into the race and now it’s up to us to prove ourselves for the future.

You come out of two dazzling seasons (finished at the top of the French championship since 2020), this series of defeats disconcerted you?
It is sure that I was not accustomed to this kind of feelings. Afterwards, at the MSI (mid-season international championship), we had a fairly similar situation when we started the rumble stage, then where we scare ourselves by losing many matches in a row, to play everything in the end on the last day. At that time, everyone realized the bad situation and redoubled their efforts. We were already doing it before, but there, the defeats were a slap in the face for us and we are giving ourselves four times more to try to reverse the trend.

Did this involve changes in your training, or rather a solidification of what you had started in the spring?
We tried to start again on the basis of what made us win in Spring. I think we got a little lost on the way. We were negligent in things that we missed a lot and it got worse and worse with the defeats and the loss of confidence, which is important when playing on stage. The dynamic in the team has changed a bit with regard to our compositions, but also our interactions in game, and we tried to discuss what worked well in Spring to use the same recipe and in terms of solo queue, personally, I try to play more than usual. We had a discussion to start from scratch.

You also showed more confidence in your match against Astralis, in terms of draft and its execution at the start of the game.
There were a lot of changes with the new game update, and we could see what was happening in LPL (china championship). It promotes picks that we love a lot. Rasmus “caPs” Winther on Taliyah, for example; he is very happy to find a champion who had died in recent years. And being active early in the game is something we try to improve. In LPL, and even for MAD Lions in Europe, this is their forte. You have to adapt: ​​the game seems to be heading towards earlys more active, even at the level of the first drakes with the next patch.

This meta change (general game strategy) is the new breath you needed?
Yes, clearly. There were many different styles: some teams played more mid scalingCorki or mids playmakers like Lissandra… and we didn’t know where to turn. Having about twenty training sessions a week, it’s hard to know what works best for us, but also in general in the game. botlane with priorities on Kalista, Aphelios, or even Lucian-Nami. We looked for our own style, even if we were always satisfied with what we did with Victor “Flakked” Tortosa (team botlaner); the problem was transitioning that on stage, especially in best-of-one (one-point matches).

Can we expect to see your botlane Senna-Yasuo come back, played a lot in competitive since the arrival of the patch?
We played it a lot at the start of the season, which means that we are banned now. The problem with Senna is that you can play her with a lot of things and that directly makes the draft difficult to predict. We would like to play the pickI particularly like him, he is one of my favorite champions and Flakked also likes to play a lot of things with him, but we are banned out of respect for us.

What did you do during the break week at the beginning of July?
I stayed in Berlin (club location) with a few teammates and continued to train. I’m not convinced of our level on this Split, so I don’t want to disconnect from the game too much, even if the season could potentially be long with the play offs and maybe the world.

Are you not afraid of burnout?
No, it doesn’t scare me. To participate in the World Cup is my dream. I watch it every year for ten years… it’s like playing the World Cup in Football! And it’s a dream that could come true now. Beyond qualifying, the dream is also to win them; so until I achieve this goal, I will always keep the motivation.

So the MSI was a taste. Participating in it gave you a boost?
Make my first international tournament, even if we took a 3-0 in our best-of-five against T1 (winning three-point matchs), it motivated me, yes… for a lot of people, it means that it’s dead for Europe this year because of a difference in level. But I see it as an encouraging 3-0 because we know what we did wrong in the tournament and the preparation; I know personally what I need to change, and we can work on it if we qualify for the World Cup.

I see it a bit like when we lost our best-of-five against Fnatic in the Spring play-offs, where many said that Fnatic would win them, barely putting us in the top 3: we, in backstage, we knew what we had to change to win against them, and we proved it when we met them in the semis and won 3-0. I have the same feeling vis-à-vis the MSI.

You can seriously think about it, especially since Europe gets an extra place at the World Cup This year.
We had the information at the start of the split and when we started it 3-0, we had the impression of reaching the goal… even if that didn’t mean much yet, in the end. We had a return to reality, and finally, we have to fight even to qualify for the play-offs. Everything in its time ; we are aiming for the play-offs and if we get there, we will be confident for the future.

What are your expectations for your matches next week?
Both matches will be important for qualification in play offs. We have revenge to take against BDS, and Vitality is a direct opponent in the race for the top 6. We will try to continue our momentum, apply what we train on and gain more confidence on stage. That’s what we missed a lot in defeats and even now; don’t be afraid to take some fights. There, we have a lot of pressure because we absolutely must not lose the next matches. But I think that if we manage to secure a few victories and a qualification, that’s where we can break free. »