Chronicle: "I think we were clueless"

Note: This article is a text port of our live interview with Chronicle. The video interview can be found here.

The first question I'd like to ask is regarding the time between your last match and today. In the four days that you've had downtime since your opening match against BLG, what are some of the things that the team has been working on?

"To be fair, we were just preparing for this match of course and trying to get used more with our Abyss comp. We were also trying to adapt to what they will probably try to ban against us and what they'll pick against us in terms of maps. At the end, it didn't go well because I think at some point they kind of outplayed us with this one and also they slightly changed their gameplay on both maps which we played today, so we also got outplayed in that."

Today's matchup against DRX is the fourth time you've faced each other in a Champions match. With a current 3-1 record over DRX in Champions. Did you have any thoughts on going against them once more?

"To be honest, no thoughts. I actually have nothing to say."

By going against DRX, you also played against one of the two home crowd teams in the tournament. How did it feel playing on the stage against the crowd favorite?

"To be fair, I didn't feel it was really on their side. It was just fine, like nothing really special. It wasn't like the Brazilian crowd at LOCK//IN, I will say, in terms of how passionate and loud they were. I think they kind of cheered for both teams."

Abyss was DRX's pick and is completely new territory for FNATIC heading into today. Leading up to this point, how did the team approach Abyss from the time it launched until now?

"I think our Abyss exactly is just more about rotations and trying to be always on the strong side when they're executing. At some point we did it well, but we struggled with actually doing what we need to do after that. We had a lot of times three or more people on sites and we were not really ready to counter them, and that was our problem. But I think it's something about related to the fact that we played Abyss only once and it might be good, might be great, or might be super bad. Today it wasn't great obviously, we lost, but I think it's a good lesson for us and I think we will come back better with Abyss or maybe some other maps in the next match."

Did you feel as though it had the potential to be a strong map for the team?

"I think it's a strong map for us. DRX were playing Abyss good on Pacific and they also played well against KRU in their first match at Champions. I think their Abyss is very good and we showed the great potential to actually win against them since it was very close. We won some good clutches for the score and yeah, I think it has potential and we just need to discover some new stuff and be ready again."

This leads us to FNATIC's Abyss comp. How did the team establish hiro playing Viper on the map, with him not having played the agent once on FNATIC until now?

"He was playing Viper in scrims and obviously on officials, he didn't show it until this point. But we felt that it's better to put me on Sova to help people with utility and let hiro be an anchor since he had some experience from being a sentinel. So yeah, it was kind of this point of making him play Viper and me on Sova."

On Abyss itself, it wasn't the smoothest experience for FNATIC. You took three out of the four opening rounds, however DRX started to get themselves onto a hot start and ultimately took a 7-5 lead with six in a row for DRX. What went wrong on your attacking side?

" I think it was more about that we actually didn't really use our utility properly against them. It was mostly like that I was droning or reconning and we weren't really trying to play out of it and we were playing one by one. Also, it's just a disaster at this point because they have an Operator. What's better for an Operator than when the guys are kind of trolling? Obviously, it's hard to play after that and it's just very tough. We were giving also some entries but I didn't feel it was because of these types of mistakes, but just overall. We knew that he's going to op, we knew they were going to op there and we just didn't adapt properly."

Three of the seven rounds you lost were lost to time, with another two being lost on retakes. Why did the team seem to struggle with the bomb sites for much of the half?

"Yeah, I mean it was just literally the same. Again, me trying to drone, people weren't really trying to play out of it and even with my info, we weren't trying to execute. I think it was more like that we were scared. We kind of dropped the ball at this point but yeah, I mean I think it's the same reasons again.

Five out of the six defensive rounds you won were off the back of retakes. What makes your defensive retakes so strong on Abyss?

"I think most of them were their mistakes in clutches. They played it not so great and overall I think we actually tried something new because we didn't really retake that way in our scrims, but it was a fun experience and we won most of them so it's a good achievement. I felt like we can just go deep into that more."

Ultimately, DRX took Abyss 13-11. What did the team discuss after map one to try and recover heading into Lotus?

"I think it was just about resetting and not thinking about the previous map, and of course focusing on the next one. The Lotus pick was kind of unexpected since they were banning it a lot in their previous matches. Obviously, we tried to adapt on the fly and it didn't really go well if you look at the results, but we tried to do that."

Did DRX opting to choose Chamber throw off the team's preparation at all?

"No, they already played Chamber. They already did all this stuff but they just decided to swap. They put Foxy9 on Chamber and Flashback was playing Viper. This change I think makes sense because I think Foxy9 can utilize Chamber slightly better than Flashback, not to blame someone, it just is how it is. Overall, we actually knew how to play against their Chamber, but on defense, we didn't realize it at first. On attack, we didn't have that much to actually do. I mean, we were punishing him for staying on C which they default stuff on C like with the Chamber but we just, I think after that, we didn't realize our advantages and overall we again didn't play really well together."

Before today, FNATIC had a flawless record on Lotus throughout all of Split 2. Overall, what were some of the things that you think went wrong on the map as a whole?

"Again, it's just like there are some key moments. Again, we didn't expect Lotus to be played since they were mostly banning it and we didn't really try to prepare it for the match. It just like somewhat hard to adapt. Also, they were just playing good at some moments and we played very poorly. We didn't realize our advantages, we were not playing together, some utility was just lost. We were just losing our utility sometimes for nothing and that's the main reason why we lost this match."

Alfajer said in the previous match's press conference that sometimes the team “communicates like a tier three team”. Did some of these communication struggles continue into today's match, and if so, to what extent did it play a role in today's loss?

"I think so, yeah. I mean, he didn't say it properly because I felt like he needed to explain it more thoroughly. Sometimes we are communicating like a tier three team and we are not doing the basic stuff. It's just actually insane. Like, we are communicating so well, we are taking almost every single advantage or situation properly and we are like unstoppable. Today it obviously was a tier three performance for us sadly. We will try to work on it. For me, I would say I tried to communicate as much as possible but in some moments I still had problems with adapting and trying to find a proper solution for our team how to win certain rounds. I think I need to work on that, of course, but overall I'm happy with how I called in the situation even if it was bad. That's how I look at it, but obviously I did a lot of mistakes too."

What were your main takeaways from the series as a whole?

"I think we were clueless. That's the proper explanation for our match today."