G2 Esports' Founder Interview
'We Just Know We're Better' Says G2 Esports' Founder Ocelote
originally published on TwinGalaxies.com
Part 1 of our interview with the founder and owner of G2 Esports dives into the League of Legends MSI 2019 finals and how G2 needs to shift their perspective heading back into domestic LEC play.
Now that the dust has settled from the first-ever European versus North American finals at any international tournament, teams like the victorious G2 Esports have had time to collect their thoughts and make plans for what's next.
So, we had a call with G2 Esports Founder and Owner Carlos "Ocelote" Rodriguez to find out about all things MSI 2019, the future of G2 Esports' super-team line-up, and how they've managed to create an undeniably desirable culture within their organization.
We chatted for quite a while -- our 15-minute time slot ticked over to 45 really quickly -- so over the next few days we will share what we gathered from the man at the end of all the puppet strings within one of Europe's most grand and successful Esports organizations.
Ocelote was once a formidable mid-laner in the European League of Legends scene, but the leagues were never big enough to handle this large and lovable personality. Seeking more than just glory on stage Ocelote would start his own team, Gamers2, which would eventually become G2 Esports. As a founder of an upstart Esports organization and a once-prolific World of Warcraft player, Ocelote brought a ton of leadership, sass, and intensity to his organization, a trait he would later tell me is one of the pillars of their success.
The call came in from Berlin, making it late Monday (May 20th) for Ocelote, which turned out to be great because most of the crazy hype had worn off, and we could talk about everything on a far more down-to-earth level. All of the screaming adoration and love into the void of social media was boiled away.
G2 Esports and the West's First International Championship.
Well? How does it feel? Personally, when you have such a great performance, in whatever game, it does take maybe two-hours, maybe an evening to wear off. Then, I just reset because I feel like I’m becoming too cocky. Isn’t that part of your charm though? Yeah, cockiness in a bad way though. You don’t want to lose the humility of knowing you did nothing, right? It takes me an evening of ego boost then I sleep on it and tell myself in the morning ‘yup, that’s not real life, let’s go back to work’. And the same thing on the other hand, if things go bad. Either way, victory or defeat doesn’t mess with my character.
What is the first thing you said to your guys then? Well, I congratulated them, of course. I’m just waiting for them to get back to Berlin so I can invite them to a beautiful restaurant and have a chill conversation. At this point, they just want to chill and don’t hear anything about anybody which is completely fine. They don’t want to talk with anyone right now, they just want to chill and see their family. They will get back, be offline for 48 hours, and just get back.
Besides the win, what is the biggest takeaway from MSI? Actually, it just confirms what we already thought was true. Which is that a Western team can win Worlds. We created a monster. Now, people will believe that the west can win and being at the forefront of that belief is very beautiful. Like, it doesn’t matter if the west ever wins Worlds, but this MSI victory which is the first-ever by a west team just confirmed that it’s possible. So it’s just kind of validating the efforts? Exactly.
Does the world record fastest finals mean anything to you guys? Honestly, when we played against Origen in Rotterdam, the players knew that if they won before a certain time not only would it be the fastest best-of-five ever in the finals, but as this match and so they knew what was the goal. Here they didn’t know. I think if they had known, they would have celebrated a bit more. I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask about this, but I think they found out about this later at the press conference. Honestly, as G2, it doesn’t change anything.
Do you miss it? Playing? When your team is playing in big games like this? No. Not at all *laughs* I really don’t. I enjoy my job too much. If I want to feel again what it feels like to be a player, I’ll play a League of Legends game and feel miserable.
In regards to the trip to the finals at MSI, G2 Esports wasn’t necessarily favored over Team Liquid in the finals (given they had just stomped the World Champions) but I see the outcome as a result of G2 having to go through more adversity in the Semifinals. How does that look from your perspective? So, sometimes it feels like people think I am over-confident, or cocky, but I just say the truth. We hosted a party with fans to watch the games against SKT (they loved it), and after they asked what I think about tomorrow’s [Sunday’s] games against Liquid and I told them, literally, “I think it’s going to be the fastest game ever played”.
I was very convinced that we were going to 3-0 or 3-1 in the worst case. So, like, it wasn’t over-confidence. We just know we’re better. Was that a straight-up G2 versus TL thing? Or was it based off of how you both got to the finals? They know how TL plays. It wasn’t about momentum or any of that. It was about raw gameplay. They were certain that if we played 100 best-of-fives against them we would win 100 of them. Not in a disrespectful way, the players generally believed they were better. Now comes the humble part.
Do you think that it would have been different if you guys played iG (Invictus Gaming)? Honestly, I don’t know. I think iG is definitely the first or second-best team in the world. I think, maybe, if the final had been against iG maybe we wouldn’t have won. It wouldn’t have been so crystal clear definitely as it was with Team Liquid. We learned a lot. In scrims that happened before the playoffs, and while the playoffs were going on, I thought we knew the meta really well.
Are you guys going to keep Promisq around for a little while? Or will you let him go be a star somewhere else? Well, Promisq’s agreement ended today [May 20th, 2019], so we’ll see what happens here. He’s been really helpful for the past couple of games. We played most of our scrims, like 80% of our scrims over the last month of so with him so a lot of the stuff you say on stage that we learned, we learned playing with him in our line-up. I can safely safe he has the level to be on a tier-1 team, and I’m talking about a top-five European team.
He’s just unlucky that we have Mikyx. Mikyx is so ridiculous, I mean, I don’t think people understand the ridiculousness of now having played a single solo queue game, and a total of maybe 10 scrimms, and he still did what he did. I’ve never seen anything like that. He’s [Mikyx] just gifted. That’s just talent. Which is just bad timing for Hampus (Promisq). If it were anyone else, other than Mikyx, he could be a starter. The way Luka (Perkz) talks about him, I hope he gets to start somewhere. Yeah, Hampus is great. Also, he has unconventional picks, like he likes to play Veigar support. I think he’s great. Honestly, whoever picks him up will have a really nice support with carry potential. Really good mechanical player.
I feel bad for Hampus some times [because G2 has Mikyx]. This platform though, with the praise and the exposure will help him get somewhere. Exactly. Also, I have no incentive to tell you any of this. We’re not selling him. His contract is up, he’s going somewhere else for free. I just generally believe he’s such a nice guy. He’s such a f***ing skilled player. He deserves an opportunity with a good team.
What’s the biggest challenge, do you think, heading into the Summer Split? The biggest challenge is to keep up the tension. To keep up the stress (in a good way). Keep up the pressure. The biggest challenge is not ending the first week 0-2, and not ending the second week 0-4. It’s possible, you know? Your adrenaline levels go down, heavily. You change from playing against Rookie (iG) and TheShy (SKT) to playing Selfie and whoever, you know? Your mind doesn’t compute. It’s such a drastic change.
So, you need to acclimate to that, and start seeing them as equals because only then can you overcome them like you did in the previous split. Right. You see that danger of setting your sights on Worlds too early when you have another split domestically to deal with. Exactly. We have to win this split, and we won’t win it unless we take it really seriously. Unless we respect our opponents. Everyone is trying to catch up with you. Eventually, they will. Nobody stays on top forever. Hopefully, later rather than sooner, we will have to make line-up rearrangements. That’s just life, you know?
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The 2019 Summer Split for the LEC begins on June 7th. Let's hope that G2 Esports readjusts their mindset enough after playing so much international competition in such a short break. The team will also have to work out new metas on a new build of the game now that the general competitive world is out of tournament mode. There is no word as to whether or not the Summer Split will begin on Patch 9.10 or a future build, but the first-ever European MSI Champions will have their work cut out for them regardless.
Somehow, maybe it's thanks to their brazen, bold, and relentless leader, we think G2 Esports is going to be just fine.
Catch more of our talk with Ocelote in the very near future.
