EPTTeam Liquid Writer xDaunt sat down with Fnatic's front line hero and tank, Breez, to discuss the team's drastic roster changes and unique play style.
Fnatic has had the most roster change of any of the top European teams. You’re now the longest tenured player on the team, but have only been on it since July. What was the impetus for all of this turnover?
The old roster started off kinda weak looking back at it. We had very few actual skilled players when I joined, so it was hard for us to get good results to begin with, and from my experience so far it’s very hard to live with four other people you have to work with and you just keep failing and getting annoyed at each other because of mistakes. So I actually think we became worse because of the gaming house, and for that reason personal problems between all the players started popping up, and after the EU Road to Blizzcon there were so many free agents that I wanted to play with, so we just decided to go with a complete roster change.
Let's talk about some of those free agents. Quackniix was one of the breakout stars at DreamHack. Tell us about how he became part of Fnatic. Was he someone that that you specifically targeted for recruitment?
Instantly after I knew we were going to make roster changes the entire EU competitive scene started playing EPL, where QuackNiix was doing really well every game and shotcalling a lot, so I pretty much figured out instantly that I wanted to try him out, even though some other people I were playing with back then recommended me not to do it, since he was a "no name" and there were so many pro players available. But I argued for it since I was sure he would be a great asset to the roster we were going to create, and at this moment I believe that he will be the face of this team for quite some time.
Has Quackniix taken over shotcalling duties?
QuackNiix is the main shotcaller and I am the second, one thing a lot of people don’t understand is that I never was the shotcaller for any roster, I just happen to be pretty loud when I say my thing and call targets in team fights.
One of the things that has been readily apparent at Fragbite, Dreamhack, and even Enter the Storm is the raw aggression in Fnatic's tactics in game. Is that something that is the result of Quackniix's shotcalling or was there a larger conversation that Fnatic had internally about how Fnatic wanted to play its games?
I think that would be mostly QuackNiix's style of shotcalling. We just try to punish people who walk out of position, even if its a tank, and kill them. There is just so much you can do with this style, because as soon as you get one of those kills without having to use your heroics you can do objectives for free.
Tell us a little bit more about one of your other free agents, Smexystyle, and how and why Fnatic recruited him.
When we were searching support players we had a lot of people on our radar, but at the time Smexystyle wasn’t one of them. It was mostly QuackNiix's idea because they know each other from PiP and I knew him a bit as well. As soon as we started playing with him we noticed that he had the same view of the game as QuackNiix, so it was really easy to play with both of them together and Smexystyle is a perfect fit for this team with his aggressive support style.
The scaling changes that were implemented last month have clearly impacted the game and put the professional meta in flux. What changes have been the most important in your opinion?
I actually thought the scaling changes would impact the game more than it actually did. I consider the game in general to be kind of the same the way you play it just that some of the heroes got stronger/weaker due to the scaling now. I think there is still alot of things shifting in the meta right now and people are still trying to figure out what is the strongest for this patch.
Do you have a sense for what the professional meta will look like when it reaches a new equilibrium?
I think the meta will look the same as it does now but possible with more split pushing. One thing we are seeing a lot in this patch is that teams usually look to kill towers before minions are spawning, and I feel that some of the teams will start abusing the fact that killing towers is really easy and get advantage in that way.
Do you see Fnatic adopting asymmetric strategies such as the infamous Leoric/Murky composition that Cloud 9 used against Team DK at Blizzcon? Do you see such strategies as being viable compared to the more typical 5-man deathballs that we're accustomed to seeing?
I think that strategy is really cool and perfectly viable with proper execution. But it’s really hard to be able to leave so many strong picks out and still be able to win a game, so I’m definitely impressed by C9 for making it work. And for our case we are definitely trying out some new things that we believe can work this meta, maybe not something as grand as C9s murky comp, but we have a lot of niché picks up our sleeve.
Clearly some of the biggest beneficiaries of the scaling changes were melee assassins such as Thrall. Fnatic tends to run a lot of 2-warrior compositions. Has Fnatic considered replacing one of the warriors with someone like Thrall?
Yep, we actually like playing Sonya for that role and we are definitely adapting a bit to the meta as well. If we notice something is strong we will start using it too, and I consider Thrall one of these things.
Let's talk about Dreamhack and Fnatic's matches against Team Liquid in both the group stage and the finals. What do you think were the main reasons for your success against Team Liquid? Did you outdraft them? Did you have superior in game shotcalling and tactics?
Team Liquid is obviously one of EUs top teams at the moment, but I think we have stronger players, a better view of the game, better shotcalling and like u said, we usually have the stronger draft. I don’t think we really need any specific strategies just to beat Liquid, as long as we stay on top of our game we should be able to bring them down.
How do you think that the new Team Liquid compares to the old (pre-Blizzcon) Team Liquid? What differences have you noticed?
I think their overall performance is about the same, now they lack more communication than before which I believe is due to the fact that it used to be an all-Spanish team, and now they speak English which is not as smooth. On the other hand they have some stronger individual players, which gives them more of an ability to outplay their opponents rather than outsmart them.
Most of the European teams, beyond Fnatic and Team Liquid, have undergone significant changes since Blizzcon. How do you see the European scene shaking out? Is Team Liquid Fnatic's chief competition now or do you have your eye on someone else?
Dignitas has some of the strongest European players, if they manage to sync well together I think they will be more of a difficult opponent than Team Liquid, Navi looks to come back strong as well.
Cloud 9 has been in China competing recently. Does Fnatic have any plans to go overseas in the near future?
Our main goal with this roster is to compete globally. We want to take part of competitions playing against all the different regions, and that is what we are really practising for.
Fnatic's play with the new roster has certainly been stellar. And beyond that, it is a very fun style to watch. What should your fans expect to see in the future? What is Fnatic looking to improve upon?
It’s a really fun style not only to watch, but to play as well! We are always looking to improve it though, by adding more viable picks into our pool and being able to use it in a way to surprise our enemies with it. We are looking to improve everything about our play until we reach perfection!
To keep tabs on the team, follow Fnatic on Facebook or Twitter! You can also follow Breez on Twitter!
