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20Q 20A: Black^
Welcome, everyone!
If you are a regular on Team Liquid's Dota 2 forum Liquid Dota, then you should be familiar with this feature. 20Q20A is our way of getting professional players involved with the Liquid Legends community. We are giving you an opportunity to ask one question, and once we have enough, we will select twenty of them to be answered by Unicorns of Love's innovative Jungler, Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek. We hope you enjoy this new feature, and lend us your participation to make it a success.
20 ANSWERS
FeltFace: With the new jungle creep-leashing change in Patch 5.1 (from 10 to 5 soft leashes), will we still get to see your rare picks like jungle Twisted Fate?
Twisted Fate got nerfed indirectly, hard, and I don't think we'll see him being played anymore. That being said, I will probably play some odd picks from time to time if I feel confident on one and I think it suits the situation. However, I won't force myself into playing something special if I think it won't work.
Fionn: Which one of the Unicorns is the best dancer?
I don't think anyone in my team is a good dancer, LOL. Sheepy and I are the least ashamed of it though, I think.
SuicideMARE: At the recent IEM, you seemed to be on a completely different pool of champs when compared to other junglers. Do you do this on purpose or is it just preference?
It was preference. At the time I thought it was a lot better to play more farm champions with Devourer and 45 sec AOE Smite, and have more impact in mid/late game than in the early game. Since both of those got nerfed, I went back to champions like Lee Sin and Jarvan.
ShiroKaisen: How would you like to see Riot continue to develop and tune the new jungle over the next few patches?
Riot is definitely going into the right direction with what they are doing right now. I really like their last changes and will trust them for whatever else they decide. And as for the question, I think jungle is in a pretty nice spot, at least in competitive (play). The only thing that is annoying is 100 second for camps. So for example, you see enemy jungler ganking top lane, and you want to counter his right side of the jungle, and camps are gone because he cleared it 1 minute ago.
Itchy7x: Was there any theorycrafting behind jungle TF, or was it just "Let's yolo try it out in solo queue?"
I like theorycrafting and I always do that whenever I am about to play some new picks. Twisted Fate had a lot of things that made me play him. Point-click CC, which is really good for ganks and you can't dodge it. Ultimate with not a lot of counter-play to it (on mid, you can push out TF and make him lose CS/turret) and a lot of damage with only two items - something along the lines of 1k damage after like 2-3 seconds.
Amarok: How do you feel about the variety of viable competitive jungle picks generally? Do you think teams and players could pick a wider variety of champions if they wanted to, or is a reasonably stable meta inevitable?
I think there always will be handful of picks that are better than everyone else, but once they are gone (banned/taken), you can go for a lot of other junglers. Though, with solid strategy, you can prepare picks even without going for the most OP champs at the moment. And as for now, Jarvan is one of them, together with Rek'Sai.
739: What are your feelings after destroying the solo queue experience because of jungle TF in almost every single game?
Well, I think Twisted Fate was (before the nerfs) a really good pick for solo queue with his ability to carry and gank a lot. But if someone picks it up without ability to playing it, then it's the same as someone going first-time Yasuo mid and feeding like hell.
Fusilero: What is the reason that you feel it took this many role and team swaps to reach this point?
Well, we can compare it to one of my friends from back in the day - he always wanted to have a girlfriend just for the sake of it. And it was similar here, I suppose. I always wanted to have a team, practice with it and try to qualify for LCS. I think there was only like one time that I went two months without a team, just playing solo queue. People knew (I was) good, so they picked me up, but I never managed to qualify, even though I was close a lot of the times.
XL Seylum: Is there a single other pro that you most wish you had the chance to play with or against, but never had the opportunity?
I played versus a lot of pros that I wanted to face already (Hotshot etc), but at the moment I guess it would be IWillDominate, because I like his style of play. Also Koreans, to see on my own experience how good they are.
Darki1: Where do you see Unicorns of Love at the end of the Spring Split?
I think we will place top five in the first split, and if we actually do that, I believe we can go for top three in the second one.
Hynnos: Did you read the patch notes for 5.1? What do you think will change for junglers?
I think there's more room for viable junglers. It's really nice to be able to start with purple Smite and then change it to have more impact in team fights. Also, two stacks of Smite are pretty nice. So far, it's been only helpful to me.
Beboop: Which team will be the hardest to face in your opinion ?
The hardest team to face will be SK with how strong they are looking at the moment. They have solid players and good understanding of the game.
NadeDawg: How would you rank the junglers in EU LCS right now?
I haven't played versus all of them yet, but estimate would be something like this:
1) Svenskeren
2) ReignOver
3) Shook
4) H0r0
5) Jankos
6) Diamond
7) Loulex
8) Fred3ric
9) Airwaks
With me probably being in top four.
1) Svenskeren
2) ReignOver
3) Shook
4) H0r0
5) Jankos
6) Diamond
7) Loulex
8) Fred3ric
9) Airwaks
With me probably being in top four.
Zdrastochye: Do you have any idols in the League of Legends competitive scene that you try to emulate? Or any pros in any other games?
I don't really have any idols at the moment. But back in the day when own3d.tv existed, I was watching A LOT of streams, especially HotshotGG ones - he was my favorite player and idol.
Dandel Ion: How do you feel about the jungle being reworked every season, and which season's jungle is or was your favorite?
I started playing jungle competitively around 1.5 years ago (off season between Season 3 and Season 4), and before that I played mostly top lane (a bit of every role at some point), though I was a big Amumu fan in Season 1. With that being said, I don't mind having a lot of changes, because I am good at adapting. Right now, jungle has a lot of impact on the game and I really like it. In Season 1, Season 2, jungler was a CC/ward bot, so that was less fun.
Worrador: Have you guys ever considered nominating a main shot caller?
Well, everyone has voice in the team and I think it's good, but I am a main shot caller, so there's no problems with that either. I think our team communication is good.
Hayhas: Any thoughts on the Brazilian Scene? Pretty much everyone thinks that the junglers are our weakest point. Do you think DayDream will help us to improve in this?
I don't really follow any of the Brazilian scene sadly, so except playing versus Lyon, I don't know much about what's happening there. I think you guys are catching up, but there's still time needed for you guys to be able to compete in Worlds versus the best teams.
Yoshismuffin: What is your favorite meal?
My favorite things are shrimps, tomatoes, onions and cheese (not hard ones though). So I'll be happy with most of the stuff that contains some of that stuff. I love shrimps.
TitusVI: If you had to do a holiday trip with either Thorin or Monte, which one would you choose?
I'd have to go with Monte. I think it would be more pleasurable to hang out with him rather than Thorin, though I like and respect Thorin's work.
AlterKot: What do you think you offer your team that Gillius couldn't?
Proper shot calling, better mechanics, better team environment, wider champion pool.
A big thank you to Kikis for participating in this feature.
You can follow Kikis on Twitter and watch him stream on Azubu.
Writer: Chexx
Gfx:ESL, suicideMARE
Editor: SunsetSC2
Banner image by: suicideMARE
Thanks to: Unicorns of Love
Gfx:ESL, suicideMARE
Editor: SunsetSC2
Banner image by: suicideMARE
Thanks to: Unicorns of Love
