“This Sunday, you won with MAD Lions the spring segment of the LEC, the European Championship of League of Legends. In the final against BDS, you were trailing 2-0 before coming back to win (3-2). Did you ever doubt?
Yasin « Nisqy » Dinçer (MAD Lions): There was no chance that we would lose this final. We knew we were playing a lot better, we were just making really stupid mistakes and our drafts weren’t perfect either. But I knew that if we played our game, we were going to win. I think that the experience, the fact that we were able to stay calm, that counted a lot. The thing that makes me happiest is that we’ve struggled a lot so far, we’ve had lots of problems but we’ve overcome them to win everything in the end.
How do you explain your bad start to the final?
BDS took compositions that we outscaled, so we should have dominated the early game. But there were a lot of skirmishes where they managed to scratch some killswhich was not supposed to happen, and that made the first two matches very complicated…
What did you say to each other before the third game, the one that started your comeback?
We all knew we were better than our opponent. So we just said, “It’s impossible to lose today, look how it plays in front, we are not at our level, we take clashes that we should not take. We knew we were going to win. It was sure ! In the way we played, it was us who set the rhythm of the matches.
Do you feel like BDS has cracked mentally?
Yes… Honestly, we knew that after the third set, they weren’t in it anymore, given how they were playing, how they were taking the fights. And after the fourth, it was 100% sure that we were going to win, mentally, we were too much above.
You remained on two defeats in the LEC final (in the summer of 2021, with Fnatic, then in the winter of 2023 with MAD). What does this trophy mean to you?
It means I’m the best midlaner and Europe (smile). It’s a beautiful thing, little mids can afford to say that one day. It’s been many years that I turn around, that I am second, third… This top 1 shows that I have reached a milestone. Now I just want to perform internationally and we’ll see where that takes us.
Beyond the results, do you also have the impression of having reached a milestone in this spring segment?
My mentality around the game has changed a lot, improving year by year. Now I’m getting old, I have a lot of experience, I know how to approach every situation and that helps a lot. I think what helped me in this team is that we trust each other a lot, that there are very good vibes. Everyone feels good and it has a positive impact on our minds. Sunday, if we hadn’t been mentally strong, we would have just lost 3-0, but we all supported each other and that’s what made us win.
You got off to a very bad start spring split and had come very close to elimination from the group stage. What explains your progression to the title?
At the beginning, it was complicated to debrief the matches between us, we got too angry. But when it stopped, everyone was playing a lot better. We had a discussion where we told each other the four truths and everyone focused on themselves instead of blaming others. It was a big mental trigger.
MAD Lions hadn’t been spared criticism in recent weeks, especially from European fans who didn’t want to see you qualify for the Mid-Season Invitational (the first intercontinental tournament of the season, in London in May) via a victory of G2. Did it affect you?
In truth, we didn’t care. Whether people say you deserve it or not, there’s a point system that’s in place and there’s nothing you can do about it. But above all we wanted to qualify ourselves (by winning the split therefore), because we knew we could do it. You feel so much better when you go to MSI because you deserve it… It’s going to give us a boost. We prove to everyone that we deserve our place, we beat all the top teams. We are the No. 1 team in the LEC.
Have you ever had time to think about this MSI? How are you going to approach it?
Honestly, I have no idea (laughs). I didn’t think about it at all, I focused on this weekend. I don’t have the brain that works there. I just know LCK teams (the South Korean Championship) and LPL (the Chinese Championship) are scary, but apart from that all the teams are takeable. And even them. If we have won three Bo5s in a row, we can beat everyone…”