A few days ago, G2's Expect went on the very same show to talk about G2, EU LCS, and MSI. The hosts were quite aware of how the show might be translated for the foreign scene, and alternated between baiting Expect into giving them salacious answers and covering for him when he went too far.
Anyway, here are some highlights from the 2 hour+ show, shamelessly focusing on whatever I think will be funniest to see quoted in Reddit threads.
How to tilt, destroy team morale, and lose to Roccat
Host: "How did you lose to Roccat?"
Expect: "We fought."
Expect then proceeded to give us an incredibly detailed breakdown of how exactly a series losing tilt occurs.
The morning before the match, Expect had been talking about how Fizz was coming up as a strong pick, particularly as a Rumble counter. During game two, he was put in the unexpected situation of having to pick his champion early, due to Perkz getting heavily banned out (the original draft strategy was for Perkz to pick first).
Expect warned that he would get counter-picked by Fizz if he picked Rumble, but he was told to lock-in Rumble regardless. As he feared, the Fizz pick came in, and he up getting solo-killed by Phaxi. This caused Expect to "lose his mental" as Koreans say. While the G2 coaching staff said it was fine to give up a solo-kill since he had played well regardless, Expect was infuriated about being forced into a losing lane-matchup after he had warned everyone about what would happen. He demanded to either be put on Fizz himself, and threatened to insta-lock Fiora if he saw Fizz picked again (he hadn't played a single game of Fiora in scrims). The G2 players tried to calm him down, but Expect refused to be calmed down.
With the series tied 1-1, Phaxi locked in Nautilus as his top pick, allowing Expect to play Fizz himself. Yet, he was still tilted to hell. "In a fit of insanity," Expect took fervor instead of grasp, with a mind to get a solo-kill on Phaxi no matter what. Furthermore, Phaxi had gone Triforce into BotRK as his build, which Expect considered a way worse build than going tank after Triforce. Taking all of this entirely too personally, Expect went BotRK himself. "So, Fizz died in a second in teamfights."
After finishing his surprisingly honest and detailed story about tilting into a loss, Expect still finished with a humorous "I lost because my team got caught, I played well. I did nothing wrong!" followed by extensive mockery from the hosts and Twitch chat.
vs TSM at MSI
Host: “Why did Zven E toward Rumble?
Expect said NA made a mistake in the match, as they missed the extremely basic move of pushing out midlane before taking Elder. However, TSM grouped as five, toward bottom. G2 thought it would be a free win due to that mistake, but the comms got extremely messy and incomprehensible (Expect says check out the Mic Check when it's out). No one could hear each other, comms got super messy and it was hard to hear each other. Zven couldn't catch Trick saying he had already burned his ult, and that Hauntzer was teleporting into fog.
vs WE at MSI
Expect said that team wise, there was a lot of poor shotcalling in the group stage, with stupid mistakes being repeated over and over. Going up against WE in the semis, they had gained confidence from practice and were able to play confidently. G2 had scrimmed against SKT and FW, and there had even been days where they went even with SKT. There were also days when they lost every single match, but the content of their games was still decent, like getting upset in a winning game because SKT cleaned up a single teamfight, took baron, and throned.
vs SKT at MSI
The team went in with their usual positive attitude, believing they could win. Playing SKT made them realize G2 is lacking in their ability to initiate and open up team fights. G2 doesn’t macro with an eye to initiate good fights, they just get vision and force enemies to initiate onto them, or just take baron/objectives if they don’t. SKT sees opportunities and pounces on people.
Expect thinks it's weird to ask other progamers for photos together because of professional pride, but he made an exception with Faker (Faker was staying in the room across from him in the hotel, so he just ran into him one day).
MSI prize money breakdown
Weldon takes 5% of the prize money, Youngbuck takes 10%, players split the rest. Expect says he was left with about 40,000,000 won after tax.
#FreeMMD
Flash Wolves' MMD gave a shoutout to Expect in an interview, giving him advice and helping him rebuild his confidence.
Expect elaborated on some of the advice he gave MMD in practice. He told him "Why are you picking Rumble and leashing? You lost because you leashed and Kled pushed the lane.”
Expect also said "MMD is such is too much of a slave, a slave of the Jungler.” saying he tells Trick when he can’t leash, due to it leading to a losing lane situation. He gave MMD kudos as poor laner, but great team player.
Taking a break from Week 1 of Sumer Split
The team finally gave Expect a one week break after an interrupted tournament run since January which included IEM, LCS, and MSI. There was a one week gap before MSI, but the team said he couldn’t go to Korea because there would be NO VACATION THIS TIME. Other than that, the only real break they had was five days after clinching the higher seed in the EU LCS playoffs.
Perkz is really good
Perkz was clapping everyone in scrims, including Faker. Expect explained Perkz' throws by saying that he's young and wants to carry. Normally players take risks and try to make plays in scrims, but become more conservative in tournaments. However, Perkz just does whatever he wants, and isn't afraid of anyone.
NA vs EU
Expect: “When I watch NA or EU... NA you think ‘oh they’re kinda good.’ EU you think ‘What the hell kind of game is this?’ But that’s wrong. The styles are just different. I always think if you put them against each other, EU will win.”
Expect: “When you look at the level of the games, NA is brawling while EU actually has macro.”
Host 1: "NA teams pay well through, so maybe you should change your tone..." [paraphrased]
Host 2: “Maybe the Huni path is open to you as well...” [paraphrased]
Expect: “NA players are good and have good mechanics”
Everyone: *Laughs*
Later...
Expect: "EU pros sit around to watch NA LCS after EU is done and mock it for being low level."
Chat: “REDDIT IS WATCHING”
Expect: "Of course I'm just kidding." [paraphrased]
Why Nunu at MSI?
Trick asked Xerxe (who Expect said is a great jungler) for some advice, and Xerxe suggested Nunu as an Ivern counter. It worked out okay in scrims, so it made it to the tournament stage at MSI. Trick didn’t actually like playing it, but the coaching staff made the pick anyway.
Notable EU LCS players
Expect said Maxlore is really good, probably not even 'underrated' anymore, and that European junglers are really smart. He pointed out Alphari, Vizicsacsi as being good top laners. Both are great at laning in scrims, but but play safe in tournaments.
Expect said he had a great record against Vizicsacsi in tournaments, but he sometimes get beat up by him in scrims. While Vizicsacsi is good at looking for kills and fighting, he doesn't consider the existence of the jungler at all. He dies to gank, comes back and gets ganked again as if nothing happened.
Soaz has incredible natural talent. Expect knows this because Soaz plays Overwatch and barely practices outside of scrims. You try to scout out his solo-queue games for an upcoming match, and there's nothing to actually scout. To play at that level without practicing requires insane talent (none of this was backhanded, he genuinely seemed to be impressed).
Best/Worst things about living in Europe?
The best thing is that EU teams give players personal rooms. Korea and China you still have to share with a roommate, so the personal space is nice.
The worst part is the food. He just can't do bread as a breakfast food. Youngbuck cooks them lunch, but it's just eating to stay alive. "Have you tried to eat chicken breasts, ketchup, and rice for a year?" At least Expect is able to order delivery for dinner, where he gets stuff like bibimbap.
The chat responded with bafflement as Berlin has a large Korean expat community, making Korean food readily available. Somewhat open-ended invitation for G2 fans to mail him some damn Korean food, like Korean fans will do for their teams when they go abroad.
Soaz’s girlfriend did come to cook for G2 for a while (the Fnatic house is pretty close by), and Expect highly complimented her cooking skills.
The grind
Never been to a club or done site-seeing. No one on G2 plays other games outside LoL, while other teams have guys who play Overwatch. The single-minded nature of G2 is why they’re good. Weekends are spent laddering and streaming. The one fun outing he had was going to the Zoo with Police and MightyBear, and Expect was extremely vocal about how much fun it was to do that. An unnamed, woke member on the G2 team declined to go, saying "it depresses me to see imprisoned animals."
Misc
Not looking for a girlfriend in Europe, he's there to be a pro and work.
G2 has a positive mentality. “We lost? It’s okay, we can win tomorrow.”
Expect's wrists have been hurting lately. Bad habit of using his phone in bed before sleeping. Wrists hurt a lot after every game at MSI.
"Kled is really bad champion, there’s no reason to wimp out and ban it. Just give it to them."
G2's goal was originally top 4 at worlds, but this tournament made them think a championship is in reach. Personally Expect doesn’t think he’s top class yet, still has a lot more to learn and improve on. But the team just has a very positive outlook.