Cloud9’s Impact shares his thoughts on the 2016 World Championship

Impact, top laner for Cloud9, took the time to discuss his team’s Worlds performance.

After Cloud9’s tough loss to Samsung Galaxy in the Worlds quarterfinals, top laner Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong took some time to talk to Travis Gafford of Yahoo Esports. While Worlds was a rough experience for any NA fan, Impact did share his thoughts on his experience and C9’s preparation for the tournament.

About Samsung

Samsung played a much more cohesive team game than C9, and Impact was quick to acknowledge that by saying, “Samsung played better as a team.”

C9 also had some problems dealing with the SSG draft: “For Game 2, we didn’t’ really consider the Kennen ganks.” That 26-minute TP flank by Kennen wrecked C9 and put them in a big hole, as well as tilted Impact. After all, Impact didn’t start his TP until after Lee “CuVee” Seong-jin completed his. This put the team in a bad spot to come back in the series: “For Game 3… my mentality wasn’t too strong at that point.”

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When Impact was asked whether seeing three LCK teams made him want to return to that region, he laid the blame squarely on himself saying “it’s my own performance that really matters” in regards to his team’s success. Impact was one of the earlier and highest profile players to move from the LCK to the NA LCS, and it’s good to see him committed to the scene and not placing blame on his teammates.

Korean bootcamps

Zaqueri “aphromoo” Black brought up an interesting point in an earlier interview, stating that he didn’t believe bootcamping in Korea before Worlds helped his team. Impact might not be the perfect judge as the Korean League scene is his old stomping grounds, but he did have some strong words on the subject.

“I don’t think there are any other better plans other than bootcamp in Korea. You can’t come over to Chicago and play solo queue the whole time,” explained the top laner.

Through the boot camp, we learned a lot

Impact alluded to the fact that CLG’s struggles had nothing to do with the success or failure of the bootcamp. When asked whether C9 could have stayed in the U.S. and scrimmed other NA and EU teams, he disagreed: “I can’t really agree to that plan because it’s not like the six [Worlds teams from LCS regions] have an alliance with each other.”

So what benefit did scrimming and practicing in Korea have? Impact believed the biggest benefit was seeing League played differently: “By boot camping in Korea, it’s a very good environment just to focus on gaming. If you only play in your own region, if you don’t get out of your comfort  zone… there’s some things you may not notice. For instance, the meta [changed] completely during Worlds prep… through bootcamp we learned a lot.”

Next: The gap between the LCK and the rest of the world

There are benefits to practicing your own unique style, but as we saw in the quarterfinals stage, the world has really settled on what the current meta is. There’s tremendous risk in not picking that up fast enough.

About those Cloud9 hoodies…

Cloud9’s white hoodies look super comfortable, but let’s just say that Impact isn’t in love. He said that Jack Etienne, Cloud9s CEO, likes the players to wear them for swag and sponsorship reasons. As for himself? Impact will wear them “for the better good.”

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