On day 1 of group stages in the 2020 LoL World Championships, the classic ‘EU vs NA’ matchup took place in the last match of the day. Two of the arguably biggest brands of both EU and NA, Fnatic and TSM respectively clashed, and with FNC taking the victory over TSM, EU won their bragging rights.

The bot laner for FNC, Martin “Rekkles” Larsson, joined Jeesun Park on the LCK broadcast for a post-match interview.

Congratulations on your win. It was the classic ‘EU vs NA’ match up, with two of the biggest brands, FNC and TSM facing off. How do you feel about taking down the #1 seed for LCS?

It feels great, not necessarily because we took down TSM, but over the last couple of years, we’ve always failed to be successful in the beginning of the tournament. We always made our comeback in week 2 and potentially make a run in the playoffs, but even then, we looked really shaky, so we tried really hard this year to come in and perform strong from the beginning.

We knew things would be different playing on stage after playing online for so long, and with so many teams from different regions, there are a lot of unknown factors. However, we try to have different game plans in place so that we can play out the game no matter what, and I think the execution was done pretty well.

What was the focal point in preparing for this game against TSM?

We made sure that our jungler, Selfmade, was in a good place throughout the game. As everyone knows by now, we are most successful when Selfmade’s our carry, so we try our best to make sure he’s doing well in the game, and has the champion/the matchup he wants. That was the most important thing, and the rest of our jobs were to cater around him.

You're one of the seasoned veterans in this tournament, so what is the secret behind maintaining such a long career?

I think I’m in a very good mental space these days. I feel like I can handle a lot of things that most players can’t, and I have the willpower to push through, regardless of what happens. For example, we were in a really bad spot during the Summer split of this year, and while most players would probably have given up, I was able to push through the various situations that were presented. Maybe it’s in my genetics, so I don’t know who to thank, but the point is, I have a lot of willpower to push through.

Your next game is against LGD. How do you predict the matchup will go?

I’ve been in their shoes, where we played in the play-in stages, and felt like we’ve figured certain things out already. I’m not scared to play them, but I do think that we have to be very careful. They probably figured out the mistakes that they need to fix, how they need to change, and figure out what works and doesn’t work for them after their first three games.

Since then, they’ve been doing the same thing over and over, so we definitely have to be ready. It’s not as simple as just to say that they’ve been performing poorly and they are worse than other teams, because they played so many games on stage. We need to thoroughly study what worked and didn’t work for them, because since they played so many games, the data is now on tape.