Contractz started his career back in 2015 with Zenith eSports then moved on to Ember to participate in 2016 NA Challengers Series. Due to the age requirement, 17-year-old jungler couldn’t finish out the playoffs before he was signed by Cloud9 at the end of 2016. Replacing Meteos, who now plays for Phoenix1, Contractz made a name for himself with carry jungles and an excellent synergy with one of the best NA midlaners, Jensen. We sat down with the promising young jungler to hear about where the team stands, the state of the meta and more.

C9 secured 2 wins this week, coming from 0-2 last week. How do you feel?

I’m feeling pretty confident. We improved our mistakes from the 0-2 week, but we’re still having sloppy games. I believe if we learn from this week, we can keep on improving for future weeks.

What do you think are some things that are working out for the team?

We controlled the map around objectives well. Our teamfighting was pretty good overall. If we keep on improving and learn from these games, we can definitely contest the top teams right now.

What are some challenges you or your team is working on right now?

We’re having trouble synergizing 100%, and I’m personally having a little bit of trouble adapting to the tank meta. I don’t fully have a grasp on Cho’Gath and Sejuani yet, but, given time, I think I can grasp the meta easily and do well for my team. My teammates adapted well in their respective lanes, and I just need to catch up to them.

You’ve experienced both winning and losing games as Kayn on a tournament setting. Where do you think he stands balance-wise?

Kayn is an interesting champion. He’s really good in the current meta because he shines against tanks. Once you get your Darkin form, you can skirmish with tanks and deal tons of damage. Overall, you do well against tanks. Before that, you have to be creative in your pathing and what you’re doing early game to get leads, so you can snowball. You’ll usually get your Darkin around 10-15 min. Until then you have to safely counterjungle and scale up. Kayn is a high-risk, high-reward champion. If you don’t get advantages early and snowball, he can get really weak depending on when you get your Darkin form.

Some people say the prevalence of tank junglers in the meta makes the game boring because teams can turtle for 30 minutes and outscale the opponent just because they have a better composition. Any thoughts?

I wouldn’t say it’s boring. There are a lot of things you can do against tanks in the early game. With Kayn, you can counter jungle easily against tank jungle and get advantages that way since tanks don’t have great early games. If it’s tank vs tank, it depends on what objectives you control and how teamfights go in mid game. Overall, the meta is fun because when you have Cinderhulk and you’re super tanky, you can run over the whole enemy team. It’s fun for me personally as a jungler, but, I don’t know if enemies are having any fun.

Who is the voice of reason within the team, someone who grounds others when games aren’t going well.

Mostly, Smoothie. He has the biggest voice on the team. Having said that, I think we all play a part when games are going bad. We assess who has advantages in the game and where we can pull our resources well depending on who’s ahead, so we can get back into the game.

When do you feel the most pressured as a jungler?

If my early game goes bad, I fail a gank or lose 1v1 to the enemy jungler, I feel really desperate. I’m falling behind in experience and need to make something happen. Otherwise, enemy will be able to invade and take my camps. That’s why I’d feel pressured to make a play somewhere on the map.

Are there any junglers in LCS this split that impressed you?

I don’t think there are any junglers in LCS that wow me. I think I’m at the very top of LCS junglers right now and feel really confident in my play. The only person that rivals me is Dardoch. He’s the only one who makes me feel challenged.

What do you want to focus on for the last two weeks of the split?

We want to focus on improving our synergy and coordinating better as a team. I think we’ve been doing a good job improving ourselves as a team in past weeks, so we’ll have big advantages against the teams coming to the next two weeks.