After an abruptly-cut one-split stint with TSM, AD Carry Kasper "Kobbe" Kobberup is back playing in Europe, having survived the pandemic chains that had rein over 2020 United States. Now playing for the "rabbits" from Misfits, Kobbe leads the best-performing LEC team in the Summer Split so far.

Inven Global sat down with the Dane to talk about the failure of the 2020 Spring TSM roster and Kobbe's exit from it to duoing with "one of the best supports I've ever played with so far" — Vander.

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So far, Misfits have been off to a very good start, especially compared to last season where it didn’t go that well for you guys. What do you think you have been doing differently to cause this improvement?

I think we started practicing pretty early for Summer Split. Of course, we took a break after Spring, but we came back pretty early — one of the first teams back to Berlin, I guess, and we started with our routines. We meet every day with the team and we do stuff together outside of the game. We just started practicing early and trying to be more close together more like a family kind of thing. 

The staff and management, everyone is helping us during this, especially Owen, our sports psychologist. He helps us with a lot of these things. I don't know if I should explain all of them, but it's… we do a lot of stuff outside of the game that’s helping us.

"Playing with Vander is probably… oof, I need to be careful now. He is for sure one of the best supports I’ve played with so far."

What are a few of the things out of the game you've been doing?

We always eat together, we have some group exercise and play games. Sometimes, we play football or something called Spikeball. And it's a lot of fun, honestly. We’re just trying to get in better shape out of the game, both mentally and physically, by doing various exercises and things.

The major change to the team during the offseason was that there were radical changes to the coaching staff. What has that been like so far? Have there been any noticeable differences?

For us, it's not as big as it maybe looks to the outside. We have Alex... I don't know what his name is on Twitter [laughs] [@Candyfloss]. Candyfloss is our head coach now. He was an assistant coach in Spring, but he was doing a lot for us already then. And then we got xani as well, who used to be the Academy head coach. So in-game-wise, those are the two we're mainly working with.

And then the rest is for out-of-game mostly. We have a lot of people outside that help with everything outside of the game. 

Looking at your career this past year, if you compare your performance in LEC last summer to this spring to Summer, you’ve progressively gotten back to a very high level. Do you feel different playing now compared to last year? What was your mentality when you first left TSM for Misfits?

I think I have a bit of a different view than the outside maybe. After 2019 with Splyce at Worlds, I was at the highest point of my career thus far. And then I went to TSM. And I felt we had a really strong lineup. And we got fourth place, which wasn't really acceptable when I was in TSM. And then, yeah, I just got removed from the team; didn't really expect it. 

Obviously, it took a big hit on me mentally, and there were just a lot of things that were not working for me in TSM that were working before. I don't think I necessarily got worse as a player when I joined Misfits after TSM happened. I worked really hard to get back to my level and we had a good start. I felt like it was nice for people to see that I'm still me. And I'm still really good.

Because maybe that didn't really show too much in TSM. But then, we didn't get to playoffs, the team started doing badly. And it just took a big toll on me mentally, because when you go from being at not the top but a pretty high level and competing at Worlds to not even making playoffs — it's obviously really bad, right? 

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My mentality since then has just been to do my best to work hard, try everything I can to make the team as good as possible. This year is like a long work in progress. We brought in some newer players in HiRit and Vetheo, and it's just nice to see them growing so much from spring to summer. 

For myself, it's a bit of a mix. I still think I'm good at the game. And maybe it doesn't really show in every performance as it did before because when I played in the old Splyce, the team was very focused around me a lot of the time. And it was really easy for me to shine with a lot of players playing around me. And it's not really the same thing here. Of course, we do it sometimes but Misfits’ playstyle hasn't been to have everyone focus on me.

We like to try a lot of different stuff. We're playing around HiRit a lot in the game, and he's doing super well. I know there's been a lot of outside criticism towards me and my performance, like during these times, but I don't really… I mean, sometimes I can have a bad game, but I don't really see it the same way. I still think I have the same qualities as I did before.

"The [2020 Spring] TSM team was just not playing well. The players didn't play well together. There was not much going on outside of the game. I feel like we weren't really close together, like good friends or something like this."

Now that you've had time to reflect on it, what do you think was the biggest problem with TSM in your last split with them? Do you think there’s anything you could’ve done personally to have saved that situation?

It's kind of a long time now. It's like last year, Spring Split. I think we had really good players coming into the team. Obviously, C9 was very, very dominant that Split, and we weren't at their level. But I think we could compete and beat every other team.

But the team didn't really come together. It's kind of hard to explain. I think I did everything I could. Of course, you can always do better but, yeah, they just decided to make changes in AD and jungle as well.

The team was just not playing well. The players didn't play well together. There was not much going on outside of the game. I feel like we weren't really close together, like good friends or something like this. Only really with Broken Blade did I feel pretty close to, but with everyone else, it felt more like a coworker kind of situation. And maybe that hurt us a lot because... we just didn't have good connections and weren't on the same page in the game. Too many different opinions.

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You’ve now had a good amount of time being able to synergize with Vander. How is he different from Doss, Biofrost, and the other supports that you’ve played with in the past?

Playing with Vander is probably… oof, I need to be careful now. He is for sure one of the best supports I’ve played with so far. I think the only contest for him was when I played with Mikyx in my first year. But we were both rookies then and we weren't that great.

But Vander’s different in a way where he helps so much in the game and also outside of the game. He's pushing me to play more aggressively, which is… It’s hard to explain my playstyle in lane but I feel like he's helping me a lot because he sees some of my weaknesses in how I'm playing and he's pushing me to do things better also the in laning phase and he can actually teach me a lot of stuff. With most other supports I've played with it was… I felt like I was the more experienced guy… it was just different. I feel like Vander can teach me a lot of stuff. He has so much experience, he's helping a team a lot.