The 2020 League of Legends World Championship marks the first time a team from the Russian region (LCL) makes it into the main event. The Unicorns of Love have qualified for Groups after sweeping TCL’s Papara SuperMassive 3-0 in a ruthless series. 

In a post-match interview, UOL’s Mid Laner Lev "Nomanz" Yakshin shared thoughts on Group D, talked about team synergy, and their aggressive take on the game.

Congratulations on UOL’s first time getting out of play-ins and joining groups! Let’s talk about SuperMassive: seeing them play yesterday, which points did you know you could exploit?

We played versus them for a full year, we used to scrim them kind of often. Since they are the best team in Turkey, that's a good experience for us. We know everything about them, or at least enough to win more games against them than they will win against us. 

Why do you think it’s harder for them? Is it Gadget’s draft advantage?

Yes, it’s mainly because of the draft. They need to ban a lot of champions, like BOSS’ champions, like Camille and Renekton, because he is just really good with them.

They need to ban Orianna, since it’s a flex pick for us and probably the strongest champion on Mid Lane right now, they need to ban Twitch, Cassadin, it’s hard for them to prepare and draft well. Junglers are super broken right now, so they need to ban them.

You guys had consistent aces, aggressive gameplay. How did you guys approach team fights? To me it seems like the moment someone said “let’s go”, you guys just all went in.

Game number 2 and 3 we just waited for SuperMassive to make mistakes since we would outscale super hard. Kassadin is really strong, especially mid-to-late game and if they don’t snowball well, the game is just in our hands.

"We played vs. SuperMassive for a full year. [...] We know everything about them."

Talking about Kassadin, do you think you can get away with it through the Group Stage?

Probably not, it will be hard to scale against Top Esports, but it would work against FlyQuest for sure, and maybe against DRX, I don’t know so much about the Mid Lane against them, Chovvy may be too good, same as TES. You’ll see. Hard to tell now, I need to prepare.

Do you think that bringing this aggression to the opposing team kind of gives you guys a mental edge, while the opposing team gets a little bit scared of you guys? Do you think this plays into victory?

Yeah, maybe. I have no idea, right? I think if they pick too much TP and don’t ban Kassadin, and we do get the pick, they need to do a lot in the early game, otherwise, it’s gg automatically. Same as Vayne, they pick a lot of tanks and we pick Vayne mid like I am just trolling them in team fights really easily. Probably there is a mental edge if we draft well.

Back to the playstyle, UOL has, how did that work in the Chinese Super Server? I heard that there are constant team fights and goal-getting, making the games super fast.

Ah, I don’t like the Chinese solo queue. In Europe I was top 50 before with 1K LP, when arrived in China I got stuck to 100. One day I can go to 300, but then the other I go back to 200. Same with BOSS, he is hard stuck Diamond 1 right now, while reaching 1K LP in EU as well. I feel like the playstyle is super different, they play just to fight, I don’t like it. [laughs]

Usually, teams that have this good of synergy during a game also have a good relationship outside of the game. What is UOL like outside the game?

Since COVID-19 hit we couldn’t actually go anywhere, but in our boot camp we have a cinema, so we would watch a lot of anime and movies.

Which anime? [laughs]

We watched JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, the full five seasons throughout the Split. Also, a lot of movies I can’t remember.

This is why you guys are so aggressive by the way, just keep watching JoJo. [laghs]

[laughs] Probably!

We are really close to each other.

And what are your thoughts on the groups?

I wish we got Group A… At least it’s an interesting experience for everyone, especially for me. I feel like after this Worlds I either retire or improve really hard so I can actually win against the kings of mid lane. It will either be really interesting or they will smash us and we will tilt.

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