Jensen on being called a KDA player: “The reason I don't die is because I position better than every other midlaner.”
By Sharon Coone
Jul 19, 2017
Jensen talks about success in the NA LCS and the lack of challenge at Rift Rivals.
Q: A lot of people have been calling you the best player of the split. How does it feel having that praise flowing in? I think it always feels good to get praised, but unfortunately as a team, the thing that matters the most to me is that I play the best I possibly can and that we play the best we possibly can as a team. And right now, I think we’re losing way too much. So at the same time, because people are hyping me up so much I’m also getting a lot of flack from the community because I’m supposedly one of the best players, but we keep losing as a team. So there’s a bad side to it as well, getting praised so much, because people have so high expectations of you. So at the same time, I’m getting a lot of flack from the community I feel that’s pretty undeserved because I don’t think -- like people are calling me a KDA player for example because because I rarely die and I think that’s really weird to me because I think the reason I don’t die is because I position better than every other midlaner and I just think I make less mistakes in general. Like I don’t -- I rarely die to ganks and I generally position pretty well in team fights. Sometimes there will be slip ups, for example, but I think as a midlaner, your job is to put out as much damage as possible while being as safe as possible. There’ll be times where you can go for those flashy flash in and you might die for it. But I think as a midlaner the most important thing is being consistent. So that’s that’s kind of what I’m going for.
I’m not a KDA player. I am, but I’m not trying to be.
Yeah, pretty much.
Q: A lot of Cloud9 got really sick during Rift Rivals. How bad was it?
Normally I always get sick when we travel but I was actually the exception this time around. But I’m pretty sure everyone else was really sick. Like Sneaky legit lost his voice, he couldn’t talk at all. We would scrim and Sneaky would just not say a single word because his voice was so bad. Impact couldn’t play on stage because he was too sick and just everyone was sick in some sort of way besides me. So it was pretty tragic. But we’re starting to get better.
Q: What was your biggest takeaway from Rift Rivals?
I’d say the biggest takeaway from Rift Rivals wasn’t actually about playing too much against the EU teams. We learned a few things regarding the picks and style but I think it was more like we learned more about how we should play better as a team ourselves. For example, we would learn that just the whole early game priority and that kind of thing. Like just play better around pressure. Honestly, I wouldn’t really say there was that much we could take away from Rift Rivals. There was like small things about our own play but I don’t really think we learned too much from playing the European teams.
Q: How do you think Rift Rivals could be improved?
I like international events. I think EU was slightly behind meta so it wasn’t as hard for the NA teams as I maybe expected. Like I said, I think international tournaments are great because you learn how other regions play. I wish it would be more international, but not just with EU. The thing that sucked though was that we had to travel to Europe to Berlin and it was only for like a week, so it didn’t really like -- mid split -- it didn’t really seem worth it to me because it’s just such a long travel and so much time lost. For an event that basically didn’t really mean much. Besides like NA pride of course, which is cool. But I think I didn’t like the format too much. I think something should be changed about the format for sure and I think the winners should be rewarded more.
Q: Is Heimerdinger really underrated?
I’m not sure, he’s really fun to play. I wouldn’t say he’s good for competitive at all. But, I think he can be pretty good and pretty fun to play in solo queue.
Not gonna pull him out for us?
I don’t I don’t think my coach would allow that.
I would be down to try it out for sure but he I feel like he has some really tough matchups.