Mikyx explains why G2’s scrims didn’t translate to Worlds 2023 wins
Colin Young-Wolff/Riot GamesG2’s scrim results have been a hot topic within the LoL community. Considering their strong record against the world’s best teams, many have wondered why they weren’t able to get results. We sat with Mikyx to ask him about a number of things to try and understand what got lost in translation at Worlds 2023.
Outside of the very first League of Legends season, a Western team has never won a world title. Fans of LEC and LCS teams have kind of accepted that there’s a good chance they’ll never win Worlds, though G2 is the team that has come closest.
With G2 destroying the competition in the LEC and having stellar scrim results across both the entire LEC Season and at Worlds 2023, their final result has caught many off guard. Though the team looked strong on paper, they weren’t able to execute on stage.
We sat with Mihael ‘Mikyx’ Mehle, G2’s veteran support player and 2023 LEC MVP, to speak about what may have gone wrong at Worlds and why the team wasn’t able to reach the heights they were hoping for.
Mikyx has a lot of regrets despite G2’s stellar year domestically
G2’s scrim results have been a hot topic in the community, especially with how things ended for G2. Manager Romain put out the teams results not only for Worlds 2023, but for the entirety of 2023 all the way back to the Winter Split. 10 months worth of scrim results, all made public.
This showed the community a behind-the-scenes look that few other teams provide, and one that paints G2 as a team that has a very refined approach to practicing and honing their skills as a team if we’re going by how many scrim blocks they won.
However, while that practice appears to have paid off through most of the year, G2 floundered at both MSI and Worlds in 2023. Though Mikyx felt that they had improved since MSI, it wasn’t enough.
“I feel like we were pretty decent when we came in. I think we had the good plans, we executed them pretty well. The first two games were pretty promising. I think early games went well for us. Then we threw at Nash, of course, but at least we had a little hope that we can’t like because, at MSI, something felt like we just couldn’t win from laning phase, before 14 minutes. We were just losing plates, we were losing on the map. 14 minutes and the enemy already has objective bounties, and it was hard. Nowadays, at least the first two games [at Worlds], we were actually winning.”
This renewed confidence in G2’s ability to command a lead early on may be a part of why their scrim results were so good, and, although Mikyx felt like the team had some highs this year, each loss at Worlds weighed heavily on his mind. He spoke about what he thought went wrong against each opponent they lost to at Worlds 2023 following their strong opening against DPlus KIA and Weibo.
“GenG won, I think that one was winnable. I just think that they played much better and we also had some blunders in draft. I think, even after a week, we couldn’t really fix our priorities. Not priorities, but – there are some champions that we just couldn’t play. So that was definitely a challenge we had to overcome. And we couldn’t. Just in general we just played way, way worse than we’re capable of.
Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games“So, that is why it’s like a very disappointing end to this tournament because I really felt like we could go all the way. Especially against NRG. They played really well, right? But I felt like we were just breaking our hands and not thinking about the game at all. I’m not sure. Just a completely off day. And then today, [BLG] just played better on a fundamental level. I think they were just better about moving around the map, doing stuff. When they got a lead, they were pretty good at closing it out.”
Miky detailed some of the issues he perceived in their drafting. For instance, he broke down Game 1 against BLG and how ON caught him off guard with a Milio pick and they didn’t ban Jax away from Bin.
“The Kog’Maw/Braum was basically, like – against Xayah, you want to play to outrange her. And I think with Kog’Maw, Braum, and Maokai they can’t really do much together. And they also picked Sejuani, which also wasn’t very good into those three champs. I think the blunder that was to not get rid of Jax because we kind of knew they were going to pick Jax, right? And Kog/Braum was not really good into that. And then we were talking about banning Milio on 4/5, a bit unlikely that he actually plays it. He usually plays engage champions. So yeah, we could avoid those situations. Nothing other than that.”
And, unfortunately, Mikyx felt as if his performance just got worse over the course of the event. Despite having a pretty strong showing on off-meta picks like his Lissandra counter for Rakan in game 2 and a strong early game with Bard in game 3, he was wholly unsatisfied with his performance despite his MVP-worthy domestic year.
“I would say I think I was doing just fine [going in]. Like, the Damwon or Weibo game, I was winning. I think the GenG game, I was doing okay. NRG game, I was inting. This series, I was inting.”
So why didn’t those scrim results show up on stage?
The difference between practice and game day
G2’s scrim results have become a hot topic in the LoL community since G2’s record was made public, and Mikyx had his own thoughts on why things may not have worked out well on stage despite practice making the team look strong.
You can watch the entire conversation in a video interview here, with the following quotes pulling out some of the most important talking points.
“I think we just… I don’t know what it is. […] I guess enemy teams also play way different, so they don’t take as many risks as in scrims. In scrims, we punish those risks way more. But I think we played way more scared.” Mikyx continued, “I think we just over-respected our opponents on stage, maybe.”
Practice is a fickle thing when it comes to League of Legends pro play, and every team is different. Some teams will choose to try and refine new strategies they’re cooking in scrims with other teams, while some will play safe and focus on refining a playstyle that already works for them.
The reality seems to be that the way many teams at Worlds 2023 played in scrims is different from how they play on stage. Where some teams may play more aggressive in scrims than on stage, Miky found the opposite to be true against NRG.
“Against NRG, they played really aggressive. No regrets. And we were just waiting for them to do whatever they want, you know? It was really important to play aggressive and be decisive in your engages and your play, which we weren’t really doing that.”
Though G2’s loss to BLG was unfortunate, their loss to NRG was what really stood out to many from this year’s Worlds run for them. G2 lost in an incredibly one-sided fashion to a team they were expecting to beat, ultimately leading to them missing the “easy” path to qualifying for Quarterfinals.
While Mikyx was willing to admit they’d been bested fair and square, he doesn’t plan to take that loss sitting down the next time they meet internationally.
“Yeah, they can have it for this year. They’re better. Like, fair enough. NRG was actually really good. I was surprised. All the players played well. Any other day, I think we still win, but they got us on an off day. Sucks. But we’ll get them back next year.”
