EG Ssumday speaks about settling in, LCS scrim schedule and Top lane meta

Evil Geniuses will be kicking themselves after throwing away an almost ten-thousand gold lead against Counter Logic Gaming. The loss left the LCS squad with a 1-1 record to kick off the LCS Spring Split. Although EG fans should not fear, there were always going to be some bumps in the road with new players.

One of the new players entering the fray is Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho. The veteran top laner departed from 100 Thieves following a disappointing end to the year. Following their match against CLG, EG Ssumday spoke to Esports.gg for an exclusive interview.

Settling into a new team can always be tricky. Teams can research how a particular player may gel into their roster, but can never be sure until the results come back. Player for player, it seems Evil Geniuses made the correct moves in the offseason.

With Jeong "Impact" Eon-young's departure for FlyQuest, the acquisition of Ssumday looks to be a very smart move. Like Impact, Ssumday is a veteran who is still performing at the highest level in the LCS. Over the years, the two have been compared in terms of their flexibility but also pulling the weight of the team when needed.

Ssumday was surprised by the smoothness of his transition from 100 Thieves to Evil Geniuses.

"It was kinda easier than I thought because everyone was really nice to me and friendly so I could adjust faster and focus on being better on the rift."

During the offseason, the LCS teams moved to a new scrim schedule. The schedule has divided the opinions of both the community and the players. How the new scrim schedule works were explained in a video by former Evil Geniuses performance coach Connor "Artemis" Doyle.

The change now looks like this, the first block is from 1 PM to 4 PM with a two-hour break before their next block which is from 6 PM to 9 PM. There was a split decision by the LCS teams to move the scrim schedule to two blocks of three games instead of one block of five according to Artemis.

It is not confirmed how the voting panned out, but we can start to get an understanding of a couple of the teams that pushed for the new schedule. In a response on the TSM Discord, TSM's Vice President of Esports Dominic Kallas praised both TSM LoL General Manager Yang "Glen" Po-Jen and Cloud9 for apparently getting this over the line.

When asked about the new schedule, Ssumday speaks about the pros and cons that the new schedule provides.

"I can't say it's like right or wrong. Because someday it is correct because between scrims if you tilt you are able to take a break which is really good to refresh the mind. Some days you're playing well but then have to take a break for two hours."

"It really depends on how you use that time. The time when I was in Korea, I used to sleep at that time but right now I am using that time to play solo queue and watch vods. So I don't think there's like correct and wrong things."

For a role that has been looked down upon for many years, Riot Games has given the 'island' role some love in 2023. These changes have seen the likes of K'Sante and Jax dominate the competition. The two brawlers have featured heavily across every major region thus far.

The pair have been played a combined eleven times in week one of the LCS Spring Split, three of those times against each other. While the direct head-to-head might be low so far, this is a prominent feature in other major regions.

K'Sante has been arguably the star of the LCS thus far with fans and players speaking out about the 'brokenness' of the Top lane tank. Unfortunately for Ssumday, the Korean Top laner provided the first loss of the split for K'Sante with CLG's comeback win.

Ssumday spoke about the state of the Top lane right now in competitive play - "Personally I think it's okay and the matchups are okay. Sometimes you can make one big mistake and screw the matchup, and you cannot come back. But sometimes I can screw up and still come back and carry [laughs]."

"On the other hand, there are not that many champions showing up and I don't like that because there aren't many pocket picks. But I like that I can still come back in the game if I make a mistake."

Evil Geniuses returns to action this Thursday when they take on joint LCS leaders TSM.

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