Markoon: “Whenever we improve a little, the other teams just improve too”

Rogue has struggled hard this split in Europe, and as one of the teams tied at two wins at the end of the last day of play, had to enter a three-way tiebreaker for the final playoffs spot. Unfortunately for Rogue, it was not meant to be, as the team lost their first tiebreaker and spiraled out of contention. Markoon took the time to discuss how he's feeling after this disappointing split, and how he views the game overall right now.

Esports.gg: You've just played your final series of the split, and it didn't go your way. How are you feeling?

Mark "Markoon" van Woensel: "This last game, I don't know, was going okay, we made a few mistakes, felt like we could have pushed our lead a bit harder. Then we got caught for it at Nashor and it was kinda hard to play after that. Comp was in our face, they were outranging us, so it was hard for us to find an engage. After the Nashor, it was pretty hard."

How are you feeling about the split?

"For the split overall, I don't know, it's the most hope I've had. At least this split scrims were going better, I actually felt like we were improving. It feels like whenever we improve a little, the other teams just improve too. We stay behind, we never really get ahead. "

We've talked to several pro players and coaches who have commented on the volatile meta that has come out of mideason. How do you feel about the changes?

"I mean, for me it's kind of been the same. The AP jungler is the big change for jungle coming in this split and for me, if a team decides to make AP junglers work, it's a burden on the entire team to play better for them to be strong. That's picking like Taliyah, Brand, these kinds of champions, instead of Maokai. You put a burden on the entire team because you all need to play better in order to make it work.

"So teams are trying these champions, some are succeeding, some teams are failing, some teams have accepted they're not going for these AP junglers and are just picking the Maokais, the Sejuanis. Some of them are succeeding and some of them are failing, so, I think it's just a bit of a split in what the teams prioritize. "

Is it a good thing that mages have items this efficient to clear the jungle with? Is this an AP mage problem or just an item problem?

"I think they just made [Fated Ashes] way too OP. It's fine for junglers to have a good, on-curve AP item but they just overbuffed it so hard. This causes every AP jungler to just have such a fast clear, which is why we're seeing next patch every AP jungler is getting nerfed. And all of these champions buy the same items, so I feel like item should have gotten slightly nerfed and its fine for them to have it. But now they're nerfing every AP jungler. "

What do you think about the announcement of a Fearless Draft international event, and what doy ou think of Fearless Draft?

"For the international event, it's interesting to see if people actually care about it. It does seem kind of like budget MSI. Who knows? If nobody cares, why would I watch it if I've already watched MSI and Worlds is coming up, which is actually more hype. "

I believe it's slated to happen before MSI, so earlier in the year.

"Really? I guess it's like an MSI teaser, then. I mean, I'm going to watch it. It's not like I'm not going to watch it, I just don't feel particularly too hyped for it. For Fearless Draft I think it's more fun to play Fearless Draft, I think it's more fun to watch Fearless Draft. The only thing that happens is that the level of competition goes down if you do Worlds and Worlds isn't Fearless Draft but you've been playing Fearless Draft on your entire season, right? It would just be a disadvantage to regions that play with Fearless Draft, that's the only problem. I think overall it's kind of good for the League, it is more fun, in general."

The LCS has recently made the swap to best-of-threes. Would you like it if the LEC did the same, which type of series do you prefer to play?

"For players, best-of-threes is far, far, far better. In game one you can test champs, you can go for more risky strategies. Right now, if you go for risky strategies, you're just going to lose. If you lose, it's so punishing. Best-of-threes just allows for more games, and more freedom. It's also more games to improve, if you get to play nine best-of-threes in a split instead of best-of-ones, it's so many more games, it's much better for players. "

If you could pick which region Arcane Season 3 would visit, which region would you pick and which champion do you want to see?

"What is the Darius one? "

Noxus!

"I feel like Noxus. A lot of the fun champions are from Noxus. Maybe get some Darius vs Lux, Garen, this kind of dynamic. Yeah, something like this could be fun. But I'm really not too much into the lore, so I don't know more than that. "

Any last notes for the fans cheering you on?

"Overall, any support when you ninth-ninth-ninth is very appreciated. I don't think people realize how much it actually does. Sorry for the very, very, very disappointing year. If you're devastated, just know that anybody, all the players and stuff, is way more devastated than you."

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