After a tumultuous 2024, the LEC’s Team Heretics blew up its veteran-laden roster in favour of a rookie-focused project. Only remaining from last year is bot laner Víctor “Flakked” Lirola, who now stands as the face of the project and de facto captain to his lesser-experienced teammates. We spoke to Flakked for an interview following a close 2-1 defeat to Winter champions Karmine Corp during the third week of LEC Spring.
Flakked: For sure, there’s a lot of positive things to take from today. Even though I might not look [it] right now, I’m really happy with the boys. Not only gameplay-wise, but how we played in the sense of how we dealt with the pressure and how we talk to each other in game on stage.
I think today it was a really good feeling, even though we threw and it sucks. But I think there’s there’s so many positive things we can take from today and everyone should be proud.
Lee Jones: In an interview with Armand Luque last week you spoke about your disappointment with the attitude towards practice leading up to those matches.
Flakked: For sure, it was kind of like a reality check. And of course, sometimes you need it if people are starting to, you know, relax more or get more complacent. So of course, I’m not happy that we got the reality check. But in a way, you know, it’s always useful to get back to reality.
For sure this week, the attitude and the gameplay in scrims was way, way better.
Lee Jones: You’ve taken on the captaincy role in TH now after previously having played in rosters with many veteran players.
Flakked: I took so many learnings from BB and as well, I took learnings from Jankos. And of course, throughout my career, I had the chance to play with a lot of better players. For example, last year, even though it was not the best results-wise, the chance of playing with Kaiser, with Wunder, with Perkz, with Jankos is like, these guys, they have been through a lot. They have been through so many internationals, through so many finals and tense moments. So for sure I took so much and learned so much from them that I’m using to this day.
Image credit: Riot Games
Lee Jones: That roster from LEC last year went through a number of mid-season changes following plenty of drama.
Flakked: I think the most important thing that changed about last year’s Heretics and this year’s Heretics is the values that Team Heretics stands for and just its overall passion. It’s this passion for the game.
Honestly, for sure last year’s roster didn’t have the most committed or focused on the league. The league wasn’t their priority. I would say that’s from what I get, maybe for some people they think different.
But to my feeling with these guys, I can feel that they really care a lot about the game. They care a lot about the day-to-day and they care a lot about doing a good showing and just becoming a better teammate and making everyone happy.
Lee Jones: With it being a more long-term project now, I can imagine that eight-place in Winter was not ideal, but could be acceptable with improvement being the main goal early on.
Flakked: For sure the the ultimate goal is to just give everything in Summer and of course, if we can win the championship, that’s what we aim for. But we really want to be really strong for summer and go to Worlds. That’s like the main goal of the roster. And I think so far, we still have a lot of work to do, but I think some positive things are starting to show and I’m really proud of the boys.
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