Karmine Corp have already locked in their spot in the LEC Versus playoffs, doing so even before the final week of the regular season began. KC has looked strong on stage, showing confidence and synergy in most of its games, something the team’s jungler said the roster also has outside of League of Legends‘ Summoner’s Rift.

In an interview with Esports.Net, Martin “Yike” Sundelin spoke about how team synergy and strong personal relationships play a huge role in performance on stage. KC’s jungler also opened up about mental health and how he’s learned to thrive under stress, also sharing a sneak peek of what LEC Versus fans can expect from the jungle meta with Patch 26.03.

Q) You have been at the top of the rankings of this LEC Versus for a few days now. How do you feel the competition has been so far?

Yike: It’s been very fun. I think the first week was a bit slow for us and me, especially. I feel like I didn’t play as well as I wanted to, and the second week, I’m happy with how I played. And now going into the third week, even though we lost the first game, I think I still did some decent plays. So yeah, I just want to keep it up. I think we play well as a team. We know how to win games, so we just need to make sure that we play it correctly.

Q) How was it to start bonding with this new roster this season?

Yike: Yeah, it’s been very fun. We’ve been doing so much together, and we have a very good time. I think the team is amazing, and there are really no complaints about it. I think everyone is getting very used to each other very easily, and yeah, it feels very comfortable to be here.

Q) Last time that we spoke last year, you said that it is a bit weird to be the leader and a veteran player on the team. Did that feeling change this year?

Yike: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it is kind of similar because we got Kang “kyeahoo” Ye-hoo, who is very young as well. But Alan “Busio” Cwalina is also… I guess Alan is also a bit younger, but Alan is also very wise and he has good opinions, so it’s easy with him to talk and everything. And overall, it’s kind of similar to everyone.

I don’t see myself as a leader of the team. I just want to be myself, and we play as a team, we play as we are. I don’t really want to make roles for the team, so I’m just who I am. I think we have a good synergy, so it’s going well.

Q) What is the main factor when it comes to creating good team synergy?

Yike: I think for me it’s very important to just get good relationships with every individual player. So yeah, I make sure that I always work a lot to make sure that I have good synergy with Kim “Canna” Chang-dong, with kyeahoo, with Caliste “Caliste” Henry-Hennebert, and with Busio has been going well. I feel like I can talk with them about anything and I feel like they feel comfortable around me and that’s very important to me.

So yeah, just making sure that you have very good relationships with your teammates and coaches as well. I have a good relationship with Quentin “Zeph” Viguié and Bok “Reapered” Han-gyu and I feel like the talks are very easy and I think that’s good to have a very warm kind of room environment. 

Q) If we were to say a percentage, how important is it to you that you and your teammate have a good relationship outside of League in order to perform well on stage?

Yike: For me, it’s very high. I think like 90% for me. For me, it’s key to have a good relationship with my teammates because then that’s when you enjoy the game and you have fun together. And when you have fun, I feel like you always do better and play better and enjoy the time you have. So yeah, it’s very high for me.

Q) Before we head into the game and meta and all this stuff, the LEC has announced a partnership with Movember about bringing in more awareness to players’ mental health, and I wanted to hear your opinion about it.

Yike: Yeah, I think it’s very good that they bring this because that’s something I think very important and I think people don’t really talk about it a lot, but me, for example, I am a very stressful person. When I joined the LEC I was very stressed before every game. I’m still very stressed before every game, but I can handle it better. I’ve worked a lot on myself with that, together with G2 and KC, the staff I’ve worked with there. So yeah, it’s really nice to see that they are having this collaboration and that there can be players that can reach out to them and ask for help in anything. I really like it.

Q) How did you reach this equilibrated mentality?

Yike: I remember when I was younger, 16, 17, 18 years old. I wanted to go pro. But I thought playing on stage would be the scariest thing for me ever. And I was expecting, thinking to myself, ‘there’s no way I’ll become pro, it’s going to be so hard. I can’t go on stage. People are going to watch me, I’m going to be stressed, I’m going to choke.’

But it was really just the opposite for me. Obviously, I was stressed before, but as soon as I walked onto the stage, I saw the crowd, I saw my team, and put on the headset, I felt very locked in, and I really like this feeling I get. And I think I have a combination of both now. I would say I’m very stressed, but when I get on stage, I feel very locked in. I feel like I’m in the zone, and I can play as well as my peak. 

And that’s a very good feeling to have because there’s some other people that can be stressed going into the game and thinking about choking, but I never think about that and that’s really helpful for me. 

And I think one thing that is unusual about me is that I joined LEC when I was 22, so I was not that young. A lot of people join when they’re 18, 19, these ages. I joined kind of late, but I think it was a good thing for me that I joined the LEC late because it helped me. Those years before I worked on myself and my mental to have a very strong one, a good mentality going into the LEC. And I feel like if I had joined the LEC when I was younger, it would’ve been much harder for me. So I’m happy with how everything turned out for me.

Q) I’m glad to hear you had this positive experience and attitude. Now going into the game, last time we spoke, you said that you were very comfortable with your champion pool and I’ve heard from various pro players that right now the meta didn’t really change that much from last year. What do you think are maybe some junglers that might come up in the playoffs? 

Yike: For now, it’s a bit of a mix between some of the old junglers like Xin Zhao, Wukong, Jarvan IV,  these champs, and then there’s also the newly buffed junglers like Aatrox, Ambessa, Jayce, Malphite, these champs. And I like the combination of the two because you have to think a lot and draft to make sure to get the best one.

And then there are still a lot of champs that people play like Qiyana. I would love to play her as well, but…I can’t say everything, but I like to play Qiyana.

There are more champs that are getting buffed and nerfed, for example, Naafiri is going to get a big buff next patch. Zahen jungle is going to get buffed, and I would like to see how that goes as well. 

I really like that they’re changing it up and down with the champs. I would love to see more champions in LEC. To me, the funniest thing is when there’s a big meta change, where it’s just different jungles every game. When there was Zyra and Brand jungle in games, for example. I really love that.