On the first day of the world championship, European teams looked underwhelming as G2 was routed by CLG, Splyce fell to Samsung, and H2K stumbled in the mid game against ahq. On day 2, H2K bounced back with a victory over INTZ, which defeated China’s EDG the day prior. Andre “Odoamne” Pascu played Kennen and eviscerated INTZ’s carries with dives, which helped to snowball H2K’s lead to victory. Colin “CD Mangaka” Nimer caught up with Odoamne to talk about Europe, Kennen at the world championship, and what would have to happen for Aleš "Freeze" Kn?žínek to be substituted in.

Colin Nimer: I’m talking with Andre “Odoamne” Pascu after H2K picked up Europe’s first win in the world championship so far…

Andre "Odoamne" Pascu: (Sarcastic) Wooooooh.

Colin Nimer: How does it feel to finally secure something for Europe? A lot of people have been down on Europe recently, but it is best of one’s early on in the group stages. What are your thoughts on why Europe isn’t performing at the level expected?

AP: I mean, as you said, it’s best of one. For us, personally, our first game was very poor because... I think we just needed a game to get used to the world stage, and since it was a best of one, we played it pretty poorly. We had a lead through early-game and mid-game and then we made one mistake while setting up on the map and we got caught and that cost us our whole lead. So if that big didn’t happen we would have snowballed that game super hard and we would have won really easy.

And for G2, I don’t know… I think that… I would think of it like that one game in a series that you completely mess it up and the enemy team just snowballs on you. I don’t think CLG is that much better than G2, at least on an individual level. G2 is a lot better. But like I said, there’s that one game, in my opinion. But maybe it’s just that CLG plays really consistently and really good, and that’s why (G2) lost. But I expect G2 to pick it up, just because we pretty much have only one game from them so we can’t really inspect their true level because it’s only one game.

For Splyce, it’s just that they have a really hard group because they are the third seed and they have RNG and Samsung. I think Samsung is like a lower tier than SKT and ROX, but they are still a really good team. And RNG right now are the best Chinese team at worlds. I think they are better than EDG and I May as well. I think RNG is performing really good. Splyce is just doing what they would have done, but that group is just a really difficult one, and the other team’s level is just higher than theirs. 

I think going forward, us and G2 can perform well, and Splyce… maybe they can pick up some wins or maybe they change some of their strategy and do better, I hope they do a lot better. I just think those teams are really good right now.

CN: We saw you play Kennen against INTZ and you had a lot of good dives onto the backline. What is it that makes Kennen a really good pick in the top lane? He’s been picked a few times and looks to become very contested.

AP: Well, the thing with Kennen and top lane is early game picks are really strong. Kennen fits that early game style, because he’s a lane bully. I think that AP tops are pretty good because they spike pretty early and have a lot of damage. The reason we picked (Kennen) today is he does fairly well into Rumble, I think it’s 50-50, so a skill matchup, but it just works well because the enemy mid laner cannot take cleanse anymore in this meta. Every other mid laner has ghost and flash, so Kennen has an easy way to just dive onto the enemy mid laner. He’s good on diving the backline, and today’s game was really good for me and our comp was really good for playing Kennen. But he can get countered as well, he doesn’t always work this well, but I think he’s a really strong pick.

CN: H2K have had a very interesting substitute situation with the AD carry role this summer. You brought Freeze in initially and then he had his wrist problems so you had to bring FORG1VEN back, but you brought both here to the World Championships. What sort of circumstances would have to happen for us to see Freeze get a shot on the international stage?

AP: I mean… it depends on how the situation is with the team. Maybe… god-forbid it, FORG1VEN gets injured, then maybe Freeze will have to step in. But I know Freeze’s situation as well. He had a lot of rest and his hand is definitely getting better, but worst case he might have to play. I think it’s best for him to get as much rest as he can for his hand, because if he gets rest then his hand can heal and he can play League of Legends competitively again, and if not he can do some serious, permanent damage. But worst case, if it comes down to that, Freeze will play, but I think it’s only if FORG1VEN has a serious injury.

CN: Your last opponent in this group is EDG, and on Day 1 they didn’t look so good. How do you guys feel about playing against EDG now that you’ve beaten ITZ, who beat EDG?

AP: I’m fairly confident. When the groups were drawn I was fairly confident in what we can do, especially in myself. I feel really confident playing these top laners. I think our group only has one decent top laner and that’s Ziv from ahq, and everyone else is not that good. Personally, I feel like I can take over that game against EDG and carry it, but we need to not underestimate them. I think we have a good shot. I think this happens every year: EDG comes to worlds, they’re hyped as the best team in the world and they’ll win, but last year they just crashed in quarters. Even when they played us, they didn’t have the best of showings even though our roster wasn’t as good as this year. So I think we have a really good shot at beating them. I think only their bot lane is pretty good, I don’t think Clearlove is that good, and I think in mid and top we are better than them.

(Image Courtesy of LoL Esports Flickr)