Interview conducted by Amanda Stevens

While in Chicago for the League of Legends World Championship Quarterfinals, Amanda bumped into LMS caster and expert Clement Chu. Tune in for this quick chat about the teams that surprised him, the teams he thought underperformed, and why he thinks NA doesn't do better internationally.

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Amanda Stevens: What’s it like getting to work an event the size of the World Championship?

Clement Chu: It was awesome. Last year, of course, it was kind of out of the blue. The LMS did surprisingly well and the producers contacted me saying “Tabe’s off the desk so we have a vacancy, you wanna sit the desk?” Last year was kind of disappointing, our teams drew SKT and that wasn’t that fun. This year was kind of the same story, but hopefully we get better.

Amanda Stevens: Between AHQ and Flash Wolves, which team was the bigger disappointment for you?

Clement Chu: For me, the Flash Wolves were a bigger disappointment. Because listening to what a lot of teams were saying about scrims, [the consensus was] that Flash Wolves had a legitimate chance of even competing for the title. I felt like, realistically, if you looked at the Group Stage they very well could have gone 5-1 instead of the 2-4 they got. They pretty much threw three games. It feels sad because there is a lot of talk about Karsa maybe wanting to go somewhere else and maybe Maple following him or something like that. So, for such a promising team to leave a legacy and just sort of end on such a sad note, I feel like was a huge disappointment.

Amanda Stevens: Were there any teams when you were watching the Group Stage that you were very surprised at how they performed, whether it be very surprised that they did poorly or very surprised that they exceeded your expectations?

Clement Chu: Well, I think TSM is the one that really disappointed a lot of people. Coming in there, they looked pretty strong. Of course, there was a lot of questions about their macro game. Overall I think the North American teams are not strict enough with their players. They don’t turn it up hard enough in the big tournaments. You look at the scim teams, of course I’m not there every day, but usually it’s going to be SKT, EDG, and Flash Wolves that go in the earliest and leave the latest.

Of course, my teams are super disappointing. No question about that. As for teams that did well, H2K really brought it together. EU was the first region to really appreciate Ryze, and if you look at how the tournament’s going, Caitlyn is a big pick that is coming out for Forg1ven. I think H2K was the biggest surprise for me.

Amanda Stevens: These Quarterfinal games weren’t all that great. Did you see that coming once the brackets were announced or were you hoping that these games would be closer than they ended up being? Clement Chu: Well, they pretty much fit all the expectations. If you look at the bracket, it’s kind of bad for the games because when all the good teams are one side of the bracket they actually don’t scrim each other that much. So, it drags down the level of the tournament a little bit and the left side of the bracket is definitely stacked. What can I say? The Korean teams showed up and performed to their own level.

Amanda Stevens: Is there any sort of mixing of teams that could have happened to make the brackets a little more competitive?

Clement Chu: I kind of wanted to see ANX versus one of the Korean teams. I think that would have been a bit more interesting. Because you know H2K, while I think they are a very strong team, I don’t think they are Rox Tigers or SKT level. So, you’d be taking the underdog versus the strongest team. Still, [it’s] probably going to end up the same but then you have a closer matchup of like H2K versus Rox would have been more interesting. But, that’s not how the draws turned out.

Amanda Stevens: We now know who the Semifinal matchups are; who do you think are going to be the two teams in the Finals?

Clement Chu: I actually have H2K advancing over Samsung Galaxy, which I know is going to be a little controversial. From what I’ve seen, I don’t think Samsung plays that well from behind. They’re actually pretty passive when they are behind and they tend to just drag the games out, which I don’t think is that good versus H2K. For H2K, of course the question is still the late game. I do think they play a little messy in terms of macro game, you saw today they got their Baron stolen.

On the other side of the bracket, you have SKT versus Rox Tigers. I think it’s going to be SKT 3-1 for me. I think a big point of contention is how the junglers are going to do. But, overall, I think SKT just plays so slow and calculated. And a lot of what Rox Tigers do is their playmaking is based on speed and I don’t think that SKT is going to get caught off guard.

Amanda Stevens: To close out, if you could pitch the LMS to Western League of Legends fans how would you convince them to watch the games?

Clement Chu: I think the LMS...the games are kind of inbetween the LCK and the LPL. They’re fast pace, but they’re also very strategic. I think macro game-wise, our top teams are actually doing much better than LPL teams are. I say this with no hesitation at all. But on the flipside, they also play much more aggressively.

So, you get that really interesting kind of blend between these two styles where there is hyper aggression and there is also this macro heavy styles. And generally, I think there a lot of very interesting characters and picks. We came up with the Trundle support and we have a lot of star players who really can showcase their macro. We have a lot of stompy games because we’re top heavy but the stompy games are fun when you have star players in them.