The Piltover Post

After a less than stellar regular season in the North American Challenger League, Blue Otter rose to the occasion and finished 3rd place with their impressive playoff run. During their time in the playoffs, where they fell into the lower bracket, the Otters locked in and took down two teams that were considered most likely to make it to the promotion tournament. With the team knocking out DarkZero Dragonsteel in a five game series, they faced a veteran opponent in Supernova. With three former LTA/LCS players in Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett, Nicholas “Ablazeolive” Abbott, and Jeremiah “ScaryJerry” Leathe standing in their way, it was easy to dismiss the organization’s chance of winning. However, the Otters prevailed and swept the series three games to nothing. With the momentum from these two wins, there were high hopes for them against Conviction. Unfortunately, their miracle run ran out of steam and even though they were able to take a game, they ultimately fell to CNV. Despite finishing the regular season in 8th place, the Otters swam their way to 3rd place with the impressive run. Samrith “Samikin” Loeung reflects on the year and how it shaped him.

Q: Blue Otter was off to a rocky start this season, ending the regular season with a record of 3-6, and just barely beating out CCG Esports and stopping yourselves from getting relegated. How did that affect your mentality going into the playoffs? 

A: Firstly, due to all of the roster changes we had during the regular season, I knew that a rocky start was inevitable and that there was even a chance that, as low of a chance it was, we wouldn’t make playoffs at all just based on the timeline we had. Faced with that fact, I think most people would get disheartened from their circumstances, but not me. Most people would say that one of my best qualities is having an unbreakable mentality and I agree (you could ask anyone and they would be scarce to find any stories of me being tilted or mentally checked out).

Secondly, we were just more consistent on stage compared to almost every other team outside of Luminosity Gaming. This was where most of our confidence came from. We could just play our own game, wait, and eventually the other team will make mistakes that we can capitalize on. We just had to get to a point where we could carry out our own game plan while also punishing other teams’ weak plays, which we eventually did considering the run we had to 3rd place. On top of that, with the aforementioned situation of roster swapping, we just had a lot more room to grow quickly, so that definitely helped grounding us versus the veteran teams or players.

Q: At the start of split 2, there was considerable discussion about the teams favored to advance to the promotion tournament. Although Blue Otter has been around for a couple of years, your team was not included in that list. Do you think that drives you to prove them wrong?

A: Does three splits really count as that long for an NACL org? Personally, I couldn’t care less about the promotion tournament, it is just a byproduct of my goal individually and our goal as a team. For me, I want to play as much League of Legends as possible because I just simply love playing the game, and I view going pro as one of the paths I can take to play better LoL for longer. Proving the general public wrong doesn’t mean anything to me. I will be playing the game- there will be people who support me and people who don’t. If my friends, fellow players, coaches, and fans believe in my ability to go even higher, who else’s approval should I aim for?

Q: What was a personal goal for you at the beginning of the season? As the weeks went on, did you find yourself sticking to them or altering them? Do you feel like you succeeded in achieving said goals this year?

A: I had two personal goals since the beginning of the split, one for outside and inside the game. Outside of the game, I wanted to expand my brand, and Blue Otter was the perfect, most welcoming place when it came to preparing their players to be worth more than the orgs that they play for at any given time. Getting connections with TL through the Blue Otter partnership, being able to talk to TL’s players, managers, and staff all helped me grow as a player and just being social in the pro-scene in general, especially when it comes to talking to a lot of the pro mid laners for advice. Overall, I think I achieved my pretty well- placing high in NACL definitely helped, too!

Inside of the game, I wanted to focus on my communication skills. Looking back on it, picking mid lane and playing my special champions definitely wasn’t the greatest idea for someone who grew up as introverted as one could get haha. The one constant feedback I would always get is that I don’t know my own space when it came to coms in-game, which is why I ALWAYS end up with less CS than almost every other mid laner in NACL since I kept getting dragged around the entire game without pushback. I like to think I’ve gotten exponentially better, but it’ll still take time since getting exponentially better at something you’re naturally bad it doesn’t make it great in a short amount of time.

Q: Blue Otter made a couple of roster changes midseason. Do you think that the new players made a difference in how your season ended for better or for worse?

A: Our new players (KryRa and Array) definitely helped our team a lot. They added a lot of Yin to our Yang- basically everyone was too good of a person and our two new additions added a lot of zest and flavor personality wise to our team soup. They gave our team a lot of direction and were willing to be the bad guys to call teammates out when they’re playing badly while always being open to feedback and always self-reflecting on how to get better, too.

Q: Who inspires you the most to keep competing? How have they influenced your life?

A: Unironically, DSG DARKWINGS has been a lot of my inspiration lately. I will never forget my first competitive match in Tier 3 NACL Open Qualifiers: playing versus #1 seed 100 Thieves Next as the #32 seed. DARKWINGS vs Samikin. Needless to say, they got a perfect game with his signature Viktor pick. Now, I’m in NACL and he’s in LTA. We really kicked off our friendship at the SIDO combine in December 2024 and we constantly chat with each other about LoL. I ask him about general things he’s better at, and he asks me about my off-meta specialty picks whenever they get buffed or have a good situation in the meta due to the fearless format. I’m still trying to get him on my patented secret Zoe build. My one gripe with not making the LTA promotion tournament is that I won’t be able to get my revenge against him yet!

Q: With your season being over, how do you plan on spending your time? When do you think you’ll start to prepare for 2026?

A: I don’t know when I’ll start prepping for 2026 Spring split since it’s so far away and there’s no concrete date yet. My main plan is to just continue growing my brand and community via streaming and playing in some small tournaments like ACL with my friends / NACL people. Also, SIDO is coming back this year and going back to LA to train again would be a really fun experience I hope to have again.

Q: Last but not least, do you see yourself sticking with Blue Otter next year? 

A: Hey, if they throw money at me, of course I’ll stay! In all seriousness, Blue Otter is a really amazing organization in NACL, and playing for them again would be amazing, but there is also a part of me telling me to explore the outside world and other teams since I’ve only ever been on Blue Otter after making it to Tier 2, so it is a bit of a split decision for me currently. I do know that whoever ends up being on the 2026 Spring Blue Otter team will be treated like family much like how we were.