The Piltover Post

With the summer split of the League Championship Series winding down and a spot at the biggest international tournament of the year on the line, teams are starting to feel the pressure. However, Disguised is facing a different demon. Without a single win this split, the team is going to have to go into the fall defending their spot in the league. Sajed “Sajed” Ziade isn’t worried, though. The rookie is optimistic that there is still time for DSG to turn things around, and he still plans to finish in the top 3.

Q: I’ve talked to a couple of players who admit the skill ceiling is much higher in the LCS and the NACL. Do you find yourself struggling with the shift from tier 2 to tier 1?

A: Obviously, the skill difference is pretty big from tier 2 to tier 1, but I never really found myself struggling hard. It was a huge knowledge gap at first, but I think I caught up decently by spring split. For me, there was not much left to learn in tier 2. In my last year, the only lane opponents pushing me were Tactical and Zeyzal, who are pretty solid LCS-level players and helped prep me for how tier 1 was going to be.

Q: DSG started strong in the Lock-In stage, taking down Sentinels (also known as DSG Red) and even LYON, who would later win Split 1 and Split 2. It felt like DSG was on a great momentum upswing, and then the team felt like it petered out. How do you find yourself dealing with the mental toll that this takes on a person?

A: I think other teams were very slow on a meta read in winter, and we took advantage of that by already having a style that worked for us and set champs to play. I think by playoffs, we got exposed a bit (mainly me), and as a team we were really slow to get on top of the meta during spring. It felt like we’d fix one problem and regress on another, and we were stuck in a loop with being kind of slow on meta reads or getting really precise on certain meta bot matchups quickly.

Q: The team is really struggling to find success, with your team having minimal tier 1 experience. Who do you find yourself looking to for shot calling on the team?

A: At this point, we all kind of shot-call what we want, and we give a lot of options, and we try to agree on one in-game. Sometimes it’s hard when there are a lot of options going out, but the main shot caller is probably Callme.

Q: In your opinion, what is your team’s biggest weakness? What steps are you taking to help strengthen that area?

A: Our biggest weakness has been pretty much the same since the start of the year – just having clear plans to progress the game. Another weakness we’ve been having on and off is just getting to mid-game even or up gold. Some days we consistently get to mid-game up 2-4k, and then other days games are just unplayable by the 15 min mark. There’s just a lot of silly, uncharacteristic mistakes contributing to this, and we’ve been working hard on our first weakness by putting a lot of emphasis on it during review.

Q: You went to boot camp in Korea. Cryogen said that Koreans know how to punish small mistakes that would be overlooked in NA. That’s a common viewpoint for both NA players and fans. Why do you think that LCS consistently sees this problem but doesn’t fix it?

A: I think the mindset is so different in NA compared to other regions. Like most people here in soloq and a bit in competitive are content just 50/50 and scale and farm and pick stuff that doesn’t require a lot of creativity or pressure to work. Junglers love to just lock screen, full clear, and supports love to afk not roam, and just chill on ranged supports. Perma-playing in an environment like that causes players to not really train that aggressiveness and see snap angles to progress that I guess could be punished in other regions. I think some players do it pretty well in LCS, but from my experience in comparing the scrims, LCS games are usually slower and more relaxed and team fight based.

Q: Do you feel the pressure to try and prove that DSG belongs in the LCS by focusing on winning a series, or are you just ready to concentrate on winning the promotional tournament?

A: I don’t feel any pressure to prove that we belong in LCS or that the org belongs here, and I’m not thinking ahead towards the promo tourney. My goal with this team has always been the same since I made the choice to join – I want to make top 3/4 runs and improve a lot individually. I mean, it’s no surprise, but DSG lacks a lot of structure that other teams have; we have one coach while every other team has 3+ staff to help improve. We r at a pretty significant disadvantage in that aspect, but we’re still here trying hard to make the most of our year and still aim for a top 3 spot.

Q: Who do you think will be your biggest opponent in the promotion tournament? Even at the risk of DSG losing their spot, which NACL players do you feel deserve a shot in the LCS?

A: From watching NACL, maybe just NRG – they seem solid. For tier 2 players right now, Zamudo is by far the best and really deserves a shot on a top LCS team. I think Spica on support is LCS-level, to be honest, and other than that, maybe like Sushee, Phymini, Horder, or Zyko could be some developmental pieces. I also do think ScaryJerry, purely based on gameplay, should get another shot.