SKP.Kikis: “…our players have a deep champion pool and ability to adapt…”

Founded in January 2014, the sibling team of the main SK Gaming roster has been placing high in the last couple of months. A first place in the Dailymotion Cup and EU Challenger Series #2, together with a 3rd/4th place at DreamHack Summer, Prime are eagerly awaiting their chance at an LCS spot. With the Challenger playoffs well underway, Prime are favourites for a top 3 placing.

The interview was conducted on August 1st via Skype after SKP's win over NiP.

Congratulations on your victory and Challenger Series title! With back-to-back victories in best-of-three against H2k and NiP, you seem to have messed with a lot of people’s heads who underestimated SK Gaming Prime. Where does SKP belong in the Challenger scene standings at this point?

Thank you very much! Well, in the official standings we are 4th, but in reality, I belive we are a really strong contender for being the best in the amateur scene. We have beaten both H2k and NiP who were considered stronger by many, so just based on the results you can say we are pretty good. Even though I mostly see people saying other teams are playing worse than us playing good, we still have time to prove our skill level is high.

Most people are not that familiar with the SK Prime line-up. Would you give us a run-down of your teammates and who should we watch out for in the future?

I’ll start off with saying that most of our players have really deep champion pool and ability to adapt, so I don’t have to repeat myself everytime. On top lane we have SmittyJ, his teleports are on point, he can hold his own even when he is set behind by the enemy jungler while the rest of the team is capitalizing on numbers advantage on the other side of the map. In jungle we have me, Kikis, I am the main shotcaller of the team, I usually like to play aggressive to a certain extent, because I know my and the champions’ limits and prefer heavy engage junglers.

In mid lane there’s Watdefox, he is a really talented midlaner that is already getting some recognition for his amazing plays. Marksman is Zyzz, formerly known as Haydal, in the meta of carries he actually likes to play bully champions like Corki and tries to get an advantage early game. On support we have Zytan, who plays up to the aggresion of Zyzz and as well tries to punish enemy in the early levels.

In both series, you were one game ahead, an unfortunate mistake gives the opposing team the equalizer, but the deciding game is once again a convincing victory. Is there something mystical which prevents you to close the series at 2-0?

I guess we actually prefer playing from the purple side as opposed to many teams, because I believe we won every game from the purple side in those series. Our draft phase on this side seems better, but actually I don’t think it makes too big of a difference.

The team was officially “finished” a couple of weeks ago when you joined. What do you bring to the team in and out of the game?

As I mentioned before, I am the main shotcaller of the team. I try to communicate with the team as much as possible about what I want to do and what is the enemy jungler doing. I have always been in the competitive scene just under the best and I have enough experience and knowledge to make good objective calls and with the information provided by my team I can judge whether it is an appropriate time to fight or not. I also try to mention as much as possible things we need to fix like communication, more pink wards or other things that can help us get better.

Many people disagreed with your Vi pick in the series against NiP on social media. Mind explaining what the Piltover Enforcer brought to the table in that match?

I belive it was k0u’s pick that people disagreed with, but I can explain my train of thoughts. I had the chance to pick jungler late in the draft, so I could get the best possible pick. So first of all, Vi is pretty good against Jarvan IV. I can 1v1 him when I meet him in the jungle and also I can stop his combo with my Q which happened in the fight on top lane in this match. Second of all, we already had Yasuo in team and enemies had Ryze and Kog’Maw, two champions that are not really mobile. With that in mind, I could have picked any target I wanted in team fights, and Yasuo would just follow me with ultimate.

Prime has been on a good streak recently, finishing first in the Dailymotion Cup, beating potential LCS spot opponents H2k and Unicorns of Love along the way. With an EU Challenger Series victory, how confident is the team about the upcoming LCS promotion qualifiers?

Our team is pretty confident about the upcoming playoff and relegation matches after. As our performance shows, we believe we have high chances to qualify for the next season of LCS. We still have a long way to go in order to be one of the best in Europe, but I believe we are on the right track.

With each promotion, we see increased competition. This year Ocelote’s Gamers2, Febiven and the crew from H2k, the Ninjas lead by Alex Ich and SK Prime will be battling it out for entry to the LCS. What are your predictions for the potential LCS spot matches?

The competition is tough, but I believe we will come out on top. So from challenger teams it should be us, NiP and H2k. We already know 2 teams from LCS, 7th place Gambit and 8th place Copenhagen Wolves. It’s hard to predict the last team, but I think ROCCAT is not performing so good at the moment, even though I am their sub. So I suppose us versus CW, NiP versus Gambit and H2k versus Roccat.

Thank you very much for your time Kikis, the last words are yours.

Thanks for having me here! I am really glad I am getting some recognition now for the hard work I put into this game. I want to thank all of those that are supporting me and my team. If you are interested in me as a person, you can always check out my social media Facebook or twitter. Last, but not least, thanks to SK Gaming and our sponsors for supporting us.