Ekki on the loss in the second map against NAVI in the EWC 2026 qualifiers: “They caught us off guard. But that only works once.”

I’m so tired. Drafting is so exhausting.

In the second game, I realized they had outsmarted us. They stole our Alchemist and put him in the offlane. They caught us off guard. But that only works once.

I know how Cy- thinks. I knew he’d pick Alchemist on the ninth pick. I said they’d take him, and we’d ban Pangolier and Queen of Pain, after which we wouldn’t have to worry about mid. My only fear was that this was the first time we’d played with Drow Ranger on this team. We had to pick her; Alchemist’s lane wouldn’t be the same as in the second game.

The team trusts me. When they see that I’m confident about something, they try to bring my ideas to life during the draft. I’m glad that’s happening.

In the last 15 minutes, when we already knew for sure that we were winning, we just tried to stay calm. I don’t know what happened between the second and third maps, but I had a level-five Doom in the mid lane, and a level-four Drow Ranger teleported to a difficult lane and destroyed it. That really surprised me.

We’ll take a break; the TI qualifiers with four slots are coming up soon. For some reason, Western and Eastern Europe are combined again. I’m happy with any scenario that doesn’t include TaiLung in Western Europe. Please, no more TaiLung.

Three days before the qualifiers, they took one slot away from Western Europe and gave it to Eastern Europe. Then they did the same thing to Southeast Asia. We were invited to a closed qualifier and took the spot, even though LGD Gaming was playing against us. The team immediately fell into despair, but I said we would put up a fight.