EG Jiizuke: “I think we are still not insane right now, we’re fine and we just bring something new to the table”
After another flawless weekend for Evil Geniuses, we spoke to their mid laner Daniele “Jiizuke” di Mauro about the team’s form, their morale and more.
Thank you very much for the interview, Jiizuke, and congratulations on your win today! In your lane, you were pushed in fairly early. Was this because of the matchup or your team’s prioritization of the botlane?
Jiizuke: I was pushed in just because of that early botlane dive and I had to give up fifteen CS for that roam. I’m basically sacrificing for my botlane to be ahead. They got two kills off of that so they should have carried the game forward. If we played the game properly, I should have gotten the push on Viktor and gotten dives from the jungle but that isn’t what happened and I got pushed in instead. It’s a trade-off, though, I sacrifice my lane, they lose twenty CS bot, and they get two kills.
There weren’t a lot of fights over early objectives, the first drake coming in at 14-minutes. Why do you think that was?
Jiizuke: Honestly, because we made a mistake, it was their dragon to take but they never took the time to do it. Golden Guardians were looking to fight a lot and the objective didn’t come to mind, I guess. Because of the mistake we made 7 minutes in, it really was their drake to take but they didn’t. It was delayed until the moment I solo killed Leblanc.
Speaking of that, you have a particularly active game on Lee Sin. Could you tell me about some of these early picks you found?
Jiizuke: I think the philosophy on this team is that ‘as long as we are behind, we can do anything we want to catch up.’ To me, that was for sure a risky play but I knew my limits and I went for it and it was worth it in the end. We took two free kills and had tempo for the rest of the game because of it. Yeah, I’d go for that anytime. Then after, when we were grouping mid just because – I mean it’s Nocturne, right? – it’s scary to go to the sidelines because you have to go at the right timings.
Expanding on these midlane fights that happened later on, it seemed both teams had very strong team fight comps. Was trying to find a winning fight harder as the game went on?
Jiizuke: Yeah, for sure. I think both teams were learning how to team fight each other in-game. In my case, I had died a few times going in on Kai’sa, but actually going in on Kai’sa is actually not so good. Kai’sa can just ultimate behind you and you just have to press it in time and you won’t be flash kicked. I tried that one time and it didn’t work, then I tried the front line one time and it didn’t work. Then I was basically just being there and waiting for my team to make the first move. It was just about adapting in the game.
Do you think Evil Geniuses could have closed this game out earlier if you had cleaned up your team fights around mid?
Jiizuke: I think we should have closed this game out earlier if we snowballed bot lane, but we just didn’t do it properly and the game went on very long. I think Leblanc shouldn’t have gotten as fed as she did. If we spread pressure correctly, they wouldn’t have been able to answer us and we would have been way more fed than we were.
It’s okay though, we were never in a scenario like this in scrims. It just happens in NA more frequently, where we learn much more on stage than in scrims. These scenarios just don’t happen in scrims. Yeah, it’s okay. We take the win and the learning experience.
With this victory, Evil Geniuses have extended the winning streak to five games. What do you think has contributed to this sudden improvement?
Jiizuke: I mean, to me, even in the first week we inted but it should have been a 2-1 or even a 3-0. More likely a 2-1 because there was one game where we played pretty bad. If you remember, I think that we should have won the FlyQuest game. Even though they invaded the red buff level one and we were really bad in jungle, mid, and bot, we still came back.
We could have won the game. The game on Tristana where I went top was pretty sad because I got a good advantage but we didn’t play the teamfights properly. So I think from stuff like that, we should have won two or three games there. Our improvement has been good in terms of winning games but we were always improving.
Ending our match with a @BudLightGaming ACE 🍻 pic.twitter.com/9FiEOYmITM
— Evil Geniuses (@EvilGeniuses) July 4, 2021
Do you then believe you guys were always capable of pulling off the win streak you have going now?
Jiizuke: Yeah, for sure, we just had to get our cards in place and work on our mechanics. I think we are still not insane right now, we’re fine and we just bring something new to the table which is why we are winning so many games now but I think we are improving week by week. I can’t wait for the playoffs.
Since you guys have been on this tear in the LCS, what has the team morale been like?
Jiizuke: We don’t really get too happy because in the end we know that we still have to work hard every week. We can’t be complacent now. We still have a lot of work to do and need to clean up our mistakes.
Next week, you guys seem to have a much more difficult schedule. You’ll be facing off against 100 Thieves and Cloud9, what do you think of these matchups?
Jiizuke: Well, against Cloud9, I think we only have one loss against them so far. I think as long as we play our game, it will be a fun game for the viewers and a win for us. For 100 Thieves, I think they abuse mistakes really well and teams are not good enough in NA to deal with that type of thing, but I think against a good team they will just lose.
Thank you for the interview, Jiizuke!
Also read:
- Can TSM reclaim their LCS legacy? – 100 Thieves extend win streak to 8 games
- EG Svenskeren: “There’s a lot of viable junglers now that Udyr got gutted”
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