Fnatic coach Nightshare on the meta: “Supports are in hell”

Fnatic's coach Tomáš "Nightshare" Kněžínek took the time to chat with esports.gg about his team's disappointing 0-3 loss to G2 Esports in the LEC Summer Split Playoffs, the meta, and more.

Fnatic seemed cursed in their series against now five-time defending LEC champions G2 Esports. Fnatic would consistently take a significant early lead, only to have G2 outplay and outpace them in the midgame, resulting in a 0-3 score for the orange and black challengers. After the series, Fnatic's coach Nightshare sat down to discuss it. From exactly why he thinks they didn't make it, to what they need to fix. From macro to meta, Nightshare breaks it all down.

Esports.gg Thanks for taking the time, Nightshare. Obviously, I can't imagine you're happy with the results of the series. How are you feeling about it, and where is your mind at for why it was so tough for the team?

Nightshare: "I’m not happy at all because from my perspective, we’ve been prepared pretty well and it just came down to execution under stress. And I think for most of these games, we’re getting an insane lead and [we] just keep throwing them. We were doing poor decision-making and doing really poor individual mistakes because people were stressed and they were not playing clearly.

"On the other hand, though, we lost because of the things were kind of already aware of. The mistakes we’re making — the best teams will punish these mistakes. For me, it kind of felt like we got rid of these mistakes and we improved on it a lot. But it came, kind of, back to ‘we’re still not doing this correctly.’ We just need to keep working on it into the Season Finals. And if we keep working on it, we should a high chance of reaching top 2 and challenging G2." 

You mentioned the inability to close the game with a serious gold lead being a regular problem. Is this one of those issues that you've tried to solve in practice but is popping up in these high-stress stage series?

"It’s just about, like, these mistakes are being committed, right now, no matter the gold lead. I can say one example. After every objective that we secure, every turret, every drake, every fight, or any fight that we win or secure, we should be insta-basing and kind of playing a high-tempo game. A lot of the time, you can see clearly in the games — we’re either not basing together or someone is getting stopped, for example. It doesn’t really matter if you have a gold lead or not. If these mistakes are happening, then it’s hard for you to play the game. If you’re playing against a good team, as G2 is, they will insta-punish any mistake like this."

We've been speaking to a lot of pro players and coaches who feel like the post-midseason meta has been very volatile between AP junglers and the rise of the ADC solo laners. How do you feel about the meta from this split, and do you feel that same volatility?

"I don’t really like this meta that much because everyone has so much damage in this meta, right? And then you see poor little support just on one item Warmog’s. Both supports are in hell, by the way — not even playing the game at all. Any CC that is landed on them, they will get insta-popped. Basically what you said, right? I guess you could describe it as there is a lot of volatility, so that’s what I hate about the meta.

"As far as these double AD Carries or ADCs mid, it makes the game very interesting in the early game. Mid lane is now a 2v2 lane or a 3v3 lane. You can see a lot of action around mid in the early game. I think that’s, at least for a viewer, very entertaining and very fun."

Speaking of post-midseason changes, lane swaps are nearly gone from the meta, but keep rearing their heads as answers to certain matchups. How do you view lane swaps now that we're several months removed from the peak of it at MSI?

"It’s a tricky question. I don’t wanna reveal too much. Without revealing too much, I don’t think lane swaps are what they used to be. You can still use them in very specific situations, but you have to understand these situations very specifically because if you’re not using them correctly in these specific situations, you’ll get really punished."

What are the biggest strengths you want to preserve for the team heading into Season Finals, and what's the key weakness you want to solve?

"I think the strengths we want to keep are things that we worked on in pre-season and the regular season. It’s mainly just how support and jungle plays the game together, and how they play around people on the map. 

"The biggest weakness is what bit us today — exposing ourselves with vision, what information we’re giving to the enemy. Really the best way to put it is: ‘how much we are exposing ourselves to be punished.’ And that’s always our biggest weakness. When we go international, when we play big teams like G2, they will be there.

"They will punish you being exposed. Every single mistake where you expose yourself, they will punish. So that’s still something we will have to work on and something we will hopefully get done — even under the most stressful mistakes. Because, when the stakes are high, everybody will make mistakes. But we are allowing ourselves to make too many mistakes. We cannot play the game this way."

We've been polling pro players on this. If you could choose what region would be featured in an Arcane Season 3, which region would you choose? And if you could choose one champion from that region to get some screen time, who would you pick?

"I think I would be interested in Freljord. It could have some nice scenery. I would be very interested in how they animate it. If I’m not mistaken, I don’t know the lore that much, Tryndamere is also from there." 

 Yes, Tryndamere is from the Freljord. Ashe’s husband of political convenience. 

"Yeah, then I would be interested in his story. He’s one of the first champions I played in the game, so I’d like to see him."

Nightshare and his team will have one more chance at Worlds in the LEC 2024 Season Finals. There, they will be competing for one last hope at an international appearance to wind out the year.

That's all for now. Stick around on esports.gg for more news and updates.