esports
G2 Esports' AD Carry Rasmus 'Caps' Winther discusses the team's 2020 LEC Spring Finals win, his surprise role swap and their goals for the rest of the year heading towards Worlds.
G2 Esports might have been the reigning European champions at the start of the 2020 LEC Spring Split, but that didn't stop them switching things up a bit. Rasmus ‘Caps’ Winther and Luka 'Perkz' Perkovic swapped roles, a risky move considering Caps had never played as an AD Carry before. However, a few months later G2 are now once again the LEC champions, proving that the risk has paid off.
It was a surprisingly simple Grand Final in the end for G2. Like so many playoffs before, they were up against Fnatic. This time, though, they had a more patient gameplan and came out with a 3–0 victory.
"When we play against Fnatic, it's normally a clown fiesta," Caps told us right after the Spring Finals. "Everyone fights and someone ends up winning it. We both bring each other down a bit, we play worse games in a way. But today we played very respectfully around what they were going to do, played well around the draft and sacrificed for the team instead of being egotistical. We showed up on a completely different level to what they're used to."
G2 felt they won the first two games of the Grand Final in the draft phase, and played to their strengths throughout the series, allowing Fnatic to over-extend and then punish their mistakes.
"I think we kinda of just played to survive," Caps explained. "Fnatic is a team that goes aggressive, they always want to fight. Usually we take fights against them, but we just played respectfully, which meant they went really deep on us. We refused to take fights and then they got frustrated and over-forced, instead of letting us get away."
While the final was over quickly, there were times during the Spring Split where G2 were being doubted. They lost a handful of games and with Caps new to the role, people wondered whether they would be as dominant as they were in 2019, when they won both LEC Splits and the Mid-Season Invitational.
"A lot of people doubted me. Some fans didn’t want to see me play AD Carry," said Caps. "Maybe I didn't have the best split, maybe sometimes I made mistakes, but I just do what's best for the team."
Caps has come under criticism for some of his performances this year so far, particularly after losing in the first round of the playoffs to MAD Lions. Since then however G2 have come on leaps and bounds, culminating in the domination of their old foes Fnatic on Sunday.
"Every split we lose a few games, that's just bound to happen when you play that many," explained Caps. "Going into playoffs we usually have a big break, but this season we didn't, so we weren't really in the right mindset to go into the first best-of-five against MAD. Regardless of how good we are, if we don't play at our best we can lose to anyone.
"After we lost to MAD, we realised we were nowhere near the level we wanted to be. No one was frustrated, though. Everyone was ashamed and wanted to do better. We all put in really hard work over the last couple of weeks to get back on top. We did that and I was really happy to see our reaction to losing. It makes me more excited for the future."
Despite a few setbacks along the way, Caps and the rest of G2 never lost belief in their own abilities.
"I was never really doubting us winning. It's my fifth title in a row now and every split it felt like it was going to be us that were going to be champions," Caps continued. "Losing to MAD made us realise we could actually bleed and lose, and that we weren't as good as we thought. But that was a huge turning point. I'm super happy with the win, but it's also what we were expecting in a way. Now we want to reset for Summer Split and take another trophy."
Caps believes he and Perkz will probably be keeping the same roles going into the summer, but with G2's ever-changing play styles, you never know. For now, he's happy in the bot lane and he has certainly grown into it over the past few weeks.
"I've learned so much. In mid lane I knew a lot, was really confident in my role, knew how other mid laners played, so I didn’t have to adapt much. I could play my game and probably win," he said. "But as an ADC, I'm playing against new players, a new role and the game is completely different. Even if we were to lose this split, I've learned so much that it would've been worth it. I'm even happier with how it's gone now that we've won, though. I'm actually kind of sad it's over, because I feel like we're on a really good roll."
G2 have the Spring title under their belt and the Summer Split is on the horizon, but of course, the overall goal for any G2 Esports season is the World Championship. When it comes to the pinnacle of League of Legends esports, Caps only has one ambition: "Worlds is the one thing none of us has won. That's the goal and we'll do whatever it takes to win it."
