"We always want to fight" -- Apollo and TiP aim for the top
"We started 1-1 last season, right?" asks Team Impulse's AD carry Apollo "Apollo" Price in his never-quite-serious tone after Team Impulse's Week 2 victory over Cloud9.
The kings of going .500 early, Team Impulse have been on the verge of becoming an elite team in the North American LCS, but have never quite been able to reach the level of those top squads. As Apollo tells Lolesports, "Right now, I'd rank us as a 3rd or 4th Place team. We're still not able to compete with those top-tier teams."
With a solid, but by no means stellar, 2-2 start to the 2015 NA LCS Summer Split, Apollo and Team Impulse know there's a ton of work to be done.
Look towards the past, aim for the future
The Spring Split was a time of growth for the squad, and even though they were taken down by Team SoloMid and Team Liquid in the Spring Split Playoffs, Apollo was still proud of the progress TiP made over the course of the Split. "Obviously, we didn't want to lose against Team SoloMid or Team Liquid [in the Spring Split Playoffs]. It was still a good season for us," he says. "We improved throughout the season, rather than go stale."
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But then, during the offseason, something happened to throw the squad off their A game. Showing a rare moment of darkness, Apollo says, "When we got back into the game after a break, it felt very off. We kind of went back to old habits. That's when we stagnated. We didn't improve that much of the beginning of this [Split]."
The opening of TiP's Summer Split has by no means been perfect, as they've dropped a game to Counter Logic Gaming and Team SoloMid, respectively. In each of those games, their chaotic, team fighting style was shown up by two squads that could take advantage of their overzealous play and punish it through a strong focus on objectives.
"I think it will get better," he says. "We managed to beat Cloud9, but I think we're going to have trouble against the top tier teams like CLG, Team Liquid, and TSM [later in the season]."
Fixing the problem(s)
TiP's aggressiveness often leads to mistakes that their competitors are happy to exploit. According to Apollo, TiP has plans to make sure that doesn't keep happening. It all starts with them making getting everyone on the same page.
"Communication is always going to be an issue on our team. Team fighting is definitely something we have to improve on. It's always chaotic. Our team fighting isn't perfect, and that goes with communication, as well. It's about knowing if we want to fight."
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Whereas the best teams in the world know exactly when to team fight, Team Impulse wants to fight all the time. "We want to 5 vs. 5 or 4 vs. 4. It's pressing our skill level. We want to get a little bit further, so we always want to fight. If we're at a disadvantage, maybe we'll beat them. It's always good to have the mentality that we may not be at a huge lead, [but] if we outplay them, we can still win this."
Problem is, they don't always set themselves up for success. "Our biggest problem right now is that a lot of the times we want to fight, but we don't have the best way of forcing the issue or the proper way of doing it," he says. "Sometimes, we need to create a flank for us to win the team fight, and then we just run at them and just die."
If they figure out that -- by Apollo's own admittance -- huge problem, Team Impulse could become an even more dangerous team in North America.
taking Advantages
As it stands, TiP's chaotic play style is their biggest boon. "[Our play style] is difficult for other teams to handle, because they've never really played against teams like that before. We just want to fight," says Apollo.
And because they're so used to that chaos, they're incredibly adaptable. "You saw the game against C9," he says, referring to their Week 2 victory. "We didn't plan on LeBlanc split pushing bot and getting an inhib turret. That wasn't part of the plan. But when we have to adapt on the fly like that, when we have to make those shortcut decisions and play like that, that's when it creates the chaotic playstyles."
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As long as Team Impulse continues to adapt, Apollo isn't too concerned about the beginning of the regular season. "Later in the split, it's anyone's game."
In fact, he doesn't concern himself too much with who they're playing in the imminent weeks, but instead is looking way down the line. "I can't even think about our next week's games. I don't want to think about who we're playing or how we're going to do. The end goal is that we have to be really good by Playoffs."
Can Team Impulse become a team that can make a run at the 2015 Summer Split Playoffs? Lolesports is your place to find out.
