Huni: "No one can rival us" in record-breaking season
The 2015 Summer Split roster of Fnatic is the most successful regular season team in the history of the LCS. Currently sporting a 14-0 record in the EU LCS, they've rolled over every team they've faced so far this Split, looking like a genuine Worlds threat along the way.
Seung-Hoon "Huni" Heo has played an absolutely massive role in that record-breaking run. A relative unknown when he first entered the LCS, he's proven himself to be one of the premier top laners in the world, earning himself the Rookie of the Split during Spring 2015. Now, as his team aims for an undefeated run through the Regular Season, he's looking forward. He wants to be the EU LCS champion, he wants to destroy everyone on the Rift, and most of all, he wants a World Championship.
The teamwork meta
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"I really like this meta," says Huni.
That's not because his favorite champions like Hecarim and Rumble are viable, either. Huni says he likes a meta in which he can make plays across the map.
"My play style isn't about smashing in laning phase. I'm more focused on other lanes," he says. "If I don't care about my other lanes, it makes it really hard for my teammates. My strength points are when I move somewhere and take an advantage."
That team-oriented style of play is exactly how Fnatic has found success, and Huni says that it comes in large part as a result of their captain and main shot-caller, Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim.
"YellOwStaR is a really good captain, so we can follow him easily," he says. "In game, he knows how to make good calls because he's been playing for a really long time." As a result, Huni's already masterful Teleport plays are made even better, further enhanced by the well-timed wanderings of his other teammates.
Jokes on jokes
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Of course, you can't have a team full of successful friends without a few jokes along the way. And as we all know from a variety of Mic Checks, Huni is often the source of that humor, including his now famous HOLO HOLO HOLO noise.
We had to know: does HOLO mean anything? According to Huni, no. "I don't know why HOLO happened," he laughs. "It was pretty random."
All he wants to do is lighten the mood in team comms, and he often succeeds. "If I make my teammates laugh in comms, then they will lose some nervousness and then we can be more relaxed during the game. [The jokes are] so our communication doesn't drop and so we talk a lot," he says. Once they lose the nerves, it's time to just have fun and win.
Tearing up EU
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And win Fnatic does. Even as they've struggled in the early game in recent weeks, they've pulled themselves together in the mid to late game and found wins against the biggest threats to their streak -- H2K and Origen.
Huni puts it simply: "There are no EU teams that can rival us."
He expands, "Even if we start really poorly, we're still going to win for sure. We have greatly improved our champion pools, and most of Europe has a champion pool problem. Every time, we can out-draft them."
Much of that champion select smartness can be attributed to coach Louis "Deilor" Sevilla. "Our coach is really good about following the meta and making drafts," says Huni. "Every time he's preparing, he spends so much time on how to put together a draft before matches. Every time, there's a new patch, he asks about everything. If a champion gets buffed, then he asks about them."
From there, they can put together the exact compositions they want, taking advantage of the smaller pools of those around them.
As if he feels the need to remind us, he reiterates, "No one can rival us."
The next step: International victory
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Huni has no interest in being satisfied with taking Europe undefeated, however. Huni says that if they were at the spot they're at now a few short months ago, they would have been much more formidable on the international stage.
"If the current Fnatic went to MSI, we would have won," he declares. "We have improved since then. At MSI, we had champion pool problems. We didn't have big enough champion pools, didn't know how the meta was going, we didn't follow the meta properly."
"Now, we have so much experience compared to us at MSI," he continues. "I'm pretty sure we're a really strong team, even when compared to other regions."
Out of all the best teams in the world, Huni has one major target. "I want to to play SKT again, and I would like to smash them."
