Kacper ‘Inspired’ Słoma came to NA as an MVP jungler capable of carrying Rogue. Now, he’s racking up MVP votes for paving Evil Geniuses’ way to victory. We talked to him about the jungle meta, Danny’s prowess as an ADC, and the preseason jungle changes.
It’s no secret that Danny is EG’s star player. While everyone on the team performs great individually, he tends to steal the show. But there’s a lot more going on here than Danny solo carrying games, and Inspired had a lot to say about his crucial role on the team as well as his thoughts on the jungle meta.
If it wasn’t for Inspired adapting his playstyle to something that works for EG, they wouldn’t be dominating NA. Inspired’s meta read is that playing for bot lane is the way to go right now.
Playing for the bot diff
“That’s just how the meta is right now. I think since Zeri got released and Yummi’s at a really strong point, that’s how you need to play the game. Last year, I think bot lane meta was a lot of champions like Ashe, Varus, Jhin, and Xayah.”
He continued, “With the current meta, I think you need to make sure your bot lane is in a good position. I think bot lane has the most impact on the game.”
Danny’s status as one of North America’s strongest players is a perfect storm of individual skill, a meta that supports his playstyle, and a team that lets him shine. Inspired had his fair share to say about just how good Danny is, and what makes him such a strong player.
“I think we have the better ADC in every game mechanically. Danny, his greatest strength is team fighting. In lane, he has a lot to learn and I think he doesn’t feel that confident in his laning most of the time because he likes to pick scaling champs and farm up. But, once he gets to the team fight, he’s just so good.”
Inspired explained, “He thinks about every cooldown in the game. He knows when he can play aggressively, and when he needs to wait a few seconds in the team fight, which I very rarely see in ADCs. Most ADCs either want to perma deal damage or they are too scared to do damage. I think Danny has the perfect mix. He knows when to deal damage and when to step back.”
Monkey business
We got to ask Inspired a lot about the jungle role as well, and he had some perspective on why Wukong has remained the most contested jungler through the Summer Split.
“Wukong’s weaknesses are that he just farms really slow and that he’s not good at ganking because he doesn’t have much CC. But he’s very, very strong at level 6 because he does a lot of damage. When the Rift Herald spawns, he does a lot of damage. Once he completes Divine Sunderer, he has a lot of damage.”
While Wukong has a weak early game, it can be very difficult to find a window that allows junglers to take advantage of Wukong’s weak pre-6. Inspired also couldn’t understate just how strong the item Divine Sunderer makes this champion.
“I think it might be one of the biggest spikes in the game, honestly. It’s either AD carry on 3 items or Wukong on Divine. I think Wukong on Divine is so OP, he can 1 shot anyone in the game. So I think how to play against it is just to avoid him once he gets his item.”
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When Inspired’s best advice is to avoid Wukong and wait out the Divine Sunderer power spike, it sheds a lot of light on why this champion is so heavily prioritized in the LCS.
Does jungling need to be easier?
Inspired also had a lot to say about how helpful the preseason jungle changes could be for newer players, and seemed overall positive on the direction Riot has chosen.
“I mean, honestly, as a pro player, I think jungle is the easiest role in the game. But I can see why new players that come to League— if you’re a completely new player that’s playing League for the first time, I think jungle is probably the hardest role. You need to play a lot of games to understand how easy it actually is. At the beginning, it might seem very hard.”
Inspired argues that jungle is the easiest role at a high level of play, which is surprising considering how much rides on the jungler when it comes to securing objectives and dictating the pace of the game. But, also not so surprising considering how well Inspired has performed as across both EG and Rogue. He’s been a strong MVP contender on both teams.
“Jungle’s in a state where it’s really broken, especially in solo queue. Jungle is so OP. I don’t know how to change it because, in competitive, it will not really be OP. But if you make it OP in competitive, it will be even more OP in solo queue.”
Inspired knows the value of his role and is an expert on making the most of the power that a strong jungler brings to a team. He wasn’t too sure what he’d change about jungle as a role if he had the choice, but he was open to the idea of some changes in the future.
Rising competition (hopefully)
Before letting him go, we had to ask Inspired about how he’s feeling going into the Playoffs. And, though he’s confident in EG, he’s also hoping they don’t have such an easy go of things this time around.
“I think it was very easy because the enemy teams made a lot of mistakes. So I don’t think it’s really up to us if the games will be that easy. I think if the enemy keeps making the same mistakes and struggle under pressure I think we will probably just win. But maybe they just learned from their mistakes and they will play better. Then, the series might be close.”
The 20-year-old continued, “I don’t think we are by far the best team, that no matter what happens we will win. I just think we are good at playing what we’re good at, and we perform well in team fights. I think we can win, but I hope it will be harder. I mean, if it will not be harder it would be very strange to me because it means that other teams that are actually pro players and are getting paid to play the game didn’t improve at all.”
We’re hoping along with Inspired that there’s a bit more competition in the Summer Finals than there was in Spring.
