Vulcan’s return to Cloud9 hasn’t been as bombastic as fans anticipated, and, even though they’ve been on the up-and-up after the 2 week LCS break, the ups and downs in his career over the past year have changed the way he looks at pro play.
Though Vulcan’s mark on the LCS as one of the best supports in the region is unmistakable, he’s also been having a rough go of things over the past year. Though his time on EG made him look like one of, if not the best support players in NA, he hasn’t reached those heights since Spring 2023.
After how things went on the FlyQuest “super team” he was on for Summer 2023, Cloud9 gave him the chance to prove he could make his mark. And, while he’s proving his worth right now, things were looking a bit rocky at first.
Vulcan sat with us to talk about the team’s performance, what they worked on to get back into winning shape, and how the past year has affected him & his League of Legends career.
Finding Cloud9’s win condition
After thinking it over, Vulcan pointed out that the biggest difference between Cloud9 and FlyQuest that has allowed C9 to bounce back after hard times was the ability to clearly communicate what’s missing on the team. Getting over that language barrier has been a huge boon for him.
While he still feels the team has work to do, they’re getting closer to playing and drafting the way they want to.
“I guess we’re just still trying to find our consistency? This split, obviously, as everyone can see, we’ve had some highs and a lot of lows, unfortunately. We shouldn’t have nearly as many lows, but we’re pretty inconsistent even in scrims. We’ll have some days where we’re like, ‘Holy sh*t, we’re prime T1, we’re gonna win Worlds!’ And some days we’re like, ‘What the f*ck, how is this happening, we’re running it down.’ We shouldn’t do that as professionals. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard.”
Vulcan explained that the pre-recorded draft gives teams a bit more time to determine what they want to do with their team composition and find the strengths of their draft. Though figuring out their win condition has been a struggle for Cloud9, they’ve been figuring it out.
“It took some time to adapt for us. But, now I feel like we’re in a good spot where we’re more aware of what our champs want to do, what our teammates want to do. We don’t have to, like, talk for two minutes and say an essay on how you want to play a specific champ. I think we’re more aware of what the others want on your team. It’s making sure we’re not playing the game wrong.
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“We had games when Jojo was playing Tristana, obviously a hyper carry, and then we or he would go to the weak side and not get to farm minions and get killed or something. It’s pretty basic. Like, obviously, you should path to your Tristana and make sure that she can get resources, but sometimes we would not do it. We’re just more on top of that and making sure that we play to our win conditions better.”
That said, there’s a possibility that all the players on this team are being pushed harder than they were before.
Vulcan weighs in on LCS competition debate & where he stands
There have been rumblings around the community that the LCS has never been this competitive, and that bottom teams are better than their record reflects. After asking Vulcan a bit about how scrims have gone against bottom teams, he backed this up and agreed that this may be the most competitive the league has ever been, saying that bottom teams are “pretty good”.
“I think that there’s not as much of a gap between top teams and bottom teams as there was in years past. Now, I don’t know if that means that the whole league is better on average than it was in the past, maybe everyone at the top is a little bit worse? That’s also possible. I guess, if the question is if the league is competitive, then it doesn’t matter how good the league is if everyone’s close in strength. So yeah, I think it’s definitely more competitive this split. At least it feels like it.”
The other factor in this debate is where Vulcan places himself. For years, he was known as a grade-A trash talker who stirred up some fun drama on Twitter and carried many an LCS storyline on his back. But he’s simmered down in recent times other than a few banger tweets here and there.
We heard super teams fail so we are just showing we are NOT one
— Philippe Laflamme (@VulcanLoL) February 3, 2024
Vulcan’s still confident as a player, but he’s focusing more on improving his own play these days than drumming up drama and talking sh*t.
“I just – I don’t feel like I’m in a place where I can sh*t talk. Coming off the last split on FlyQuest, being pretty shaky, individually and as a team, this split, I don’t feel like I’m in a position to talk sh*t to anybody. So, I’m just putting my head down and grinding, I don’t know if I’ll come back to it. Like, I’m humbled now. I’m a humble king. So, I don’t know if I’ll be back on it at some point. I’ll probably pick it back up like a little bit, maybe not nearly as obnoxious as it was in the past.”
