Atlanta : "Taking oddball picks allow us to throw people off their game"

Following on from the recent US Intel Extreme Masters qualifiers for Kiev, we have managed to get hold of James 'Atlanta' Moreland from APictureOfAGoose. Alongside Team SoloMid and our own Team Dignitas, APictureOfAGoose qualified for the event in Kiev. We speak about the how the qualifier went, how the team plan to get there and how he feels about the competitive scene right now.

APictureOfAGoose - clearly the most unique team name in LoL!

Hi Atlanta. First of all, I'd like to congratulate you and your team for qualifying for IEM Kiev, coming from the lower bracket to get yourself a spot alongside Dignitas and TSM. After losing in the first round to Digintas, do you feel like you could come back and grab that last spot?

Atlanta: The games with Team Dignitas were really close. We were really proud of how we did against them, so we are confident we can give them a run for their money again. Every series we played in that day went to 3 games - Game 1 was a solid win for us, Game 2 was completely even until we failed a Baron and lost the entire game from it and Game 3 was a solid win for them. We wanted to fight for the best seed possible but ultimately, I think any seed is good for us.

IEM Kiev will be the first event abroad your team will have attended. How are you feeling about attending and how well do you think you will perform?

Atlanta: I am definitely really stressing out about how I am going to get the team there. We are doing lessons, taking donations, running raffles and talking with sponsors, so hopefully all of us can make it. The locale is a bit sketchy - I hear Kiev is run by the mob, so we have to pick the places we eat and where we sleep very carefully. Most of my teammates have previous tournament experience now and as long as we settle in well and are comfortable, I expect great things.

Characters like Pantheon gives APictureOfAGoose the edge in picks and bans.

In a couple of your games, your team ran a couple of typically unusual picks for competitive play in the jungle - Shaco and Pantheon. Do you think surprising picks like these can give you an edge if played well in games like these?

Atlanta: I think having "unusual" picks that people have to ban because they don't know how to play is an advantage that our team has. People will have to ban Leona against us because they don't know how to play her. They have been banning Pantheon against us because they don't know how to play him. With these advantages, we get higher tier picks for us and increase our chances to win. We also get "free" bans on stuff we don't want to play against, instead of just what's overpowered. Taking oddball picks allow us to throw people off their game because they are so used to playing the game a certain way and we throw that out the window. We do a lot of crazy things and we can't wait to unveil them at Kiev.

IEM events in the past have generally been great to watch for the clashes between the North American and European metas. How do you think your team will fare against the European teams?

Atlanta: It is hard to say how well we will do against European teams at the moment. We are about to play against some of them in EMS in the next few weeks and that will give us an idea of how good they are and how much better we will have to play. The game theories of both regions differ greatly. When we play against European teams, we're more likely to give them what they want and they're more likely to give us what we want. I will have to do my homework on the teams we are likely to face to give us an advantage in banning.

With your team beating Epik and v8 beating CLG, online qualifying tournaments are starting to throw up more and more surprises. Do you think the gap between the "big" teams and the less well-known teams is decreasing?

Atlanta: I think the gap has definitely been shrinking due to how the North American competitive scene is developing. I don't really think any team is dedicated enough compared to how much they could be. This is the reason why we were able to come out of nowhere, as we put in a lot of games as a team - probably more than any other. When LoL is released in Korea, the Korean pro teams will prove that dedication and teamwork is more important than individual skill or solo queue rating. We will have to step it up as a region to even dream of competing at that level. I feel that the competitive side of this game is still in its infancy.

Thanks for your time Atlanta. Have you got any shoutouts to anyone or mentions you'd like to make?

Atlanta: I would like shoutouts to all of our supporters - we love you through the good times and the bad. Also, I would like a shoutout to anyone who has ever hated me - keep doing that, as it is working wonders for me! Please visit our stream at http://www.own3d.tv/apictureofaGoose