Interview with TIP Mash on Team Impulse's full roster and his personal motivations

Brandon "Mash" Phan is the AD Carry for Team Impulse. Previously having been a player for Team Coast, Mash has joined Team Impulse in the LCS and shares with us his own personal motivations.

Hey everyone. I'm here with Mash just after their win against Renegades. Actually, you guys had a really good weekend. You went 2-0!

Mash: Feels good. Double my wins from last year with Team Coast. I had 1-17 and doubled with 2 and 2. Hopefully not 2-16.

 

Hopefully not but after last weekends game against Immortals, it's gotta feel good! Especially now that you guys have the full roster of Pirean and Proxcin. How's having them in the house and having them together? 

Mash: They actually came in last night so Saturday night after we played our match against C9. We have visa issues with our top. We believe we'll get our top by week 3. But yeah, it's really good that we're getting all the players settled down so I can finally get to play bottom lane with Gate. 

 

So once you finally have the top laner, Gate will join you in the bottom lane, officially? 

Mash: Yeah, I believe Ken can stay for one more week but I don't think it's good for him because he has to start school. I'm pretty sure we'll either have to find a sub top because we want Gate to start playing support ASAP.

 

Alright. And I hoped to talk about your own AD Carry picks. You just went Corki and it's been interesting. He's gone from... He went from a generic AD Carry but now you build him with Sorc boots and definitely get Triforce first. Where is the line for you in terms of the AP vs the AD on Corki?

Mash: Most of the time, recently, like Season 5 and 6 now, Sorcerer's is pretty mandatory. Attack speed build is not as efficient as before because most of his damage actually shifted more towards magic damage after the Season 6 reworks. Triforce is definitely core and Sorc shoes whenever you can buy them. Don't force yourself to buy these items. Then you make a decision from here. You either buy IE or Essence Reaver; it's totally player preference. Or you can go Rapidfire Cannon. It's an attack speed item but the thing is it increases your range and it actually gives you a bit of magic damage. 

 

And Essence Reaver is there, of course, for the mana cause he's such a caster/poke-y champion. Last week, you picked up Kindred and she's an interesting pick up cause she "can" do AD carry. What made you pick that? What was the kind of criteria for you to go ahead and pick Kindred in the bot lane? 

Mash: We had decent success, I'd say 75%, playing Kindred AD but I think we overprioritized it just off of scrim results and wins. I don't think it's that strong but it's a good surprise pick and I guess the bug is OP if you watched the OG vs Vitality game where he killed him from 40% so I was just missing something on that. 

 

Yeah, it's another flex pick in champ select that can help play some mind games. You've been around League of Legends for a long time. Multiple teams, multiple rosters. What keeps you coming? What keeps you pushing to succeed?

Mash: Everyday I wake up and realize what I'm doing and I think to myself, if I was doing school or your regular job, would I actually be happy? League of Legends helped me out through my highschool days when I went through rough times. It helped me cope with myself and realize that I enjoy playing games and I guess that eventually made me play this game as a profession and I just enjoyed it.

 

And so that positive force is still there with you?

Mash: Yeah like.. I made 3 1 to 30 accounts cause I still love playing the game. Usually, it's a grind. It's a lot of work to make a new accounts but I actually love playing the game still.

 

That's good to hear that, ya know, not being burnt out. Next week, you guys have uh, well, actually play against Dignitas so... not good luck, haha. Do you have any shoutouts, any last words, for the end of the interview? 

Mash: Thank you for Team Impulse for giving me this opportunity and thank you for the interview. Thank you for all the fans who have been supporting me, especially from last year from Spring split. Every positive word that came out to me really meant a lot because... all the negative comments definitely override the positive ones and those positive ones meant way more to me especially during that split.

 

Awesome to hear man! Well, thank you so much! We'll see you guys next time! Make sure to check out all our social medias, check out our YouTube channel, and we'll see ya next week!