dignitas/Scarra on the Preseason Changes and LCS

William 'Scarra' Li has been the mid laner for Team Dignitas for the past two years. In that time he has established himself as one of NA's top mid laners. He is well known for his play of high-mobility champions like Katarina, Diana and Gragas, and was voted to the NA All-Star team after the LCS Spring Split. Like the rest of his team he hopes to continue to improve and remain one of the top mid-laners in NA.

Also check out: Katarina guide by Scarra

With big changes coming to vision and the recent nerfs to several assassins, what mid champions do you foresee being strong in Season 4 as of now? Are there any you’d particularly like to see?

Scarra: I think champions like Ziggs and Syndra will be seeing a lot of play. Also AD champions might see a resurgence due to a shift in potential pick possibilities bottom lane. Lucian and Ezreal are ADs that are fairly effective middle. I wish certain weaker laners would be able to see more competitive play, but champions like Kat will probably largely stay out of most if not all competitive games.

 

With the inclusion of trinkets and the three Riot has included so far, do you think any of these trinkets will be blatantly stronger than others? Are any of the three useless?

Scarra: I think nobody uses the CV (blue) trinket anymore. In internal playtests, the original blue trinket had such a low cd that all 10 players in the game would just use it. It seems that riot nerfed the cd substantially since then to the point where it's honestly not much of an option. The red and yellow ones are fairly useful. The yellow becomes less and less useful as the game progresses while the red trinket becomes better because of the lack of oracles and the weakness of visible pink wards.

 

With season 4 changes giving supports more gold, do you think more mages will be migrating bot? In the same fashion, if the utility of champions like Janna is going to be scaling with items, do you think we may see former supports going mid?

Scarra: I think more mages are definitely quite strong right now for bot lane. Some of the supports got overnerfed and the tradeoff between utility and damage was so great that there was really not much of a reason to pick champions like janna/sona over godly bottom damage dealers like annie. Former supports really don't have a space mid either because they lack the appropriate damage or scaling to be able to impact the game on such a high impact lane like middle.

 

Itemization for supports and junglers has been the main discussion for pre-season 4, but do you think there are any big changes to itemization that need to be made for the other roles? What items need to be changed or holes need to be filled?

Scarra: I think the item targon's shield is way too powerful to the point where I can't even tell the balance of specific lanes or items. Once it gets toned down I can more accurately judge bottom lane dynamics and which item builds are more effective. The vision change is very awkward and I'm not really quite sure exactly how to create vision traps or use vision as a more strategic option. The removal of oracles makes it very strange to try to vie for vision control. I need more games before I can make a better opinion of the change. I think, at least for mid lane, the game has stayed relatively the same as s3 in terms of item purchases.

 

How did you feel about the assassin meta we saw at Season 3 World Championship? Are you happy many of the assassins have been nerfed since, and do you think it was enough for mages to make their way back mid?

Scarra: I think the assassin meta was really interesting  in S3. I feel like champions like zed/ahri were just way too powerful and safe. I think there's always going to be a few really strong picks for mid lane though. Even in s4, the picks have rotated to heavy emphasis on champions that were originally kept down by assasins. Low mobility champions like syndra/ziggs/ori will probably see a resurgence of play (although ori's always been good at every point of the game).

 

What mid laner desperately needs buffs right now, aside from those who need total reworks?

Scarra: I think mordekaiser could really use some help. He's a melee range spellcaster that excels at bringing no cc to a team fight, getting initiated on, and exploding instantly due to his range. He has trouble in the laning phase and transitioning out of anything but a really strong snowball. I think he's not horrible, but just as a design aspect he's either effective or trash, typically the latter.

 

You’re known for playing “reset” champions like Katarina, Diana and Master Yi. Why do you think these champions aren’t popular among other mid laners? Are these champions a specific team needs to be built around?

Scarra: I think a lot of the champions I tended to play are subpar. They are counterpick only champions and not necessarily competitively viable. Most players gravitate towards playing the extremely strong champions because if you don't then you are putting your team in a situation where they are automatically at a disadvantage. All of the champions that have resets commonly need to be last picked and have a team comp that excels at getting them ahead. Most of the time there are just better picks that are safer and more reliable than these melee range reset champions.

 

In season 3 we saw a number of mid lane champions like Karthus and Ryze making their way top, and a number of top and mid lane players switching roles. Do you expect the line between mid and top laners to continue to blur in Season 4?

Scarra: I think top and mid laners being able to play opposite roles is very strong, but it's really hard to learn matchups for both lanes and outside of a couple champions, I think the effort put into trying to make your laners ambiguous could be better put into other things. There will most likely always be players at a specific role.

 

What do you think of the current LCS format? Qtpie mentioned that the only point of the regular season was to make it to the playoffs. Should it be changed to make the regular season more impactful?

Scarra: I think the current LCS format is still not the greatest. There's not much distinction between each individual spot on the ladder and the fact that you can get a better matchup in the playoffs by ranking lower shouldn't necessarily be possible. I think the regular season matches should be more impactful. I dislike the bo1 format because it forces teams to learn multiple strategies against up to 5 teams in one week which just isn't possible. Instead of seeing the best possible strategic and mechanical games, instead sometimes you end up seeing lackluster games where teams can't prepare as much just because of the format. Super weeks are fun for the viewers but are incredibly stressful for the players because playing against 5 different teams just isn't fun to prepare for.

 

What amateur teams/players do you think are going to make it into the LCS this split? Who would you like to see qualify?

Scarra: It's hard to say which amateur teams will get in. I definitely think coast will retain their spot because they are probably the strongest amateur team right now. Curse will probably retain their spot because they are also very good and due to the fact that they get first pick of the amateur teams to play against. I think of the teams playing, quantic and col have the best chances of getting into the LCS. However, both teams have certain problems that can be exploited (which can be said about most teams I guess :x)

 

Another discussion after worlds was the lack of international tournaments since the LCS started. Do you think there should be more international tournaments?

Scarra: I think more international events are nice. Especially for the players getting experience is very important for growth.

 

Any shout outs?

Scarra: I would like to say have a great thanksgiving guys from me as well as all of my sponsors: Alienware, Scan, be quiet!, Intel, Kingston HyperX, QPad, Twitch.tv, Multiplay, Creative Sound Blaster, WD, and iiyama. Enjoy your time with your friends and family.