Interview with the Team Dignitas LoL analyst, Vlanitak

Hailing from Norway, Erling 'Vlanitak' Krohn spent 2 years in Korea where he closely followed their professional League of Legends scene while learning about the game. Joining Team Dignitas as our new LoL analyst, he took the time to tell us about himself, his experience in Korea, and his style of analysis.

 

What games did you follow before LoL, both as a player and analyst?

Vlanitak: I used to watch a ton of Starcraft Brood War, and Freelancer. Never analyzed any other games.

What games did you play? Professionally or otherwise?

Vlanitak: Never played anything on a professional level, but spent a lot of time playing Freelancer, Starcraft BW and Chess. Was a pretty ok PvPer in Freelancer and did locals in chess. Starcraft was just for entertainment and watching the Korean pros.

Why did you transition to League of Legends, what about the game appealed to you?

Vlanitak: I was referred to it by a friend I had played Freelancer with, back when league was in the beta. He and I played it a bit, the fact that you could play with friends and that you had to work together with them to win was something that appealed to me. I also loved that you had a lot of different ways of playing the game (before a real meta was established).

 

So you liked the teamwork aspect, how do you think that translates into being an analyst?

Vlanitak: Actually it was quite the opposite. I moved to Korea for a while to study, and played on the Korean Ladder for a while. This kinda set me aside from the teamwork aspect as my Korean is absolutely horrible. But since I couldnt communicate I started looking more and more at the game as a chess game.

So you focused much more on the strategy? What role did you find you enjoyed the most while seeing the game like chess?

Vlanitak: Toplane and the isolation it provided was what I used to do the most. I did play other things as well, but because of the island way toplane was played it gave me the time to almost constantly scroll across the map to keep an eye on everything. Can't say I won a lot of games this way, but it did peak me interest for just watching the game. I pretty much stopped playing ranked when s3 preseason started, I didnt have any fun doing it anymore, but I love watching the game.

 

What other League teams have you worked with and what were those experiences like?

Vlanitak: I started my LoL career as the manager for Team Astral Poke, a challenger team, when their team captain approached me during season 2 worlds. He and I had talked over skype for a while in different calls about League and he wanted me to work with him for LCS. We didnt qualify for S3 spring qualifiers, so during that time I worked with the ressurected Epik Gamer. After Astral Poke failed in the summer qualifier for LCS; I worked with FXO/TBD for a while as a consultant. I had gone back to focusing on studying until season 3 worlds rolled around and Dig approached me.

I loved working with all these teams, they were very different in terms of what I actually did and what the people were like working with. Learned a lot from all of them.

You’re known for spending a lot of time watching the Korean League scene. What about their pro scene sets it apart from North America’s?

Vlanitak: Watching League games is something I absolutely love to do, specially the Korean and Chinese proscene. Watching the top Korean teams duke it out is, to me, much like watching a high level game of blitz chess with a 0 timer. All champions, and game mechanics, are restricted to a predetermined set of rules and moves as such. But if you play it right you can play it beyond the moves your opponent can comprehend and respond to fast enough. Watching teams like SKT T1 K play vs KT Bullets isnt as much a game of which one (Faker or Insec) can pull the most flashy moves, but rather which team can out think the other in the grand scheme of things.

In North America, and most of Europe, teams play a very reactional game style. It does not seem like a grand game of strategy, it looks more like the games are based on a case to case basis. Using this as a basis teams make a reactionary action and then play 2-3 moves during the time it takes the other team to react to it. Teams like C9, Fnatic and Gambit in the West excell at forcing their opponent to react giving them the room to do the maneuver they want.

What do you think of MonteCristo and his work in Korea?

Vlanitak: I love his casting, watching him and Doa on stream for OGN is always entertaining and the insight he brings to the casting desk is always interesting. His bias towards Korea can be a little over the top sometime. I really miss discussing League with him person to person.

When did you speak with him?

Vlanitak: Back when I was in Korea, I used to attend pretty much every single OGN event. Part of that ended up being able to talk to the Korean players that talked english and the casters/western teams that went there. Chatting people like MonteCristo, Maknoon, Locodoco was always interesting and insightful.

As an analyst, what part of the game do you find most important to critique?

Vlanitak: The gameplay going past the "lane" phase is what interest me the most, when it comes down to the raw mechanics players are almost always better than me, but their sense of objectives, map value and priorities can be mind-boggling at times.

From what you’ve seen so far, what impresses you the most about Team Dignitas’ play?

Vlanitak: Before I joined Dignitas I thought, as many others, that QTpie was just a big troll with personality and decent mechanics. But frankly I dont think I can think of anyone else I have met that knows so much and is able to apply it while ingame. He might not be able to word it correctly in interviews or on stream, or it seems like a joke what he says or similar, but if it comes down to a matchup or a game I want a 2nd opinion on there is no one else I would ask.

Besides that I am really impressed by Crumbzz’s jungle pool, and I second Qtpie’s recent comment on Scarra being like a dragonball character with “untapped potential.”

What parts of Team Dignitas’ play need the most work?

Vlanitak: At the moment I think the focus of our practice should be to get Kiwi solid in support and try to unleash some of that power in Scarra. And work on our team trust.

Scarra has a unique champion pool that some people accuse of being too small. Do you think that is his problem?

Vlanitak: His champ pool is an issue, but not because it is too small. Rather I think he tries to hard to focus on playing the playstyle and champions that are fotm rather than playing the way he wants to play. This, and mediocre to bad results over the last few months, causes his motivation and selftrust to fall and ends up snowballing. His motivation is something we need to work on before the season begins again, if we can do that I am confident we can see him becoming a dominant midlaner.

What do you think of the LCS format, should it be more like OGN?

Vlanitak: I think the LCS format, except for 1 point, is fine. Best of 1s with 4 matchups over the course of a season is a lot like what we see in regular sports. My only concern with the way it is at the moment (not knowing if this will change in the upcoming season) is that the spring split is only for local bragging rights. I would personally like to see the teams placement in the spring split reflect onto their playoff position at the end of the season. It is similar to how OGN and Korea does it with circuit points, and a bye favored bracket.

Many people have complained about the lack of international tournaments. Do you think there should be more?

Vlanitak: International tournaments are always enjoyable to watch, and I like the initiative Riot took by holding Battle of the Atlantic. However I do not think a lot more is neccessary, Riot wants to make League similar to regular sports and the world championship anually is excellent in that regard. However I would also like to see teams play each other on cross of regions, similar to how regular sports will have conferences and play teams cross-conference a few times over the course of the season. NACL did something like this and it was quite enjoyable to watch.

Regions tend to develop their own metas, like the Chinese early-dive meta or the European split-push meta we saw at worlds.Do you think this is healthy for the game?

Vlanitak: Absolutely, the different regions and their respective styles tells alot about what kind of teams and players they have. It is always interesting to see how another region thinks the game should be played, and trying to figure out why. To quote Madlife: "Just because a team plays in a different way from us is no reason to think "that's the wrong way to play"". If the game ever becomes sterelized to only one way of playing things have gone wrong somewhere.

And keeping regions mostly contained to themselves promotes this?

Vlanitak: It does, but it also promotes complacency in whatever style the region uses, which is why I would like to see slightly more cross-regional play.

So you think maybe one or two more times a year for regions to match their styles against each other and tweak their own metas?

Vlanitak: One or two times outside of all-stars, with more than 4 teams, would be great.

Does NA have its own unique meta?

Vlanitak: As previously stated I think NA plays a reactionary Meta game, it’s about who can force the other team to react first. C9 and XDGG does this really well, while the rest of NA operate with a very Carry centric game view. Get your carries big, protect them. This is something you see CLG and TSM do well. The problem with this however is that the force reaction style most of the time out-plays the carry centric style.

In many ways the unique NA meta was the carry centric style, which is slowly dying out to other styles. I think that with the upcoming season we are going to see a lot of new strategies and tactics, and that NA will develop a new unique style of play. Something of a combination of the carry centric and Chinese aggression. These two styles work very well together as they can force your carry into a good position while denying the opponents carry the same.
Or we might see something completely new, there are a lot of different teams in NA, which makes this even more exciting.

Going into the LCS, which teams do you think look strongest in NA, do you think Cloud 9 will remain dominant?

Vlanitak: As of now I think Cloud 9 and TSM will remain dominant forces in the LCS, and probably be our fiercest opponents going for the top spots. Outside of them I am really interested in seeing how the new EG will do vs the LCS teams and how strong Coast, Curse and CLG has become over the break.

Any final remarks or shout-outs?

Vlanitak: Shout outs to my Parents, my brother, my good friends Darnok, NavnT, Bobbyhankhill and Sindrez for introducing me to the game and being a blast to play with. Huge thanks to all our sponsors for believeing in esports and Team Dignitas. Last but not least shout out to Odee for being King Maw.