Interview with Lassiz

Drew 'Lassiz' Boyd is currently captain for Team Dignitas' Smite team as well as one of the top junglers in the world on Smite. Lassiz is incredibly familiar to Smite's community and is a very down to earth and friendly player. Luckily, I got to ask him a few questions on recent and upcoming tournaments aswell as the new meta.

'May the best EU team win' as said by Suntouch before shaking hands with Lassiz at the launch tournament!

You recently played at and won a Smite tournament at RTX, what was it like to meet some of the lesser known teams and were you impressed by the level of skill the players had?

Lassiz: It’s always great meeting new faces, both teams and fans. There was definitely a noticeable difference between the lesser known teams and our team chemistry, especially since we’ve been together for over a year, but the players there were definitely talented mechanically.

On a weekly basis how much do you scrim other teams and who is your favourite to scrim against? Why?

Lassiz: We try to scrim other teams at least 4 times a week, 2-3 games. We don’t have a specific favorite team to scrim against, we like to scrim every team whenever possible for the most optimal practice. Aside from that we all individually practice a lot in ranked.

With the recent change to the junglers’ ‘red pot start’ do you feel it’s harder to play jungle in the early levels of the game or easier?

Lassiz: Without the red pot start there are less opportunities for aggressive plays in the early game but this allows for an easier rush to boots 2 and makes the lvl 5-7 phase easier with the mobility.

In the last patch there was a change to Bumba’s Mask, do you think we will be seeing this item a lot more now?

Lassiz: With the Bumba’s Mask change giving MP5 outside of the jungle, it makes it more convenient to leach in the solo and mid lane while still being able to use abilities consistently throughout the game. Especially with the extra damage from abilities and auto attacks to the jungle camps. More junglers will pick up Bumba’s Mask now as a result.

How do you think you will fair against the new teams from places like China and Brazil in the upcoming 600k tournament and are you excited to meet them?

Lassiz: We’re definitely excited and hopeful to have the opportunity to make worlds and meet Chinese and Brazilian teams. I think we’ll have quite the edge on them having a lot more hours invested into Smite compared to them.

Would you like to see some big meta changes before the 600k tournament and if so what would you like to see changed?

Lassiz: There has been a meta change with the recent serqet patch and it’s likely there will be another one before worlds. I would like to see a meta change because I feel our team adapts really fast to changes.

Was there a team you really disliked playing against in the SWC qualifiers and why?

Lassiz: FAM definitely caught us off guard one of the weeks with their Janus play. Macetodaface really did work with Janus.

You moved in with Zapman and Anatoliy quite recently, are you glad you made the move, do you think it will be good as a team to live together and would you like to see TheBest and Shadowq join you?

Lassiz: I am ecstatic to live with my boys. This will help our synergy out a lot and looking forward to the day that the whole team will live under one roof in Georgia sometime in 2015.

Did you watch the EU SWC qualifiers and is there a team that you are particularly worried about playing? Are there any teams there that you would really like to play?

Lassiz: I don’t watch much of the EU SWC qualifiers as I usually sleep in on Sunday. However, sometimes I do catch some of the finals whenever I wake up and usually every week has a different team(s). The teams in EU seem so close to each other it’s hard to be afraid of any one specific team. We would love to play against TSM again in Worlds and get some redemption from the Smite Launch Tournament.

Now that Kumbhakarna’s Mighty Yawn has been nerfed do you think he is still too strong or do you feel he’s fine as he is now?

Lassiz: I think Kumba’s Mighty Yawn is in a good spot and he’s still easily a top 3 support at the moment. As a result of the nerf, it opened the doors for people to realize just how good Athena is again.

Are there any unplayed gods that you would like to see brought back into the game’s meta in time for the 600k Tournament in January?

Lassiz: Tyr and Thanatos was some of my favorites to play.

As of the newest jungle meta, who is your favourite god for jungling as why?

Lassiz: I really like playing Ne’Zha and Thanatos in ranked to mix things up. Bringing back old gods that used to be played all the time catches a lot of people off their comfort zone.

What will you gain from your new sponsor www.loneriderbeer.com and do you think that more non-gaming based companies will come to sponsor players like you in the future?

Lassiz: Who can turn down free beer? I certainly hope more non-gaming based companies will sponsor players. I’d like to think we are pretty marketable.

Lassiz pulling his 'Ruin MepH's photos' face when the team was in China earlier this year.

Thank you so much to Lassiz for taking the time to do this interview. Good luck to you guys at the LAN and in worlds! Remember to follow Lassiz on Twitter at @DignitasLassiz and on Twitch at www.twitch.tv/Lassiz.

Karma out!