Karmine Corp opened their EWC with a BO1 loss to Gen.G in Paris. It's the same story that dogged them at MSI — a team caught behind the meta — but Caliste "Caliste" Henry-Hennebert is at least home, and honest about the work ahead. Trixcity caught up with the KC ADC after the defeat to talk about his feelings after the MSI, the shift to a bot-lane 1v1 meta, and grinding mages in solo queue.
How are you feeling?
Disappointed to lose, obviously. But on the flip side, I'm glad to be at EWC, in Paris, in France, seeing other people, somewhere familiar. It's refreshing.
You did solo kill Ruler, though. Is that a small extra after the game, or is it just the defeat that's annoying?
Winning is what matters most. I'd rather have won the game than solo killed Ruler.
CALISTE SOLO KILL RULER !
You play Team Secret Whales next, in a BO3, and they just lost to Sentinels. Did you expect that or not at all?
Honestly, Team Secret Whales, Sentinels — I don't really know. On paper, I'd assume Team Secret Whales aren’t the favorites. But either way, we'll see against them.
Have you been able to scrim any teams since coming back to Paris — any big teams? Are you practising well or not really?
We had, I think, two or three scrims. We got to scrim two very strong teams. Otherwise, the week before, we were back in Berlin and scrimmed the teams that were there.
And the prep — how do you get ready for an event like this? Do you arrive a bit improvised?
It's a bit improvised. We don't have a lot of information, and it's right after MSI, so we didn't have time to rest. So we arrive in a rush, a bit improvised, trying to decide what to focus on — what let us down at MSI, trying to work on it
But obviously those aren't things you can fix in so little time. So it's basically the same mentality as at MSI, but in different conditions.
Last time we spoke was right after the defeat, which was a tough moment. Now that some time has passed and you've each had a chance to step back, what's your assessment? How do you explain what happened, now that it's cooled down?
Concretely, the same. Honestly, we weren't well prepared, and we didn't adapt well. Now we're using this time to try things and readapt.
Was it about the meta — did you feel you were behind on the early game? What were the points that let you down, more precisely?
Clearly we were behind in terms of draft — we were not up to date at all on the matchups and the roaming supports, the Shen, Camille, Bard, Pyke, all that. And obviously in terms of gameplay too. When you're used to playing front-to-back for, I don't know how long, four or five months — you're used to playing Ashe-Seraphine, Yunara-Lulu, Lucian-Milio, playing front-to-back — and then overnight it changes.
Now it's mages, and nobody cares about the botlane, nobody goes there except level one to grab XP, and then people leave. It's just 1v1 bot with mages, and the support and jungle run all over the map. It's literally the opposite of what we did so far. As a team, we have to adapt, work, and take our time to be able to come back.
Caliste seems to be adapting to the bot mage meta as well 🚨 Since returning from Korea, he's played 23 solo queue bot lane games, with only 3 of them on a traditional ADC 📊
I saw your solo queue history. It feels like you're trying to adapt. How's the mage training going right now?
It's the meta. It doesn't exactly make you want to,
I'll admit, but I've always said: if I have to play Seraphine or nice little mage things to win, I'll play them.
And yeah, the meta seems to be leaning more toward mages, or at least utility ADCs — Jhin, Ezreal, maybe MF — champions that are more utility and can be a bit standalone. So obviously you ask yourself whether there's another mage you can play. I play the classic mages, the Ziggs-Mel and so on, and on the side I try myself on other mages in case I have something up my sleeve.
And are you comfortable on them?
Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable. It's fine, I pick things up fast, I watch games and try to learn quickly.
