NRG Esports Jungler Kennet "Adapting" Ros has a pedigree of consistent top tier Smite play ever since his professional debut in Season 2. Commonly known as "The King of the Jungle" by many fans and peers alike, there is a high base regarding expectations at The Smite Season 3 World Championships. After winning the EU Regionals this fall, the only thing left for Adapting is to take home the Season 3 World Championship to cap off a stellar Season 3 of Smite for the European Jungler. In this interview, Dig Sage talks to Adapting on his style of jungling and what he believes Europe needs to do in order to excel against North American teams.

You have had some time to reset before Worlds, what have you been doing with this time?

Adapting: After Super Regionals I went back home and had a short break from SMITE. I've mainly spent time with my girlfriend. The focus now though is to prepare for worlds.

Adapting and his girlfriend Pixiemix during the offseason. Image courtesy of Adapting's Twitter.

You and your team added another title to your resume after the Smite Super Regional, were you a little worried prior to the Regional that another team would push you from that top spot?

Adapting: I was incredibly confident heading into Super Regionals, as we were coming straight from our bootcamp which had went amazingly. We felt like we had a really good understanding of the meta heading in, and our synergy was better than it's been in a long time. We didn't go in thinking "this is going to be easy" or anything like that, but we were certain that if we played to the best of our capabilities we would be likely to win.

Going onto the topic of your team's synergy, you have been on a team that has not made a roster change in quite some time. Could you explain to me some of these synergy problems that were resolved? Was it resolved because of the amount of time the roster has been together?

Adapting: Before Epsilon Invitational we had barely been scrimming at all, since we had a break and we didn't consider the LAN to be very important. After the LAN we went on vacation to Aruba, and once we had gotten back home Fall split started. Our understanding of which picks were strong, what was the best in the meta was weak, as there had been some major changes. This caused us to be a little lost to begin with, we tried to learn too much at once and it just bit us in the ass. Our synergy was getting worse and worse, we were struggling against lower tier teams and realised something had to be done. We all had a sit down, talked everything through. Mostly it was just mental for all of us, we had gotten into our own heads, we started questioning ourselves at every play we made. Once we had our little talk, got everything sorted we started performing a lot better. Scrims were going amazingly and after the bootcamp we felt stronger than we had in a long time. We've been in this sort of situation before, so we knew how to deal with it.

You guys qualified for The World Championships pretty convincingly, do you wish you had the opportunity to play the NA teams during regional qualifiers?

Adapting: Not necessarily, as fun as it would be, it would most likely be more hurtful than beneficial for us. Whilst I'm sure there are a lot of things we could learn from them, I feel like they are more likely to learn more from us, which could end up hurting up going into SWC.

Heading into this World Championship, you and Obey were the only EU teams to qualify for The World Championships. Do you believe the depth of EU region is as strong as NA?

Adapting: I think EU is stronger than NA tends to give credit for, and that the depth in EU has definitely grown. There are lots of strong EU teams, but for some reason EU seems to struggle against NA. Generally NA runs pressure heavy comps and focuses on invades, which throws off a lot of EU teams as they don't expect to be pressure as hard as they are. Also in general in EU vs NA matches NA just play their own regular game, whilst EU try to adapt to the NA playstyle. Instead of sticking to what they're good at and have practiced. It usually leads to EU teams having really bad drafts, and not fully understanding how to execute their drafts properly.

What do you believe is the best solution for EU teams to thrive against NA? It seems as if it is a double-edged sword to play against NA that will both result in a rough game for EU.

Adapting: They just need to be prepared for the early aggression and pressure, and most importantly of all play their OWN game. EU teams just need to stick to what they know.

Who do you believe are the top 4 teams at World championships? Assuming you put NRG in finals, who do you see the other team in the finals being and why?

Adapting: At this point I honestly have no idea, coming into Worlds it's anybody's guess. I expect us to make finals, hopefully take it all. The most reasonable based opponent against us would be eGr considering Super Regionals performances.

You have been heralded as a farm heavy jungler while Eager's jungler, DJPernicus, is known for getting others ahead as opposed to himself. What is your opinion on a supportive jungler compared to a carry jungler?

Adapting: I don't think it's good, you're effectively hurting yourself doing it. It can be good if you do it for the right reason, which usually isn't the case.

Could you further explain how it is normally detrimental? Is it the way the jungle meta is shaped?

Adapting: Putting yourself behind without getting anything in return will hurt you in both teamfights but also in the way you can pressure the jungle. Giving somebody extra farm by not splitting camps or waves so that person who gets extra farm can carry is not optimal. At least not in my eyes.

You will be defending your World Championship title this upcoming January. What would you like to do this World Championship that you were unable to do during Season 2?

Adapting: Well nothing will beat winning the SWC, so I'm not really sure. All I want to do is win it again, and that's what I'll work my hardest for to do.

Adapting (right-center) after The Season 2 World Championships with Epsilon Esports. Image Courtesy of the HiRez Stream

Is there anything else you would like to say?

Adapting: Shout outs to all our fans, my family and girlfriend for being so supportive! Love you all! And thanks to you for having me!

Adapting and his team, NRG Esports, will be defending their championship title at the Smite Season 3 World Championships this January. Make sure to stay posted on updates and new tweets from Adapting on Twitch and Twitter.