Azoh is a streamer and content creator most known for his educational Zed School series. In this interview, we talk about his content, his opinion of Zed in the current meta, and predictions heading into Worlds!

Tell us about your gaming history leading up to LoL...

Azoh: I didn’t really play any competitive games before League - I’d been a very casual gamer. I played games like “Kingdom Hearts” and “Grandia” in the past. The most competitive thing I’d ever been was 20% W/R ratio at Warcraft 3 , but nothing else - It’s been “Warcraft 3”, a little bit of FPS, a bit of “Super Smash Bros.”, but again - it’s only been casual gaming.

How long have you been playing League and what is your peak league?

Azoh: I’ve been playing League since Season 1 - the end of Season 1. My S3 peak was D1. Season 4 was Master 152 LP. I’m currently Diamond 2.

When is it that you started maining Zed and what was it about Zed that made you like him so much?

Azoh: I started maining Zed patch 3.17 - two or three years ago. Mainly I just saw the Faker outplay and I was like “That’s incredible!” I tried him out several times and my friends always told me, “STOP PLAYING ZED, YOU’RE SO BAD AT ZED!” so I decided to show that I COULD actually play Zed. I was also streaming Riven at the time as I used to main Riven before Zed, and the stream began even before I even made a Youtube channel. When I started to stream Zed, I got a lot of questions about Zed so I kept going.

What is your opinion of “One Trick Ponies and would you consider yourself one?

Azoh: “One Trick Pony” is kind of (at least in EUW SoloQ) a negative label. Often times people recognize you and say, “If you don’t get your champion you’re automatically gonna lose.” Honestly most people who are “One Trick Ponies” - even the one’s who can only do one thing like the Poppy Support or the Warwick or whatever weird champions people only play- they can play other champions as well and they still have a base skill. Me myself personally, I don’t think I’m a “One Trick Pony” anymore. I started learning and picking up new champions, but I don’t like the label “One Trick Pony” because it’s always been a negative idea. It’s kind of a superiority thing like, “this guy can only play one champion; that’s why he beat me.” I understand why people tag it that way, but I always seem it like you’re looking down on those people.

How and when did you start creating Youtube content?

Azoh: I was getting a lot of questions on my very, very small stream about Zed. I thought I could make small videos because there are a lot of people who can’t play Zed - or who play Zed incorrectly. I thought “ I’m not an authority on how to play Zed” but I still saw many common mistakes. I realized I was repeating things in my own play that were consistent every time I did them, and thought, “This is working out so I can make a video showing this.” It was just kind of fun to make a video. I got lucky cause my first “Zed School” got so many upvotes on Reddit and I got so many subscribers from that. In hindsight, that is incredible because the quality of [Episode 1 and 2] was not very high.

What is the process of making one of your videos?

Azoh: I think I’m a very disorganized person when it comes to making videos.

I have an idea of something that I recognize in my own play - something I make consistently when I’m playing, I suddenly feel “I can make a video about this” like “this is helpful” or “it’s working for me” and it’s not too convoluted to explain. When you make a video, you don’t want it to be vague. Specific combos are the best thing because you can say, “press this key, this key and then this key,” and you can’t mess it up - you just press it in that sequence. When you’re talking about more abstract things like roaming, lane pressure and what to do, that’s more difficult.

I try to keep it as basic and focussed as possible. That’s why I like splitting it up into many videos because then I have all focus on one specific mechanic or one single thought - one single lesson, as it were.

Are there any other content creators you watch or enjoy.

Azoh: I watch many of the League Youtubers. I think many of the montage makers are incredible. There are a lot of nice people in the community - DatJellyFish is a really fun guy and extremely talented. Foxdrop has been incredibly nice to me and he has really, really good educational videos. Skye is a really funny guy. I think the League community has a lot of great content creators, really.

Which champions (other than Zed) do you fall back on the most and why?

Azoh: Talon is my fallback champion. I also play Yasuo, but my Yasuo W/R and KDA is pretty bad even though I feel like I’m getting better on him. If I really want to win and I try and fall back on something, Talon is probably the champion I fall back on because I played him from release to the current date. His roaming is really, really good, and there’s not much you can mess up. You just jump in and burst.

What is you opinion of zed heading into 5.18 (Worlds)

Azoh: I really doubt we’ll see much Zed at Worlds. Maybe H2K VS SKT where maybe Ryu will pick up Zed for old time's sake, but I don’t think anyone who wants to win at Worlds will pick Zed. They did revert a little bit of his ult nerf, but even before they put delay on his ult, no one was picking Zed. We saw when Incarnation played Zed - it just doesn’t work anymore, not the same way. Viktor, Yasuo or anything that works much better lategame, has much higher pressure are just better, right now.

What problems does Zed have in this meta?

Azoh: Seeing as it’s “League of Tanks”, I think there will have to be a series of changes to bring him back into the meta. If we’re talking about SoloQ, you can play whatever you want. For most people, Zed is still viable - he’s weaker than he used to be, but if Poppy Support can get into Challenger then so can Zed. When you get way behind, you are SO useless. I’m not talking about 0-3 because I hate the argument people make that, “when that champion is 0-3, he’s useless,” because every champion in the entire game is useless when 0-3. Playing Zed when you get a little bit behind because his entire thing is dueling. One of the biggest misconceptions is that Zed is not much of an assassin anymore - he is much more of a duelist because the preferred build use IE much more than anything else. If you’re doing fine, you can definitely assassinate, but compared to assassins like Diana and Talon that burst much faster. he doesn’t feel much of an assassin as much as he does feel like a duelist. Split pushing: he’s still very, very strong unless he’s faced with one of those bruisers or juggernauts that are very popular in this meta. Right now he doesn’t really do much better than other roles that he’s going up against. I feel if you’re maining fizz, you’re gonna be much better off.

What can be done to make Zed more viable in competitive?

Azoh: I honestly don’t know. It’s hard for me not to be a wanna-be analyst The meta has just shifted into this slower, teamfight game with more tanky focus - he just doesn’t fit as well anymore. It’s not Season 3 with assassins anymore. For them to buff him a little bit, I guess give him back his real ultimate, give us a new armor penetration item, maybe.

Who’s your favorite Zed player heading into worlds?

Azoh: I’ve got to go with Faker! It’s a cop out - I guess the biggest misconception about Faker is just because he made that amazing Faker VS Ryu, he’s the best Zed ever. It’s everything he does with Zed - or every champion for that matter. He’s just such an incredible player. I don’t think there can be any contest here - he’s definitely the best Zed in the world right now.

What do you see Faker do that most people may not see?

Azoh: Where do we begin? He does everything. He makes everyone he plays against sweat for every cs, he knows where to roam, he does his combos right and the animation cancelling is so pristine! He does everything right. I don’t know what else to say.

Who is the best zed you’ve ever played against?

Azoh: Probably Froggen. I know Zed is not one of his main champions - the best Zed player in EUW is probably Febiven, but I’ve never played against him. We have all the great EU midlaners; we have Ryu, Bjerg, Xpeke and all those great players. The only one I’ve played against is Froggen. His Zed is obviously great - he’s kind of Faker-esque, as in he’s good at almost every champion. I’d probably say Froggen is the best I’ve played against.

Why do you think Faker and Froggen are so consistent on so many different champions?

Azoh: There’s also Ryu. Bjergsen and Febiven are probably the midlaners I look up to the most currently. It really varies for a lot of them, but specifically Faker and Froggen - Froggen said he thinks about the game all the time and he puts in so much practice. He goes to bed thinking about the game and wakes up thinking about the game. Even if you have less talent, if you spend that much time you will eventually get good - he does have a ton of talent, I’m not saying he doesn’t have talent, but there are other factors.

I remember you did a coaching session with Nick “LS” De Cesare… What was that experience like?

Azoh: LS is incredibly funny - he’s a joy to be in a conversation with, but he’s also very, very knowledgeable. I think what I realized from that coaching session is that I have a problem being coached. I think he’s a good coach - I think he know’s a lot, especially about the game. To someone that can apply that, I think coaching is very helpful. For me personally, I don’t think I can learn much from coaching because it’s hard for me - I need to process the game in my head. I need to see it happen. I need to learn how to consistently replicate what is it is I’m doing and what it is that’s working. I guess that’s how I eventually climbed because I made so many mistakes and recognized them and realized, “this is a consistent mistake!” You recognize the mistake and you don’t do the mistake again. Coaching can help you see the mistake, and later on you realize “this is the mistake that he told me about before... I keep doing this mistake… I have to notice this mistake before.” It’s not just mistakes but things that are working. “This worked and he said that this will work,” and for some people coaching just doesn’t work. I had a lot of fun being coached by LS - he’s a really, really fun dude.

Do you have any more encounters with League players/personalities that you wish to share?

Azoh: Febiven, a long time ago, linked my stream and said "Best Zed", so I've looked up to him since especially with him doing incredibly well lately. Bjergsen asked me once about my thoughts on the double brutalizer build after he saw me do it on stream. I was starstruck. I speak to Bjerg every now and then. He's always been kind of an idol for me. I often get asked if I think I'm a better Zed than Bjergsen, Febiven etc, and I always say no, definitely not!

Do you have any tips for the Zed mains that’ve watched your videos and are still looking to improve?

Azoh: I personally think I learn a lot from watching the bigger names play Zed. Then you just need to notice what is working. Over a lot of games, you will notice patterns of what is and isn’t working. It’s all about trial and error - given a little thought, obviously. You can watch streams or montages. Montages are not the best place of learning, but you might pick up on certain combos. That’s what I did, actually. I saw some montages and realized they were doing the same thing I was and that made me think, “maybe this is something to pick up on.” If you can notice patterns between your play and proper play - like looking at Dade or Faker, you see what’s working. I’m gonna start doing every single matchup for Zed which is gonna take a while. You can think about the different matchups and see what’s working and see which logical sequence of abilities, like if you’re going against LeBlanc, Do you want her to initiate or for you to initiate? The answer is you want her to initiate so you can have W up to W away from her to avoid her W. That’s a lot of W’s!

Give it like a thought how the lane.

What is your favorite Zed matchup?

Azoh: I really like the Yasuo matchup lately. It used to such be a stomp matchup, but I think a most players have gotten better at Yasuo that I think it's a much more fun matchup. Fizz is a fun matchup because it’s all about if he uses his E first, you win. If you use his ultimate before he uses E, he wins. It’s a back and forth trade in trying to bait out all the spells. I think Orianna is one of the most misunderstood matchups because I think this matchup is 50/50 or 55/45. Orianna can de-push you a lot. Her E really denies you quite a bit.

Do you have any Worlds predictions?

Azoh: Again, not an analyst, but I do read a lot and it does look like the winning teams are probably SKT, EDG or KT? I think we have yet to see - Fnatic did go 2-3 vs SKT so I don’t know. Maybe we’ll see some upset. I don’t want to set anything in stone - I really want there to be some upsets like an NA team going to finals since it would be fun to see all the analysts just break down.

Do you have anything to say to your fans/viewers?

Azoh: Thank you everyone who has been following me over the years - especially now that I’ve been in the hospital and haven’t been uploading very much. I’m still very much recovering from the surgery. Thank you very much for supporting me all this time. I hope I will keep bettering myself for all of you and keep producing content. Good luck to both of us in the future. Thank you very much!

Be sure to check out Azoh’s “Zed School” Series along with all his content below!

Stream - http://www.twitch.tv/azoh
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Azohwastaken
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/user/Veloceipro

I’d like to thank Azoh doing the interview with us! You can follow me on Twitter @TheConito31. Thanks for reading!
-Conito