Matthew 'Pants are Dragon' Nguyen is a challenger jungle player who has taken a strong liking to Wukong. He was a sub for Complexity during the NACL as well as played in the Coke Challenger Series with Super Team NA. Though they were knocked out in the first round, Pants Are Dragon still wishes to play competitively one day. He was able to spare some time to answer a few questions about Wukong, jungling in lower elos, and his future plans in terms of playing professionally.

How did you start playing league?

Pants are Dragon: Me and my friends were playing the starcraft 2 custom dota map (forgot what it was called but it was like 3 years ago) and the thing that attracted me to the game was the recommended builds, and in the WC3 DOTA I was really bad at the game because I didn't know what to build. Then after my friend mentioned LoL and I gave it a shot, then yeah it was actually pretty fun so we started playing it for awhile and eventually I was just really into it.

What drew you to Wukong, why do you main him?

Pants are Dragon: I saw him used in a LCS game once, so I decided to give him a shot and in Season 4 at the beginning of my provisional matches I started to try him and I actually saw a lot of success with him and I actually at one point was 14-1 with him and was like this champion is really OP. The basic summary is he gave me a lot of free wins and so I just played him, nothing too special.

What was it like when you subbed for Complexity?

Pants are Dragon: I was just sitting on my computer with league opened and I got a random message from MegaZero asking if I wanted to play for a NACL match for a sub, I was really surprised that it happened because it was so spontaneous and then I said sure and asked when? He told me in 10 minutes and again more spontaneous cause it was happening so soon. When I was playing with them they were all pretty chill and fun guys to talk to so it was a pretty cool experience and it was my first time in the amateur scene too.

After being knocked out in the first round of the Coke Challenger Series, what do you think were your teams faults and what needed to be worked on?

Pants are Dragon: Umm, it was a long time ago but basically I feel that we just kinda lost in champion select and I felt we played a really solid early game but didn't follow up mid game because we gave them Nidalee. I think we were a solid-decent team at the time but I don't think I'll be playing competitively unless I get a good offer.

Some people say that high Diamond/Challenger is lonely because you really only play with the same people each game, what is your opinion on this?

Pants are Dragon: It's better since you have a little community in this elo where you know people so it's fun to play with the same people over and over again, and of course you get to see the pros every now and then which is probably the best part. The only thing that's lonely is the 20 minute queue times at 5am.

What tips would you give to someone trying to learn Wukong and jungling in general?

Pants are Dragon: Using your decoy to tank the creeps, that helps him a lot and why he always can heal off the jungle with spirit stone. Don't build tiamat on Jungle Wukong, his combo doesn't really allow Tiamat in it until after the ultimate. Even though you bring no CC to ganks pre-6, it's enough that his kit can come in for some harass and maybe forcing the enemy back, so if your around the area go for a gank.

What advice would you give to lower elo players in general?

Pants are Dragon: Play op champs, watch streamers and analyze what they do mechanically and put that in your own playstyle, that's the way I got better and here I am in challenger!

What are the biggest mistakes your see people in lower divisions make?

Pants are Dragon: Calculations, basically people think they can duel this champion but end up losing the fight and again just fight bad fights. They also generally don't know how to play the lane to the fullest extent, so like in lane I notice they aren't aggressive when they can be aggressive and can harass. Other than that they don't really know how to close out a game and end up getting to late game very easily which is why champions like Warwick, Kayle, Amumu all have a really high win rate. They also have build paths that are not ideal for the situation or make no sense at all, less map awareness and don't really focus on objectives but more for kills.

Are there any trips or tricks that someone can learn on Wukong, what are they?

Pants are Dragon: Tips: When using your Q, you can activate the ultimate right when your stick is in the auto attack animation, it looks as if the Q cancelled but it still hits. Using your decoy to juke someone in a intersection is really easy, as you can pretend your walking 1 way but actually go the other way when you stealth. 1 juke that never works is pretending to be a clone, that just delays your death by a second and puts you into a position where you'll still die and allows the enemy to catch up and put yourself towards him.

Do you want to play competitively more? What are your future plans?

Pants are Dragon: I would like to play competitively at least once on the LCS stage but I have no plans to probably play competitively again, as the challenger scene is a bit weak right now and not even the 1st place teams get really anything but less than minimum wage, they need more tournaments/prize pool for the amateur scene and also I don't think I'm really that good for competitive 5s as I haven't played it in awhile and it's a different game from solo queue. My future plans are to try to expand my YouTube channel and just do misc. work like make guides for websites while attending school for Computer Science.

You can watch him in action at www.twitch.tv/luigidragon and learn from him at www.youtube.com/luigidragon where he uploads educational jungling videos.