During his vacation, we had a brief talk with H2K's very own Top Laner and star, Andrei "Odoamne" Pascu. We thought that after a truly remarkable year with a lot of accomplishments for both him and his team, a lot of people would want to hear some words from him about this year's H2K, the World Championship and many more. So here we go.

Hello Odoamne. Thanks for being with us!

Odoamne: Hey, happy to be here!

After a rough season, you managed to earn your invitation to the 2016 World Championship through Championship Points. Did you feel any anxiety throughout the splits that you will maybe not make it?

Odoamne: In the beginning of the year I was pretty confident with my team, the roster we put up on paper was really strong so I wasn't really worried we wouldn't make it. After a disappointing Spring Split, I wasn't really feeling worried about it, but I view it more as a bump we had to overcome. We tried playing the Summer Split with Freeze as our starting ADC, but things didn't go so well mainly due to his wrist injury and at one point we were at the bottom of the standings. I think that's when I started feeling the pressure that we wouldn't even make the play-offs, let alone qualify for Worlds, but once FORG1VEN came back things started going better again and I wasn't pressured anymore since our gameplay improved by a lot.

In both of the splits, you managed to do well in the regular season, yet you seem to have a hard time passing through the semifinals in the playoffs. In your opinion, what held your team back?

Odoamne: It's weird and I can't really explain what happened. Leading up to the semi-finals game we were having really good results in scrims, yet all of a sudden a week before the games we just starting losing games inexplicably. I don't think it was pressure or anything, I also didn't feel anything changing in our mentality as individuals or as a team, it's just that we had a really bad week and our form dropped pretty bad. That's also what happened against Origen in the Spring. As for the Summer Split I think we drafted very poorly and gave our opponents a far easier draft in order to win the game.

What are the main differences between last year's H2K (Season 5) and this year's H2K (Season 6)?

Odoamne: I think Season 5's H2K was more of a rookie team, most of us were just playing in the LCS for the first time, so we didn't have high expectations of performing really well. We just went there with the mentality of getting better and gaining some experience. Season 6's H2K was a far more serious team with superior players than the previous version of H2K, and our goal was to win everything we could.

The H2K line-up for the Season 5 of the EU LCS

Since the start of your career, you have mostly played under the H2K Gaming banner. How does it feel to be the backbone of the team? Does this mean you have more responsibilities than other players?

Odoamne: It doesn't feel any different than other players, I don't have this sort of ego or vision of myself being superior to others in or out of the game just because of the fact that I've been here longer than them and I don't feel like I have more responsibilities, but being the backbone of the team is a thing that motivates me a lot. The sort of consistency I have is something i take pride in and is the main thing I'm looking forward to keep displaying.

About the 2016 World Championship, how does it feel to be one of the three European teams to ever make it this far in the tournament. Why do you think it happened?

Odoamne: I don't think much of it, I was only pretty upset that we lost in that manner, but personally I don't see it as a big accomplishment. The thing I'm most proud of from this World Championship is our 4-0 sweep in the 2nd week of the group stages. That really said a lot to me about the drive of my teammates to not get kicked out of groups and their thirst for proving something, that's probably the best memory of this World Championship.

We had a pretty bad week 1 at Worlds in which we threw some games, but I think in week 2 our gameplay was a lot cleaner, we barely did any mistakes and we just showcased how good this squad could actually be. Also for the Quarterfinals I think we got a pretty good draw, between the 3 (Royal Never Give Up, Cloud9 and Albus Nox) I think the hardest team to face would've been RNG and C9/ANX would've been the best draws we could've gotten. Personally, I would've loved to face Cloud9 on American soil and give NA something to remember (wink).

Both in Korea and the World Championship, what were the hardest teams to face?

Odoamne: During our Korean bootcamp the hardest teams to face were probably RNG and ROX, and for Worlds we scrimmed against SKT and they were by far the best team in that tournament, at least in scrims. It felt totally overwhelming playing against them.

Out of the World Championship teams, which Top Laners impressed you the most and why?

Odoamne: The top laners I had the most fun playing against at Worlds were probably the "Korean Trio". ROX Tigers were almost like our scrim partners, since we scrimmed them frequently, and I loved playing against Smeb as well. I felt like every game with him was the most challenging game I've ever played and it just made the game so much more fun for me. I also kind of had a friendly rivalry with him, since I felt like we were pushing each other to do better.

Duke was really difficult to play against as well, he had really good champions for that meta and his lane was pretty dominant.

Cuvee impressed me on stage with his Ekko play, he had a really unconventional playstyle which took me by surprise and showed me a different way of playing that champion.

After the World Championship ended what were your plans regarding your future as a player? Did you want to stay with H2K after a remarkably great year or look for other offers?

Odoamne: After Worlds ended I wanted to keep playing at the highest level and I wanted to achieve even more than I did the previous years. I was open to any offers, not necessarily looking to stay with H2K, but in the end I decided to stay in H2K.

With all these roster changes (Vander & Ryu leaving, Febiven returning) what should we expect from the Season 7 H2K team?

Odoamne: It should be an interesting year for H2K, I'm pretty confident that we can match what we did in the previous years with H2K.

To finish this off, what would you like to say to your North American fans? Is there any chance we will get to see you performing in NA?

Odoamne: To my North American fans, if there are any (laughs), thank you for rooting for me and H2K. I hope we will provide entertaining games for you to watch, so you can keep supporting me and my team. There is always a chance for me to play in NA, it all depends on the project, goals and competitiveness of that team.

Make sure to follow Odoamne on Twitter to be updated about him and his team's adventures through Season 7.

Like our content? Support us by getting our merchandise in our shop