Coming off the best week the team has had thus far, I got to sit with DIG’s LCS Mid Laner, Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen, to discuss the week’s results. We cover his feelings on finally capturing the team’s first win, what it was like to integrate Tomo into the team, his impressions of the number one ranked FlyQuest, as well as what he expects from the team going forward into the remainder of the split!

First off, congrats on DIG’s most successful weekend of the split, what does it feel like to get the winless monkey off your back?

Jensen: To be honest, I don’t really think about it too much. It was nice to finally win but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really change too much. It was nice, but it wasn’t a huge deal to me, personally.

A winless streak can be taxing mentally, what was it like for you and the team during the stretch and how did you maintain focus on your game?

Jensen: I mean, the atmosphere itself has been decent. Obviously it isn’t good to be losing or performing poorly, but I think we’ve had a lot of other issues, so we’ve just been trying to figure out the best way to go through them. But, all things considered, it’s been a good atmosphere considering how poorly things have gone lately.

Can you shine any light on the shift from Spawn to Tomo? What has the experience both in-game and out of game been like with his addition?

Jensen: It’s been going a lot better. I think just right off the bat, it felt like he fit in a bit more. And in a way, felt a bit more developed as a player. So, it was easier to work together with him and be more on the same page.

Naturally, Tomo is stepping into a difficult position. Have you or the team had any conversations with him about expectations and what you’re looking to get from him for the rest of this split?

Jensen: Yeah, we had a bit of a talk and really put the emphasis on trying to win as many games as we can. And if we happen to win every game hereafter, great, but realistically we’re in a very tough situation. So, we’ve said that we’ll just take everything game-by-game and focus on the future while we develop as best as we can for the future.

Of course, sadly, the weekend couldn’t go off without a hitch, you guys had to face the number one ranked team in FlyQuest and unfortunately suffered a loss ending the week in a 1-1. But even in that game, it felt like there were some tempo spots for you guys where you would have made more with more rapport. Can you talk to me about what you build upon as a team going forward, considering your positive showing this week?

Jensen: To be honest, I didn’t feel too impressed with FlyQuest. I thought they were making a lot of errors. But the game became very difficult from the early flip at the Red and, to be honest, we should’ve lost the game there. But since they made a lot of errors, we were able to come back into the game. Although, it was very difficult considering I felt we fell behind in the draft. But, overall, the game was in a very tough situation. But we saw some windows and were able to play towards them, though we misplayed a bit and of course it ended in the loss.

Shifting focus to talk a bit about the meta, I want to key in a bit to your partner role of Jungle. Can you talk to me a bit on how the changes that Riot made to Jungle have maybe affected the pacing of your lane from Mid, and what sorts of adaptations have you had to make to compensate towards this more gank-forward meta?

Jensen: I mean, I think as a Mid Laner, there are two different approaches to the game. So, you can go for more scaling, or you can go for more fighting in the early game. And I think both are viable paths, it just depends on how you want to approach the game. For us, we’ve been mixing it up a bit as far as it comes to our team.

In regard to Mid, it seems we’re holding pretty close to a lot of what was viable last season. Azir, Viktor, Sylas, seem to be the main focus of most teams as they were for much of the later parts of last season. What are your thoughts on the stagnancy in picks, and what would you like to see with the meta going forward?

Jensen: It would be nice to have more variety, but realistically speaking, the meta has been the same for the longest time. Of course, we’ve seen a bit of Annie after her buffs, but she was quick to be nerfed again... But it would be nice if there could be a bit more variety. But these Champs are usually just the best for pro play since they are simply the best within stable games. So, it’s really hard to see any other picks entering into the meta unless they see buffs like Annie did. I just think these Champs are going to be generally better, minus a few picks that come up in certain matchups. But it’s always going to be that way unless certain Champs or items see major adjustments.

Thinking ahead to what might shift in the meta, Aurelion Sol received his rework and has been terrorizing Solo Queue. Pro players are going to get to experience him in the coming weeks, so what are your thoughts on League’s playable dragon and do you think he’ll become an addition to the pro meta?

Jensen: To be honest, I really liked the old A-Sol. He was a bit weak, but I really liked his style of play. I thought it was unique and interesting. But, at the same time, when he was ahead, he was just too oppressive. I think the new A-Sol is a champ that could see some play since he is a very, very strong scaling pick, but he is a bit weak early game. But it’ll be interesting to see if he’ll see some pro play. Really, he is a stat-check Champion, so if he’s strong he’s really strong, and if he’s weak, he’s not going to feel too impactful, but it’s an interesting design overall… Though, at the same time, I think his new approach is a bit lame.

One last serious question, the shift in LCS scheduling has been playing out for a few weeks now. Have you come to any impressions on this shift in match timing now that you’ve gotten to experience for a few weeks? Has this change been better or worse for the LCS overall in your eyes?

Jensen: I’m not entirely sure. All of our games have been later, so not entirely much has changed there. Really, it’s only been the days that have changed. I personally don’t really notice a difference. Having the weekends is nice if you’re the type that likes to go out or do things on the weekends, but I personally haven’t felt much difference since I don’t do much on the weekend. I just guess the biggest factor is the viewership, right? It’ll be interesting to see how Riot factors that going forward, but to me it doesn’t really matter unless our viewership tanks heavily.

Lastly, to answer a tale as old as time and to end on a fun question, is NA Jayce as bad as fans say?

Jensen: Hm... This is a hard question! I mean, statistically speaking, Jayce’s win rate, I think, is not that bad. But I don’t really know to be honest. Really, to get serious, the playstyle of Jayce has changed from Top to Mid, right? In the past, it was a bit different as a Top Laner, so I always thought it was a bit bad. But now he has a different purpose as a Champion because you pick him with something like Maokai and you have really disgusting poke, so the different playstyle makes Jayce a lot easier in comparison to Top Lane Jayce. So yeah, in the past, NA Jayce was very meme-worthy, but now it's a lot easier and usually if you lose, it’s because you failed due to something beyond the Jayce pick.

That does it for our interview with Jensen! Thanks to him for taking the time to sit and chat about the split thus far. If you’d like to follow more of Jensen, you can catch our All-Star Mid on Twitter.