Summary of the article “tol2’s unknown side”
Original interview was published 2023, April 24 on the LoL Ninja website: https://lolninja.net/2023/04/24/37630/
LoL Ninja got an exclusive interview with Ceros, after DFM won the LJL 2023 Spring Split. Ceros played a big part in tol2’s development and he talked about what it was like working with the young top laner.
The whole coaching staff, especially Ceros, had a very unique split. DFM was a team known for fielding star players, but 2023 was a new challenge for them, promoting their academy top laner, as Evi’s successor. Ceros was his main coach. From morning to late night, from macro to improving skill, he gave all his power to develop the future of DFM. Even after winning though, Ceros said he’s not yet satisfied with himself. He thinks tol2 couldn’t improve as much as he is capable of, and there are still issues with his laning, something that tol2 himself said he would put extra effort into. Ceros tried to focus on every aspect of his gameplay, even teaching proper mouse placement and fundamentals.
Besides these smaller details, Ceros helped tol2 in more mainstream ways too. Since top lane is heavily impacted by the matchup, Ceros watched a lot of 1v1 videos with tol2, and often practiced them with him. Ceros was excited to be the mentor of tol2, even staying up late, and talking with him on Discord about the game.
At the start of the season, since the playing field got harder (with the upgrades in SHG and SG) and DFM lost their star top laner, Evi, everyone gave up on winning. Yutapon said in an interview as well, the team thought it’s impossible to win Spring, they rather focus on improving themselves. It was around the middle of the split, seeing how the team performs, and how willing tol2 was to learn, that Ceros started to believe they can actually win LJL and that became his goal.
Outside the game, tol2’s biggest improvement was with his mental. He had big ups and downs, often getting too excited or getting too depressed. According to Ceros, that is one part where tol2 improved a lot, his control over his mental is much better. He was especially surprised how tol2 reacted to the sudden news when in an emergency, Yutapon had to play support instead of Harp. Everyone gave up already and accepted the loss, except tol2. He got more worked up than ever before, so much so that Ceros had to calm him down after Game 1, because he was too loud in comms.
tol2 has a different side too. People may know him as this young guy from Twitter, who is shy but hard working and has potential. But as Ceros said “fans may think that he’s a Twisted Fate. Cool and smart. But the real tol2 is actually more like an Olaf or a Garen. He’s the type of character you may see in a manga. Who thinks he can solve anything with recklessly fighting.”
Ceros also shared that tol2 is someone who can’t just sit at his desk. Even when watching matchup videos, he would often show random videos to Ceros and ask if he likes them. tol2 can focus during stage games, but he has to work on his focus during scrims as well, and work on other aspects of the game, like learning how to shotcall, etc. When talking about these to Gismo, he just said “how can you coach tol2…”
Ceros shares tol2’s idea that winning is everything. He wants to focus more on researching international teams and bringing in international results. They think this is the only way to make LoL more popular in Japan. DFM slowly but surely is getting there, last year taking a game off RNG, and winning here and there against other teams, but they don’t want to stop there. Ceros said they need more momentum and then they can finish these series with a win. After all, DFM is a winning team. They are expected to win everything in Japan.
