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　　Ram "Brokenshard" Djemal is the jungler for Complexity.Black. He formerly played for DragonBorns in the EU LCS. Complexity.Black is currently participating in the North American Challenger Series.

　　

Why did you make the switch from Europe to North America? Especially because you weren’t coming in to an LCS team, you were joining a challenger team. So there was even more associated risk along with switching to another region, so what was your thought process there?

I mean, I had offers from other teams at the time. Not sure if I’m allowed to disclose which ones though *laughs*. There was an LCS team and then there was a challenger team. But, I was having a lot of success interacting and associating with the people of TBD [To Be Determined, now Complexity.Black] at the time. I had previously been coaching that team to some extent. So we knew each other from there. So I just knew the guys, and I felt that we had a really solid chance coming into the qualifiers. But, overall I just felt like that was my best chance at coming into the LCS. If I was ever going to join an LCS I would rather just qualify myself than join a team already in the league. Plus, I was having a hard time living in Israel. I was getting tired of the whole EU scene and the same old song and dance. I just felt like I kind of needed a fast change up.

　　

What’s different from NA and EU? What do you like more about EU?

What I like more about EU is that I can look at a bunch of players and say, “oh they’re really good.” This guy is going to be an LCS player, this guy is too young but he will be soon. I can feel the level of skill at the time was very very high. It was very difficult for me to find my place amongst the junglers there. Because I kind of felt washed up to some extent. I kind of felt like I was degressing in skill at the point where I joined TBD. So, that kind of sounds a little BM’ish [Bad Mannered]. I felt that I kind of needed to lower the overall skill level so I could come back in a sense. I was having trouble deciding what was the best for my play. The NA meta has always been something that’s easy for me to understand. I felt that if there was ever a time or a place where I could develop my skill it would easily be in North America.

　　

So, what’s different in NA junglers as opposed to European jungles that you prefer more?

The junglers don’t provide as much pressure, they’re less aggressive. It would have been an easier time for me to just devote myself to find whats the strongest play style for myself. Notably on EU, even the lower tier junglers would always be pressuring. Sometimes it would be like smart aggression, sometimes it would be very stupid aggression. There’s always a difference, sometimes it’s worth to invade, sometimes it’s not. On NA, it felt like none of the challenger level junglers attempted to do that. That’s just from a jungling perspective. On the top lane perspective the EU top laners were almost always dedicated to playing pure tanks.

　　I remember playing on a team with the current AD of Copenhagen Wolves, Forg1ven. I was playing with WeWillFailer at support, the top laner for C9 Eclipse now and Spontexx in the mid lane. I remember we would always prioritize champions like renekton and Zac in the top lane. These were the champions that were strong at the time.You know, like the champions you really wanted to pick like Renekton, Shyvana or a Shen. But, when I moved to NA, it was like “Oh we [North America] don’t really play these champions. We play Riven, Lee Sin, Kha Zix or Zed top.” It was a huge change up. I came into TBD and Westrice was like “ I want to play Riven top.” I’ve never played with a Riven top before. “Oh it’s easy I deal like a million damage.” I want to play Zed top.” I’ve never played with a Zed top before. “Oh it’s okay I deal like a million damage.”

　　It felt like split pushing was heavily emphasized on NA. But that’s because at the time the challenger scene was dominated by people like Coast. It was heavily into their play style to split push. So I feel like the challenger scene as a whole kind of like picked off of that, and started trying to win games that way. Also, I felt like there were only three good mid laners around in the challenger scene when I first joined TBD. I felt like Arthleon, Pr0lly and Bischu would probably be like the three strongest mid laners in the challenger scene. Where in EU I could name off of the top of my head seven mid laners in the challenger scene who I think are really good.

　　

What were your thoughts on the Challenger scene infrastructure in North America when switching. Did you have any concerns that you wouldn’t be able to support yourself?

I felt the infrastructure in the challenger scene was, I don’t want to say “developed”, but it was cleaner. It’s easier to find tournaments to play. Between Go4LoL’s there was the ROCCAT King of the Hill, NESL Pro Series and the NACL [North American Challenger League] which is something that EU does not have. The reason for that was just that no one stepped up and did anything about it in EU. My Tournament, the EU Challenger series that I did with Chaos TV was like the first real, consistent tournament that EU Teams could look forward to. The Chaos TV challenger series is a great tournament and the people behind it have really high production value and I’m really happy to say that they have taken over what I’ve started and I’m really happy with what their doing. But, it’s just outshadowed by stuff like the NACL, which is like huge production value . It gets thirty thousand viewers or something like that - it’s very big.

　　

What were your thoughts on where the team was coming into the Evil Geniuses match? What was the team morale like?

We were actually very high in morale in my opinion. I felt that we were all strategically and physically prepared for the match. But after the first game something just went wrong and we all just went on tilt. Huge huge tilt. We felt that we were the stronger team coming into the tournament from the scrims that we had played versus other LCS teams. We were scrimming teams like Cloud 9 and XDG and we were taking games off of them. And then, we come into the EG game thinking that we’re really strong.They, they start playing phenomenally well. We did not not see that coming. Not even for a second. It caught us off guard. I guess you could say we were mentally unprepared for the match no matter how much practice we put into it.

　　

What was it like directly after the EG match? Did you have any doubts about your LoL career in general or coming to North America?

I mean, I’m always going to have doubts when things don’t go well. Especially since we didn’t manage to lock down a sponsor for a long time. Recently, we just managed to pick up Complexity and I’m very happy to say that They were exactly what we were looking for in a sponsor. But, I kind of left a little bit doubtful. I went and spoke to my mother and took a look at everything and decided that if the team was willing to play together past that tournament, then the coke league seemed like something we should definitely try to do.

　　However, after re-looking and rethinking about everything we kind of felt that something needed to change. Pr0lly on the free market, very good AP carry. Arthelon -- I love the guy, he’s really really fun to be around, I think he’s a good player. But, I think even he agrees that he’s just not suited for the mid lane role. He’s playing top lane for a team, and I think he’s going to be much more successful in the top lane. He’s not a very vocal player, but he’s got good ideas when it comes to shaking stuff up, and a good champion pool for the top lane. But, picking up Pr0lly was probably the biggest thing we’ve done on this team.

　　

It came out a couple months ago that his former team mates on Complexity believed that he was one of the core reasons that the team broke up. Saying that he had a negative attitude, he couldn’t get along with others. What are your impressions on Pr0lly so far and how have you interacted with him as a player?

I don’t think that Pr0lly is, it’s a really overused word and I kind of hate using it, but I don’t thinks he’s toxic in a sense. It’s just the way that he gives criticism, it’s maybe something that players aren’t used to. Definitely players with pride issues, people who might be hyped up by the community as good players -- they don’t want to be the ones to be told they’re not playing well. That’s when people start getting a little bit pissy and annoyed by it. But, coming into the team Pr0lly gave this new way of thinking. Pr0lly and our analyst Phy, they gave us a new way of looking at the game and a new way of thinking in a good direction. I honestly felt that there was no issue in the way that Pr0lly communicated problems. Maybe slightly aggressive at times, but definitely not toxic.

　　

So, you’ve got Pr0lly on the team and now you’re about to face LMQ. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a challenger team receive as much hype as LMQ. You could argue that the hype is deserved, because of how impressive they’ve been. What are your thoughts coming into the match? Do you think you will be able to go toe to toe with them, or is it going to be a toss up on the day?

Alright, here’s the thing. I heard this on a Dota 2 steam and I thought it was absolutely amazing. The International 3 caster said it about the Alliance versus NaVi match. How, Alliance coming into the tournament looked like the best team in the world. But, NaVi looked like the only team that could beat the best team in the world. I’m not by any means saying that LMQ are the best team in the world, but they’re arguably the best team in challenger right now. They have been steamrolling the competition, but at the same time, so have we. I mean, we’ve defeated vVv and Cognitive very convincingly. I mean, if there’s a team that’s going to take down LMQ it’s going to be us. A lot of people have said that, a lot of LCS teams who have scrimmed against us have said we can definitely take down LMQ if we play the way we play. I agree, if we play the way that we play i think we have a really solid chance against LMQ. But, there’s no denying that they are good -- like really good. It’s going to be one of the hardest matches for us. Especially in this particular split.

　　A big shoutout to Complexity, really really appreciate them picking us up and giving us a good home to thrive in. So far, it’s been a short term, we’ve been with them for like a week. We’ve had no issues communicating with the CEO’s and the people we needed to get in touch with. So, thank you to them for being really professional about everything. Shoutout to our sister team, and I hope that they do really well versus Cognitive this Saturday. And, last but not least, to my Mom. For being this amazing woman who’s supported me through everything. And our fans, without them, we wouldn't be where we are right now.

　　Complexity.Black will face off against LMQ at 7PM EST on lolesports.com.

　　Image Credit: Riot Games, LMQ, Gamespot