After a tough opening stretch, Los Ratones is starting to find its footing in LEC Versus.
After a tough opening stretch, the team picked up two crucial wins in a row last week, bringing its LEC record to 2–4 and firmly keeping its playoff hopes alive.
Following the team’s second consecutive victory against Shifters, Esports Insider sat down with Los Ratones’ support Martin ‘Rekkles‘ Larsson to reflect on the team’s recent performances.
While pleased with the results, Rekkles remains clear-eyed about where improvements are needed. Pointing at a better use of bot lane pressure, the support aims at reaching a stronger map control by potentially shifting his champion choices.
Read the full interview below.
Esports Insider: How are you feeling after your second win in LEC Versus?
Rekkles: I felt really good right after we won, but I would say the more time goes, and the less emotions I have, the more I realise we got away with something we probably shouldn’t have today. Yesterday [against Team Heretics], it felt like we deserved a win, and today it felt like we did not. But right after, of course, I was really happy because we really needed a win today.
Today was super duper important, and I’m just really happy we managed to do it. Somehow, I think there have been games where we should have won, and we lost. So maybe it’s just like the world evening out, you have some games you lose that you should win, and you have some games you win that you should lose, and it felt like today was one of the games we probably should have lost, but we won.
So, 2-4 after six games, I think all things considered, that’s a win in our expectations because coming here has been really tough and especially with the short time span we have to work with compared to other teams, it feels like it’s kind of mission impossible doing this. So two and four after six games, definitely meeting expectations in that regard. And now it’s nice to have the opportunity to control our own fate.
For example, if we went into next week 1-5 or even 0-6, we would have to basically win every game or hope for results in other games. Now it definitely feels like if we’re good enough, we’re going to make it. If we’re not good enough, we’re not going to make it. That’s nice to know. I prefer this situation to having to count games. This team has to win against that team, ‘blah, blah, blah’. It is never nice to be in that situation, so I prefer this one much more. Now it’s on our own plate.
ESI: What do you think you have to work on this week to improve further?
Rekkles: I think we have an issue where it was kind of the same in the Karmine Corp Blue (KCB) game — both games I played Nami — I feel like we are really strong bot lane in theory, but when we play on stage, everyone’s a little bit more scared, so we don’t really use that bot pressure for anything. There are situations where the enemy support is roaming, and I cannot really follow because Nami’s gameplay is very connected to my ADC. I cannot run around and do whatever other supports can do with Nami. I’m very much tied to the AD Carry, and my power comes through my ADC. So the game is played in a little bit of a different way.
I think in the KCB game and this game (against Shifters), both games I have played Nami, and we struggled on the map. It felt like they had all the pressure, all the vision, and we were kind of just giving space all the time. They would slowly chip away at our towers, they would take the objectives, and they would have all the deep vision, and eventually we’d just lose from nothing. I think against an even better team than today — or an even better team than KCB in that game two that we played this week — we don’t get a chance to actually come back into the game and fight our way back into the game because before that, we’re too behind.
I think it’s really important that we either A, figure out how to play with these supports that stick more to our ADC or B, just stop playing these supports and try to play a support that helps with the map more. I think it’s just an honest discussion we need to have as a team, what kind of direction we want to take moving forward now, because obviously, these games we are in a pretty tough spot and it would be nice to be able to contest the game from the get go and not let the enemy team get a gold lead and all that. I think it might be a better approach to have me on roaming support and play around Nemesis, for example.
ESI: Speaking about supports, there are a lot of people asking when you’re going to play your Janna. How do you think she fits in the current meta?
Rekkles: Sadly, Janna has no place right now in the meta, and I also stopped playing her after last year. So when I went to Korea in 2024, my first year of support, Janna was one of my strongest champions together with Senna and Ashe — which is quite a weird champion pool to start with — but that’s where I started last year. Then I dropped the Senna, and I dropped the Ashe, and I played a little bit of Janna.
But basically every time I played Janna, I felt like I was handicapping my team, and in the end, I think I should do everything I can to help my team, not necessarily to help myself. Even though I’m really good at Janna and it would feel great to play Janna, and I’m very comfortable with her, I think I wouldn’t help my team the best I can. So I kind of dropped her now, sadly.
But I think I have some champions I haven’t played that I’m really good at, for example, I think I’m really good with Rakan. He’s probably my most-played support since I made the swap in 2024. I think I’m a really good Alistair player as well and a really good Neeko player too, and I’ve played neither of these champions yet. So even though we’re playing best-of-one, and maybe I don’t get the chance to play them, I don’t feel like I’m restricted in any way. I feel like if the situation arises, I can easily pull out some more champions that I haven’t played yet that I feel really good on, maybe even better on than Nami.
I think both Nami and Braum are also good champions for me, but I really want to use Rakan. I think I’m really good, and I think my Neeko improved a lot. I’ve been playing a lot of Neeko to get her ready. I think she’s a very game-impacting support because with Neeko, you can make miracle plays out of nowhere; other supports don’t really have that upside.
Sometimes, if you’re in a bad state, for example, with Nami, you can’t really do anything to come back into the game. But I think with Neeko, with Rakan, you have that. With Alistair, you have that too. So even though we’re playing best-of-one and I can’t really control how many champions I play it, it would be fun to make it to the best-of-three and actually get to show a bit more.
I think I have worked really hard on my champion pool, and it’ll be nice to show that. Not for anyone else really, just for myself to be on stage and actually play different champions and show my strength every time. I guess in the end I just want to go further than the best-of-one stage.
I feel like best-of-ones don’t satisfy me as a League of Legends player. I have played this game for 16 years now, and 12 of those years were professionally, so when I only get to play one champ, I feel like I’m not expressing myself in the way I think I can on the Rift. I would really like to go best-of-three, best-of-five, especially with Fearless Draft in place, and showcase my improvement as a support and my champion pool. I think best-of-one, sadly, we are just quite limited with one champion per day.
ESI: Having played both as an ADC and a support as a pro, what are the qualities that you looked for in a support and are really important for a support player to develop?
Rekkles: I think when I played ADC, my best supports were always the ones that created space for me, which is kind of a weakness of my own now when I’m playing Support. Because, I think very much like an ADC.
So sometimes my positioning is in the wrong place, and it’s not that I’m intentionally putting myself there. It happens almost unintentionally, so to speak, because I have all these years as AN ADC, then my natural instinct is to place myself as if I were one. But I think that’s something I have gotten better at.
For example, when I played in 2024 in Korea, my range supports were good, and my melee champions were terrible. I couldn’t play a melee champion, even though I tried really hard; I just couldn’t do it. My Leona wasn’t good, my Alistar wasn’t good. There were even a few I didn’t actually play, and I worked on that a lot last year.
So coming into the LEC, I’m not scared to play a melee champion because I think I really improved on how to create space and be helpful for my carry to take a better position in team fights.
Even though I played Nami and Bard so far, which doesn’t really do this, I think my Braum games have been pretty good, and if I got to play Alistar or Rakan, I think I could really make a lot of space. For me, this was the biggest thing I noticed when I played ADC myself. The Supports that gave me space were the best ones because they would allow me to then play my best game.
I think, especially now as well, ADCs are really strong. So if I can put Crownie in a good spot, then there’s a high chance we actually win the game. Because right now, ADC is a strong enough role to actually carry the game. If we get the ADC to a certain item situation, or on a specific champion, on a specific draft. For example, the Caitlyn, I think is working really well for us. It seems like it scales really well and we still have a strong lane. So I definitely think the more I can improve on this and the more I can help my ADC, the higher the chances of us winning.
