At eight wins and two losses in Group B, the Unicorns of Love's presence in the playoffs is all but assured. The team has grown accustomed to winning, and its players have been in high, somewhat careless spirits most of the split. This was reflected in the team's play.
However, following IEM Katowice, the Unicorns of Love would be brought back down to earth temporarily following a loss to Misfits on Week 6. Its series during the next two weeks against Fnatic and H2k-Gaming proved more reassuring, but it left much to be discussed.
Kiss "Vizicsacsi" Tamas had been part of UoL since its creation, and he had been part of many of the squad's skirmishes that highlight the more chaotic, and sometimes careless, aspect.
"We go for anything that we can take, but I think [that] we are sometimes taking fights that we shouldn't," Vizicsacsi said on UoL's risky decision-making at skirmishes. "The problem is that we are a bit careless sometimes, so we are face-checking bushes we shouldn't, or face-checking too early. Apart from that, we always look to take anything we can."
The spring season represents a perfect playground for such experimentations in preparation for the playoffs. Sound bites along the lines of "spring split doesn't matter" had been regular in the past, but Vizicsacsi would not be beholden to such thinking. After all, UoL had missed the 2016 World Championship in part due to a relatively poor spring split showing.
"A really good spring split [means participation at Worlds is] almost guaranteed, and also MSI, which I think is a great opportunity to get ahead of other teams for the summer split, and whoever goes there will have a huge advantage over the others," Vizicsacsi said. "The regular season, I would say, is a playground, but when it gets to playoffs, it should be [about] fighting to the death, because the first place matters a lot."
As qualification to the playoffs is all but assured, the Unicorns of Love have been experimenting with team composition drafts and in-game skirmishes in order to increase readiness and patch weaknesses. Team fighting has been one point of concentration, but Vizicsacsi noted that they have been improving since IEM Katowice. He cited encounters with the Flash Wolves have allowed them to improve their rotational play.
"[Flash Wolves] were extremely strong, and they are not the Flash Wolves that we beat at IEM Oakland," he said, recalling scrimmage sessions. "They are ten times better. They are way more coordinated. They have extremely good macro moves, and the micro execution is top-notch. We managed to learn a lot of macro rotations from them."
The improvements were not enough in Week 6 against Misfits; the squad's execution at a micro level had failed. UoL's early-game had proven brittle at times, despite team compositions built to thrive during that phase. However, the team's macro play has allowed them to claw back into games, setting up the stage for decisive teamfights. That is where UoL's most pressing matter had stemmed.
Clear and concise communication is key to a good teamfight, but it is not enough at the highest level. Split-second timeliness is key, as an opponent's front line or assassin may get the jump on the important yet fragile damage dealers, or force them to split away from their front line. With timely communication, the team can avoid making bad decisions heading into team-fights, but the Unicorns of Love had had issues on that regard.
"It's either they don't know that it's going to happen, they don't see the situation clearly, or maybe they're tunneled on something else," Vizicsacsi said, noting possible reasons for communication downtimes. "Maybe they're tunneled on helping me out. Meanwhile they don't see circumstances that there is a Lee Sin coming behind them, or Renekton jumping for them, and that's when they try to communicate - when they are already dead.
"That's not too good, but what we can [do to] improve on this is to play more and try to understand the champions more on team comps. Enemy team comp here wants to go on our backline, and we want to clear their front line. So, the backline should clump behind our front line, and we are always going to be in the fight. If we understand team comps better, we're better to go."
Armed with knowledge of its weaknesses, the Unicorns of Love have a clear roadmap leading into the playoffs and beyond. H2k-Gaming has been a marquee casualty of UoL's focus on improving its play, and Vizicsacsi noted that communication was more fluid and more concise, but he would not go as far as state that the issue was behind them.
"If we want to say that the issues are solved, we need to be consistently playing at that level, and beating other opponents as well with the same kind of play," he added.
The roadmap also includes finding a comfort zone in terms of champion picks and playstyle, as the top laner had pointed out following UoL's loss against Misfits.
"Right now, we can play what we want and try to figure out our playstyle, because I feel we're a bit lost right now," the top laner concluded. "We don't know what our power champions [are] right now, what we're most comfortable with, and we need to figure that out in the next weeks before the playoffs. It doesn't have to be the meta champs. It's just what we're strong with, what we can [win] with.
"Good practice is the key to success."