The king is dead, long live the king! After a dominant performance from Karmine Corp, the ever-victorious G2 Esports have been toppled in a decisive 3-0 sweep, crowning a new League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) champion for the first time since 2023. In an exclusive interview, G2's AD carry, Steven "Hans Sama" Liv, discusses the team's loss, the lessons learned, and his message to the fans.

After this defeat, how do you feel? Was it a surprise for you to lose 0-3 against KC?

Steven "Hans Sama" Liv: "I’m very disappointed, and honestly, I don’t know exactly what happened. We really underperformed, because in three straight games, we barely showed anything. We hardly managed to secure any dragons. Honestly, we just didn’t play good League of Legends today.

Do you think you underestimated KC after your 3-1 victory last week? Is it more about G2 faltering, or has KC improved since then?

Hans Sama: It’s hard to say, I still need to watch the replay. We've known that KC is a solid team. During our preparation, we gave it our all, but the performance on stage didn’t live up to expectations. We missed a lot of proactive plays, and there weren’t many successful plays in general. I don’t think they played like Faker (Lee Sang-hyeok) today, but they played well, that’s for sure. The game plans for games 1 and 2 didn’t go well. The lane swaps we tried didn’t work in either games. We didn’t bring anything different from the last series. It’s a shame we couldn’t play together as planned. In any case, I’m convinced we didn’t play well today, end of story.

The split started off poorly, but you’ve improved a lot as a team. Could you give us a retrospective on the split? Are there any positives to take from it, and do you think it will help you for the spring split?

Hans Sama: At the start of this Winter split, we were really average, but we made incredible progress. Over the weeks, we improved a lot and learned quickly. Honestly, we dominated almost every scrim. It was easy to win; we were really into the game, all on the same page. For sure, we’ll need to figure out how to replicate that in the next split. Personally, I’m very disappointed by this loss today. I still have a lot of work to do to reach a level that meets my expectations of myself. I’ve made progress in some areas, but it wasn’t enough to win. I’m really disappointed that I didn’t perform well enough to secure the victory. I’ll need to step up my level.

Do you think that the fact you won a lot before this match may have masked some issues in the team? Were there any problems that appeared because you weren’t pushed hard enough before this match?

Hans Sama: No, I think the teams we faced in scrims, like KC and Fnatic, are really solid. The matches against them were quite close this split, so I wouldn’t say we learned nothing from playing against these teams. We had a good week to prepare, but I’m not really sure what happened today; it was just a bad day, I guess. I was confident, honestly. Seeing how the match between KC and Fnatic went yesterday, I thought, "If we play our game, it should be fine." I think there were a lot of macro plays that didn’t quite work out. We lost tempo, made bad decisions, and individually, we weren’t at our mechanical best. For sure, KC was very strong, especially in fights. They dominated most of the skirmishes. It was difficult for us to close things out. In terms of objectives, they took many more than we did. From there, it became complicated.

Labros "Labrov" Papoutsakis has received a lot of criticism in recent weeks. What do you think of G2’s botlane today? Are the criticisms justified?

Hans Sama: I think we weren’t really at our best during this match. We didn’t manage many plays, but there were moments when we played well. Sometimes, we’re really a top botlane, and other times, it doesn’t work out. Personally, I would place us among the best botlanes in the league still, because we can beat quite a few of them. Maybe we didn’t show it today, but it’s a work in progress. We’re confident, hard workers, we just need to keep that confidence, that’s important.

Would you like to say a word to the fans?

Hans Sama: Thank you for the support from the fans. Personally, I will do everything I can to continue improving and go far this year. My goal is really to progress. I’ll come back much stronger next split. I feel like I’m always saying the same thing, but it’s a deep conviction. League of Legends is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I will give everything to reach a really high, or even extraordinary level."