[hkes_show_google_ad] Despite a kicking off the season with an 0-2 loss against Cloud9, Team SoloMid are still shaping up to be a top contender this split. After defeating Immortals 2-1 in their second set of the season, Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg spoke with Yahoo Esports’s Travis Gafford and admitted that C9 had a better grasp on the meta. “C9 just seemed better prepared,” said Bjergsen, citing C9’s grasp of the 10-ban drafting system as a major strength. “We went with what we felt was strongest and I think C9 had a better read on the meta.” With the new ban system throwing regional metas out of whack, Bjergsen stated that a lot of pressure will fall on the coaches both during scrims and on stage. “It’s mostly on the coaches to master the draft system,” he said. “I think we still overpower a lot of teams in terms of our individual skill, and in scrims that’s often what happens.” All in all, Bjergsen looks favorably on the new ban system and how it has affected competitive play, despite losing to C9 in part due to their mastery of the new system. “It puts you in a position where you might have to whip out a champion that you haven’t really been practicing or have never played before,” said Bjergsen. “I think it’s going to show a lot of who can play these Champions without a lot of practice and who has a deep enough Champion pool.” Bjergsen still believes that with further practice, TSM will stay a top team. To him, the key to success lies in further scrim practice against stronger teams. “I think we have a pretty solid base, but we’ve kind of had trouble finding the best scrim partners because C9 and IMT were the teams we were facing,” he said. “I think these are really good teams and teams that we want to be scrimming, but we weren’t able to. So I think going back, watching these replays and getting to scrim these really strong teams again will improve us.” Many fans were quick to jump on WildTurtle’s case, doubting TSM’s choice to resign him in place of Doublelift last year, but Bjergsen strongly disagreed with those criticisms. “[C9] played better, honestly, they were just the much better team in the series,” said Bjergsen. “We had a loss. I haven’t read any reddit comments, twitter comments, but don’t crucify Turtle. It is not his fault. Turtle was not the reason we lost today and there’s just a lot of things we have to work on.” [hkes_show_google_ad]