Dignitas have come off of a 2-0 weekend for Week 4, bringing their record to 4-5 for the LCS 2024 Spring Split. In particular, Dignitas' bot lane is performing very well and above expectations, as they were also able to get their hands on the new champion Smolder. Esports Heaven had the chance to speak with top laner Rich about their game with Smolder, his own aggressive style and his thoughts on Kaenic Rookern. You guys picked Smolder, the first in the LCS, tell me about that. How did that fit within your team comp? And did you guys practice Smolder in scrims? When Smolder got onto the live patch, Tomo played it a lot in solo queue and he said he has a lot of confidence on Smolder so he just said, “give me Smolder, I can carry”. So we just gave it to him in practice and in the official match. How do you decide to bring in a new champion? There are people that want to stick with what they know, and there’s other players that think, let’s try something new! How do you decide to play something new, versus something old that you’re good at? I think overall when there’s new stuff coming out, we try it out and see if it works out for us, but if not we just go back to what we’re used to playing. I want to talk specifically about your lane. You lost flash early (laughs). Talk to me about that. How difficult is it to play without flash in the top lane so early? (laughs) It’s not super important for the 1v1, but they had Ivern this game, so he has fast camp clears and fast tempo. So I should wait for my jungler to come but I didn’t wait. So it’s not important for my matchup but he now has perma-priority. You seem to be one of the top laners that gets a lot of solo kills. What is it that you see that other top laners don’t see? My style is sort of an aggressive style. There’s a lot of kills involved with my matchups, but something that I’d like to point out is Bwipo for example is very creative as a top laner, at the same time I think his style is a bit different than any other top laner, so it’s kind of special. What about the other top laners? It seems like your able to solo kill anyone in the league. Do you change your style up depending on which top lane player you’re facing? I think it doesn’t matter who the enemy top laner is. It just matters with our team composition. If we have like a tank jungler and I have assassin top, I can play aggressive, but if I have a tank and our jungler plays Viego, I can play defensive. So it just depends on my champion. I want to get your thoughts on the terrain changes for top lane. Specifically this match you were playing red side with the new large wall. What do you think about the changes to top lane? I’ll be honest with you guys, right next to the tower with pathing down, it’s kind of small so it’s a little uncomfortable. Finally, what do you think of Kaenic Rookern? The item with the magic shield? It seems really powerful! I think that item got a nerf this patch, but it’s still OP I think. That’s why K’Sante has a good winrate in official matches in all regions. Also, people play a lot of Udyr, so it’s good against Udyr. I think it’s just OP.

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Photo by Marv Watson/Riot Games On-site translation provided by Dignitas Toby Kwon Izento has been a writer for the LoL scene since Season 7, and has been playing the game since Season 1. Follow him on Twitter at @ggIzento for more League content. For more LoL content, check out our LoL section