Interview: Hrvoje Jugec, KlikTech

With only a few short days between us and the online playoffs, we’re eager to find something to get us through, and we found it in Hrvoje Jugec, one of the co-founders of KlikTech. After the team played both great CS:GO and LoL and secured the LAN in both games, we sat down with Hrvoje to talk about the League, KlikTech and predictions for the LAN.

Hrvoje notes that both the organization and the players are feeling extremely proud and happy after the group stage, and notes that it’s a great pleasure to be part of the LAN final for the second year in a row. After the last year’s extremely successful LoL roster KlikTech will have some tough shoes to fill, though, and Hrvoje agrees.

I think that was the heaviest stone on our shoulders, due to great last season we had a lot to prove and defend. Personally I think patience is a very important factor, after our first well known roster separated we obviously wanted to build a new one that will stay in regional top tier teams, but like in every competitive game when you are rebuilding or creating a new team you need time and that mentioned patience until your team finds perfect sync. That was our only gamble with the new team, how long will they need to play until they reach desired sync/team play, we were lucky cause that came pretty fast. They are all very young and their potential is off the charts, we are excited to see how far they can go as a team.

We’ve seen some of that potential in the LoL group stage and are sure that the LAN will bring with it some great games. KlikTech’s opponents are still not familiar, but they rely on their teamwork and experience to be a tough nut to crack for any regional team.

Considering the team participated in both seasons we asked Hrvoje what does he think are the main differences between the seasons 1 and 2:

Well we have completely different rosters both in League of legends and in Counter Strike so we can say everything is different, league itself changed a lot with rules and formats so everything was/is kinda new. What stayed is success from last season so that was a good motivator for this one.

Hrvoje tells us that CS:GO is great this year, and he was left with the impression that any team can take the LAN win if they string a couple of good games together. Still, confidence and experience play a huge role in the LAN finals, and that’s where they plan to shine the most. When it comes to LoL, the story is a bit different:

Competition wise League of legends still has pretty big quality gaps between teams so when it comes to bo3 I don’t think that teams like Asus, x25 or us can be surprised by weaker teams, it was a good decision to make bo1 games in group stage but even with that format we see a loop between 3rd and 4th place. One of three mentioned organisations will definitely win this year.

When it comes to predictions, Hrvoje says:

For qualifying phase in Counter Strike I can definitely see Valiance winning it, and for the 2nd team I would love to see GameZone cause they are playing aggressive and fun to watch Counter Strike. In League of legends i can see Esport Arena advance, they have some well known names and I think their experience will play a big factor in qualifies, Future Fighters showed they can know how to play so i’ll say they will advance to. As far as picking champion I just have to go with Kliktech in both games

When it comes to planning the rest of the year, KlikTech is focusing on both regional and European tournaments:

In League of legends we have a spot to defend in Esports Balkan League, we kinda had a bad season there, it was time when we just assembled our roster and we didn’t have any time to adjust, now is a different story and we have to step up there. In Counter Strike we are currently playing in Winners league and with 2 wins ( over PKDynamics and Zalgiris esports ) we are 1st in our group. There are well known teams in that league like Vodafone Giants, Royal Bandits, x6tence and K1ck esports so we are excited to see where will we end up.

We wish KlikTech the best of luck, and are looking forward to seeing them in the LAN finals!