Esports News UK editor sits down with Excel Esports’ League of Legends bot lane players Aux and Innaxe at i61, to discuss the org’s performance in the recent League of Legends UK Masters Finals, their chances at the upcoming ESL Prem playoffs, and where they got their names from…
On the UK Masters final and Insomnia61
Aux: “The fact that we put up a good showing, we’re happy with that, but it’s easy to look back and think if we’d just done that bit more, we could’ve been champions. We’re always going to strive for more.”
Innaxe: “It was a shame we didn’t get to play the BYOC. I think we would have won it. We definitely could have won it. We won’t repeat the same mistake we did [in UK Masters finals].”
On their chances in the ESL Premiership
Aux: “I think we’ll definitely qualify for playoffs and then we’re looking to win the whole thing. Our biggest competition in Masters was MnM but their roster is weaker [in the Prem] because they don’t have Toaster for the UK Prem. I was slightly disappointed we didn’t win the UK Masters, but I’d be very disappointed if we don’t win the UK Prem. And that’s our plan.
“We’ll get to the finals and win.”
Innaxe: “I think we’re most likely going to win the EGX LAN Prem.”
On team synergy
Innaxe: “I joined Excel three months ago. We duo together as much as we can to get the synergy up. I think we’re way better than we were three months ago, as a bot lane. We know what’s going on now, we don’t need to tell each other much, we just know what the other wants to do.”
Aux: “It’s good to have a good working relationship, it means you can give criticism without being personal. It’s nice that Innaxe and I get on. We’re pretty close, and if one of us wants to say ‘no that was terrible’, we don’t take it personally.”
“The team gets on well, no one really tilts. The roster is solid in terms of promotion, but at the start of the split we were going to have Backlund, then he got taken away to Turkey. Then we found Kruimel and honestly he’s very much stepped up. Him and Taxer have made a really good duo in the mid-lane, and I think Shikari has developed not just as an individual player, but he knows what to do for the team.
“I think Kruimel has performed extremely well, I think he’s the strongest mid in the UK scene at the moment and I think he showed that at the finals. I think he was the better mid on the day and in the upcoming Prem finals I think he’s gonna show that again.”
The ESL UK & Ireland Premiership finals take place at EGX at the Birmingham NEC which runs from September 21st to 24th
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
