If you’ve been a follower of the UK League of Legends (LoL) scene or even just a watcher of the European Regional Leagues (ERLs), Tom ‘Prosfair’ Willis should be a familiar name.
He’s played for a mix of teams over the years, including Misfits Academy and Fnatic Rising. In 2020 he made top 4 with NVision Esports in the UKLC spring season and took a break for summer.
Now, Prosfair is back again, this time in the higher-tier NLC. Some have praised his return, while others doubt his talent. What does he think? Megalodontus asks.
I’d like to be the first to say: Welcome back! We’ve certainly missed you at the top level of ERL competition. Tell us what the off-season was like for you.
To be honest, this off-season was pretty hectic for me. It was the first time I had so much interest from organisations outside of the UK.
There were a good two to three weeks where I was trialling every day, and it looked like I would get one of my preferred options. But one by one, offers fell through, and by December I had no more trials and no offers.
I thought it was over but as a last resort I decided to message every team in the NLC, and thankfully received many positive replies. I did tryouts and spoke to some of the team’s coaching staff to get a feel for which team I liked best.
Once I settled on Singularity, I worked with coaches Torok and Kiao to make sure that we had a team for 2021 which I was confident in. Thankfully, it all worked out in the end.
Glad it worked out. On paper, the academy teams – BT Excel and Fnatic Rising – look to dominate NLC. What do you think of Team Singularity’s roster in comparison to the competition? What are your expectations for spring?
The academies as usual certainly look a cut above the rest, however they are definitely not unbeatable.
Honestly, BT Excel have a very strong roster across the board. This is a line-up that I can easily see winning games in the LEC, and I will be surprised if they don’t make at least top 4 at the Spring 2021 European Masters (EUM). If they can’t stop Fnatic Rising’s first place streak this split, I don’t know when they ever will.
In contrast, I think this might be one of the weakest overall roster in their history. However, there is just one small problem: Fnatic Rising’s mid-laner is Febiven. Febiven alone might be enough to carry this team to another first place.
I’d be lying if I said it was going to be easy to beat either team, but our roster isn’t weak by any means. Whether we’re able to beat them will largely come down to how much work we put in over the next few months, but even then it’s no guarantee. Hopefully, Singularity will have qualified to EUM Spring by overcoming the odds and beating one of the academies.
The only thing that might make it easier is Orome and Febiven are probably looking to earn a spot back on their respective LEC rosters. In modern LoL, good teams are rarely just about individual player strength, and roster shake-ups might play a big part in their respective successes, or lack thereof.
“Usually on my past teams I was one of the weaker players, and I’d like to change that. All I want is just to have a season where my gameplay is at a level I can be satisfied with. Playing a season where I can look back without any regrets will be tough, but it’s what I’m striving for.”
Are there any NLC teams – including Singularity – that could cause huge upsets against the academies?
I’ll be honest, from what I’ve seen of the other NLC teams, nobody really stands out. On paper Nordavind seem to be the best after ourselves and the academies, but I personally think we shouldn’t have too much trouble with anyone else, so long as we play to the level I expect.
But then again, I’ve had these thoughts before and been proven wrong. Maybe it’s a veteran’s arrogance and I’m underrating the newer players coming in.
UK League of Legends 2021 spring roster roundup: NLC, UKLC and UKEL teams and casters listed
Speaking of Nordavind, you’ve played for them in the NLC Fall Open before making it back here. What was your experience like and how did you find the Fall Open?
Frankly, the Fall Open was pretty disappointing. At first, there were some rough patches in scrims but we started fixing these issues and our gameplay improved a lot. But for whatever reason, those improvements didn’t stick, and we lost to ourselves without ever really getting to play the game. That made it feel like a waste of time and effort, somewhat.
Of course it could have been a valuable learning experience but the team was assembled for the Fall Open, so we didn’t have time to fix our issues. Unfortunately, due to that, my time on Nordavind was probably the least satisfying time I’ve spent on a team.
You’ve been in the UK LoL circuit since the dawn of time. What are your fondest memories from your time playing here?
I’ve been playing in the UK for five years now, and almost certainly my best memory has to be winning the ESL Premiership with Misfits Academy for the first time in spring 2018.
At the start of 2017 I set a goal to win the ESL Premiership, as I had been playing for a while and was constantly on sixth or seventh placed teams. Over the next 18 months I would secure 41 wins and 4 losses in regular season games, but on both Team XENEX and nerdRage we failed to convert that into playoff wins.
Coming into the 2018 spring playoffs with Misfits Academy, ESL were no longer going to be running the UK league, and while I knew it would continue in some form, I would no longer have a chance to win in the ESL Premiership, the league I’d been competing in since the start.
It was a perfect culmination of factors: it was the first time I had won something, it was my last chance to win the Prem, it was a win versus Excel Esports (a team I always seemed to have a rivalry with for some reason or another) and it was a result which vindicated all the work I had been putting in over the past 18 months.
I’ve won harder competitions since, I’ve been on better teams since, but none of the wins have felt the same as this one. For that reason I still think back on April 8th 2018 as one of the best days of my life.
Since you’ve mentioned Excel, here’s a fun one: Who is the superior support player, you or Aux? How has your relationship been since his playing days?
I’d say Aux and I were about equal in skill back in the day. I could go back and review VODs to give a better answer, but I don’t think that’s very fun.
I think we both saw each other as rivals and were pretty competitive towards each other. We had some mutual friends in the scene though, so we sort of settled on a polite truce.
We have fairly similar outlooks and I remember in 2018 when I was on Misfits, it was Aux’s first season after retiring. He gave me a lot of support and advice. Perhaps because of our past rivalry it’s easy for him to give me his unfiltered thoughts, and having someone like that is very valuable.
Since then we’ve become pretty good friends. We both still trash talk each other, but we’ve also got a fair amount we see eye-to-eye over. All in all, I’d say we have a love-hate relationship.
You were also part of the famous Fnatic Rising roster in 2019 where you finished 1st in UKLC and made the EUM semis. I even watched you guys live! When you left, you mentioned you ‘had issues you felt you could not fix’. What are your reflections on your time with Fnatic Rising?
That’s a tough question to answer. The time I spent on Fnatic in spring 2019 was probably the split I grew the most as a player and I owe a lot of that to Dan. He not only helped me to improve and taught me a lot about my role, but also epitomised what a good team captain should be, an unofficial role I’d often filled in past teams.
In spite of how incredibly competent he was, Dan wasn’t arrogant and he genuinely looked to give me advice for the sake of myself and the team. I can confidently say Dan is the best player I’ve had the pleasure to be on a team with, and the best teammate I’ve ever had.
Unfortunately, the few months on Fnatic in summer were the worst months of my life by a significant margin. It took a serious effort every morning to get up and walk to the office, and my daily routine eventually turned into something I came to despise.
Looking back on it now, I’ve realised that it might be easy to point fingers but it wasn’t really anybody’s fault. That collection of players and staff at that time simply wouldn’t have worked out.
All I can really take away from that season is the better you are yourself, the more you can look out for other people. If I had been a better player maybe things would’ve been different. With that in mind, I decided to travel to Korea after leaving Fnatic in order to become a player who could do that.
Speaking of South Korea, when you were there you hit Challenger on their servers. How has this benefitted you and has it changed anything about you as a player?
I was in my best ever form during my time in Korea. The quality of the practice, combined with the ping and the environment, were just incredible. For a month or so after coming back, I managed to maintain that level of play, however it slowly degraded after. So in regards to the short-term benefits, there was very little.
I did gain two things in the long term, however, the first being confidence. Before I went to Korea I had never consistently hit Challenger in EUW and it was something I was ashamed of. Even when I was on Fnatic I struggled to get past 400LP. However, nearly hitting top 100 clearly showed me a lack of talent was not a real issue, and it was an excuse I had been telling myself.
The other thing I gained was the realisation that, for me at least, getting value out of my solo queue practice had a huge impact on how well I performed individually. These two factors resulted in me deciding to take a split off after my time on NVision Esports, where I spent figuring out how I could change my mindset and approach to have more success in solo queue, without travelling halfway around the world.
It’s still something I’m working on, but I think the fact that I hit 1000LP for the first time in this window shows the time off was worth it. Ideally, now I can try to use what I learned to maintain my quality of practice this year.
If I can find a way to convert my time in Korea into my best competitive split so far, then I will consider that a good long term benefit.
There’s been a lot of talk about the lack of UK talent recently, with Kasing also speaking about UK players in a recent interview. What are your thoughts on this? Who in your opinion are the promising up and coming players from the UK?
From what I can tell, there just aren’t that many UK players in general. Even when I first entered the scene before the ERL ecosystem was fully up and running, the number of high quality UK players was sorely lacking.
There were more UK players for sure, but back then you could be Diamond 2+ without any competitive experience and still be on one of the top 10 teams in the UK. The game and the ecosystem was just so different back then. The actual number of good UK players really hasn’t changed much. I guess LoL just isn’t as popular in the UK as in other places in Europe.
I might be biased, but in regards to up and coming players, the only newish player with promise I can think of is [Singularity ADC] Dragdar. Every other name I could care to mention has had at least one split or more on a legitimately good team.
Considering he’s been playing for a year and a half he’s hardly a rookie, but I think his trajectory is still firmly upwards, so I feel fine calling him ‘up and coming’.
Talking about Dragdar leads nicely into the next question: You’ve had many bot-lane partners from your long time playing – xMatty, Yusa and Chrisberg to name a few. Who have you enjoyed playing with the most and why?
There’s really only one answer I can say here, and that’s [former MNM and now retired ADC] SmokeyLemon. We both liked playing with each other from the start, we had a natural synergy and we got on well as friends.
From the first time we played together something clicked, and while I’ve enjoyed playing with a lot of different ADCs over the years, I’ve never got on with any of them as naturally as with him.
I’d like to ask you about your long term goals for your career. You previously said you believe you are, or aim to be, ‘the best support outside LEC’. Is the LEC still your long-term goal or do you have something else in mind, perhaps other regions?
I’ve been open to playing in another league for a while now. I think a new environment would be good for me but my opportunities have always been better in the UK, especially now after the merger with the Nordics.
It’s very easy to get stuck in your ways when you keep playing against the same teams and players, but since the regions joined, the player pool seems to have been shaken up quite a bit.
Of course I’d love to win NLC this season and finally get my fifth win, so I’m tied with Shikari for most wins in the region. I’ve also never really had a proper run at EUM despite qualifying several times. I’d love to have a chance and play through the tournament from start to finish.
Right now, all I want is just to have a season where my gameplay is at a level I can be satisfied with. Usually on my past teams I was one of the weaker players, and I’d like to change that. Playing a season where I can look back without any regrets will be tough, but it’s what I’m striving for.
You have earned a reputation of being vocal and honest, and have helped coach smaller teams, like your short stint with Bulldog Esports. Is coaching something you have in mind when you decide to retire from playing?
It’s a definite possibility. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some really good coaches in my time as a player, most notably YoungBuck. Helping other players improve their gameplay is definitely satisfying and I have enjoyed previous coaching experiences.
However, I’ll have to see what I feel like when I stop playing. I’ve also considered going into casting, or I might even decide to leave esports entirely. It’s not something I’ve thought about too hard, I’ll make the choice when it arrives.
So before we end, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the new League champion, Rell. On paper she seems very strong, but opinions are mixed. What do you make of her, do you foresee her being a strong competitive pick?
It’s hard to say, she certainly has her upsides. Her R + Flash is a strong mechanic, and she has three AoE crowd control abilities. However, she has big weaknesses. She feels very clunky to play, her movement speed off her horse and attack speed are incredibly slow.
Her W is hard to hit without setup, and the fact her R doesn’t ground means anyone with a dash ability or Flash available can escape it. To top it off, her shield is very small and it makes her feel very squishy for a champion with such short ranges.
There are definitely some champions she can synergise with to cover up her weaknesses, and she is certainly strong enough to be played, but I think we will need to see at least one round of buffs before she sees widespread play.
“I’ve won harder competitions since, I’ve been on better teams since, but none of the wins have felt the same as the ESL Premiership. For that reason I still think back on April 8th 2018 as one of the best days of my life.”
What are your thoughts on the season 11 items overhaul? Do you think this will shift the meta in unexpected ways?
I really like the new items personally, I think it’s a good direction shift from Riot. There are some balance issues but that’s be expected. Considering how many changes they made, it’s surprising how smoothly it’s gone so far. As far as I’m concerned, all they need to do now is remove Runes and the game will be in a great spot.
I don’t really think it will shift the meta. The point of the item changes was to give more options to every champion, so I think the meta will be more based around champion strength than item strength, so long as Riot doesn’t go too crazy and let one of the items get too far out of line.
Any closing thoughts?
I’m really excited for this season. I think the roster we have on Singularity has a good balance of players, and it’s definitely possible for us to make it to EUM. However, it’s not a free ride there, which makes it fun.
I can’t wait for the season to start and hopefully this is the split where NLC teams won’t disappoint at EUM. Who knows, maybe we might get our third seed back.
Thank you Prosfair, and best of luck! You can watch Team Singularity play in the NLC, which begins at 6pm today (January 19th) on Twitch
Megalodontus is a miraculous survivor from the mass extinction and somehow learnt how to use his stubby fins to operate complicated mechanical equipment and drink tea. Worryingly for cryptozoologists, he’s been writing League of Legends articles too.
A self-taught writer who’s had the privilege to work with good editors who aren’t terrified of his pearly whites, Megalodontus is often seen writing either independently or for various websites such as this one. When not writing, he usually runs it down mid in real life and is fascinated with watching paint dry.
