Dutch League of Legends mid-laner Mike ‘Furuy’ Wils has made a solid name for himself in the NLC in recent years, helping his team Bifrost reach the top eight in the Spring 2022 EU Masters. But they won’t be there for the Summer split, as Bifrost have just been knocked out in the NLC playoffs by X7. Despite this, Furuy remains upbeat and optimistic in this interview with Lee Jones, reflecting on his performances and looking to what the future may have in store for him.
The standard of mid-laners in the NLC
“I feel like this split, the level of mid-laners is a lot higher than last split. All the mid-laners are good and consistent. So I think the mid-lane pool is pretty high this split. I don’t really like to rate myself, I just do my best every split and see how far I can go, and I think I’m consistent in most games. I can carry games on a lot more agency champions like Sylas and Akali.”
On facing Emenes in his final game before he was benched by JD XL
“Some of my friends were telling me to put “Emenes killer” in my bio, so there was some memeing going on. But I think it was sad he got benched, I don’t know the whole situation, there was probably good reasons why he got benched. But he was by far the best mid-laner mechanically and it was really nice to play against him.
I think Excel will miss him, it’s a really big hit, and I hope they can improve for EU Masters.”
On EU Masters Spring and exhaustion
“When we came into EUM, everyone was really exhausted. Burnout is a big word, but we had a full split, we scrimmed in December so it was a long split before EUM. We had kind of a hard time in play-ins and had a reality check. I think if we’d had gone straight into the main stage, we wouldn’t have got first place.
So it was a nice learning experience. No one expected us to get first or second place, not even myself. So I was really happy and surprised afterwards.
I learned that I needed to find a bit more balance with playing, because I felt really exhausted through EUM. So this split we took the first week a bit slower as we only had a two-week break.”
Changes from spring to summer in the NLC
“Our playstyle was completely different in summer compared to spring. In spring we were mostly scaling into mid game and looking to teamfight, this time we had Diamondprox who is really aggresive early game. Our mid-game was a bit worse, so we needed to adapt our playstyle a lot.
Highway is a rookie, we tried to implement that with Diamond having the experience, it was our goal they could match well, but as a team we kind of failed with that.”
Reflecting on the whole year in the NLC
“If I look back on the whole year, I cannot be sad. Getting to EU Masters, qualifying for it as no one expected it, it feels really good and I was really happy.
Summer was a disappointment but I am never really that sad about stuff that happens with defeats. I mean, I can be sad about it all day, but in the end you need to keep moving on. So I’m fine and hopefully we can show up in the winter tournament as well.”
On Furuy’s future
“I’m always looking to improve. I’ve played in the NLC for quite long, longer than in my own region. Of course I’m looking at the bigger leagues, I really want to play in LVP [Spanish Superliga] or [the French] LFL because I feel like for myself I can make a lot more improvement there.
And I want to move outside of my house for once, so I think there are offers in those areas – I’m always looking to go higher up.”
Playoff predictions
“I would say Dusty will 2-0 Excel, I think Excel need more time to fix things, and I expect X7 to beat Astralis 3-1, even though I think Astralis played well to beat Riddle. I think X7 will win but I think it’ll be pretty close.
It’s been a good experience with Bifrost and I’m still enjoying my time.”
Related interview: Diamondprox on joining Bifrost in the NLC
