Ukrainian League of Legends Karmine Corp Blue player Volodymyr Maynter Sorokin gave an interview to Players. We talked about re-signing with the club, goals for the season, and the first Ukrainian LOL Championship.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate you on your new contract. I understand that the organisation has reassembled the squad, and you are the only one left. How do you generally assess the new roster, what are your goals for this season?
Thank you. Of course, winning is the most enjoyable and important thing, but the roster is such that we have two Koreans. And Koreans in League of Legends are always some kind of problem, problems with communication, they don't understand everything at the beginning of the split. We will have three splits with them, all of them have a contract for one or two years at most, and this year will not be like last year. Because last year there were two big splits, the first one lasted three or four months, then a break, then the next three or four months.
Now there will be a different system, it will be more intense. The first one is small, a little over a month, the second and third will be more important and will last two and a half months. Also, the EMEA Masters will now be held three times per season, not twice, and the last EUM is the most important, which is in the summer.
Therefore, there will be a completely different system and if you look at the picture globally, maybe winning the first split is not as important as establishing communication, learning the game on another level, but it is always important to win, so we will try to start from the first split. And I think the split is very, very strong and the team will be strong, so we'll see.
Notre nouvelle équipe Karmine Corp Blue qui évoluera en @LFLOfficiel pour la saison 2025, présentée par notre nouveau coaching staff composé de @TheRockEUW & @Blidzy_lol 🟦 pic.twitter.com/xzmwsocc9r
— Karmine Corp (@KarmineCorp) January 9, 2025
What about your competitors? They have also changed their line-ups. Who do you see as your main rival this season?
In esports, they always say “On paper”, this team is strong, that team is not strong. It's always difficult to predict like this, but I think the League has weakened significantly because Caliste left our team and joined LEC. Players from BDS Academy, who won the EMEA Masters Summer 2024, also left and joined the LEC.
Now, instead of super-cool players, they have recruited either newcomers or more or less average players from other leagues. So, I think the league has weakened in general, but there are very strong teams too. One of them is the old Team GO, now they have a different name. I think they're a top 1 competitor on paper, but from what I've heard, they're already losing to some teams. Five great players may not play well together. If you put together a team of five Messi's, then maybe they will lose even to the Milan team, which is not very good now. So we'll see.
So this season will be a more transitional one in the league, with the newcomers being trained and developed?
Yes, there is a trend now for young players, teams like to recruit players aged 17-19, they are crazy about it. So, yes, there will be newcomers, youngsters, so we will learn and develop, and then try to get into the top league.
Let's go back to last year. How would you assess it in general for yourself individually and for the team? Are you satisfied with your development as a player?
Last year was very controversial and very strange. Because for me, it's an achievement if you just imagine that I came from the second division and in my first split I immediately won the whole of France, the main French championship, and it's just insane. Some people play for 5-6 years, don't win anywhere, change teams. I won at the first attempt because I had a strong team and I tried to learn what I could. Later, when I was more or less experienced, we lost and took second place. And in general, for me, as a player who came from the second division, the achievements are crazy, they're very good, but as a Karmine Corp team, it's not very good, because they usually win the EMEA Masters, they usually win the league too. And we lost two Masters, and won only one league out of two. It was first place in one and the second in the other.
It's a bit strange, because when I’ve first came in without experience, I won, and when I was more experienced, I lost. But this is sport and not everything is under control.
The final matches of the second split of LFL 2024 were played on LAN, in front of the fans. How do you like the support of club fans? Because Karmine Corp has a huge fan base.
All my life I've been thinking: “Why is it that in football, weaker teams win at home, why can't players develop their mentality and just come in, focus on the game and not think about what the other team's fans are shouting?” But when you come to the stadium and they shout at you: ‘Maynter you are the best in the world’, ten thousand people, or two thousand, depending on the tournament, and the other team has 50 or 100 people, and they are just shouting, chanting as they come out, then morale drops immediately. You start thinking about how you look, how you stand, what people will think of you.
So it's much easier to play with the support of the fans, but the pressure is also on you, the Karmine Corp player, because you're playing in front of your fans.If you lose it's not good, and the other team has even more pressure. So yeah, it's an insane experience.
The recent KCX event with the fans broke all records. If I'm not mistaken, there were 28.000 people or something like that. There was a huge arena, and it was the coolest experience of my life, maybe it was the last experience, who knows. But yeah, the fanbase is just unreal.
Did you immediately decide to extend your contract with Karmine Corp, or did you have other offers and hesitate wanting to change something?
Yes, I really wanted to get into LEC. But as it turned out, I didn't really like myself as a player. During the split, I was more of a team player, a reserved one, and when I saw that everything was going very badly, we were losing the league and the Masters, which was not going well either, I started to change, the guy who played in Jungle 113 helped me a lot, he got into the LEC, into the BDS team. I started to change, to talk more, to think more, to look at the map more, to advise the team, and at that moment I saw that my skill was very different, even from what it was two weeks ago. And now I think I've grown a lot as a player. But it was very late, because when you get to the LEC, they look at your VODs, how you played during the split, they look at your communication from your own VODs, what you send, and decide whether you are a good fit or not.
I had two teams from LECs that took my VODs. One of them considered me as an option number 3If the first two fell off or went to other teams, they would’ve taken me. But that was unlikely. I wasn't getting anywhere, a lot of the problems were related to the fact that I couldn't explain how I was leaving the country. Karmine Corp understood how I was doing it, and other teams were more afraid because there is a war in Ukraine, the player might not have an ability to leave the country and we would lose the split because of that. And lots of teams didn't even write or contact me, but what can you do? I really wanted to get into the LEC, but it didn't work out.
Now that I've discovered all the ERL teams, Karmine Corp is the best.There was no such position - either you simply stay or you go. I was told to either go somewhere else or qualify to stay in the team. I passed the test matches, played with the team and was recruited again. A completely different coach, completely different four players and I was the only one left from the previous team.
Is the problem with leaving the country the main one on your path to LEC, since the group stage is also played on LAN?
Yes, all the players have to be in Berlin to play LANs, and you often need to be there.
The first Ukrainian LOL Сhampionship has been announced. Will you be involved in this, perhaps as a commentator, or will you form a team?
I will play there, I will be in one of the teams. Because it's cool to get the status of a national team player. If there will be any Olympic Games, you will already be heard by your country, you are already a national team player, you have a status. And to represent Ukraine, if LOL is added as an Olympic level esport between countries, it would be very cool. And even if it does not, it's still cool to be a representative of Ukraine, to have a status registered at the state level. So yes, of course I will play this tournament, fight for first place. I've already got my squad.
Did the federation [Ukrainian Esports Federation] contact you, maybe they want to expand the league's community in Ukraine?
Yes, as far as I understand they are working on it, this Ukrainian championship is the first step. They want to understand how many players are here, how they work, how they breathe, what their age is, how they are set up. l It could be a very bad league and you will see that during the tournament.
So, they want to see how it all works together. After all, before that, only Dota 2 and CS were popular, and LOL is something new for them. That's why they want to see, learn, and expand LOL in Ukraine, and they are working on it now, which is very good.
In our last interview, when we spoke, there were rumours about a third international tournament, and now it's official. Now there are three, plus the EWC. You said that you want to see more major international tournaments. What do you think of this direction from Riot, that everything is moving towards an increase in the number of championships?
Of course, it's very cool. But I've heard a lot about Riot the prize pool so that it's not very big and the players who win don't get much. And I don't understand this, because you actually have the best esports in the world on paper, the best numbers, the best viewers, teams, communities, and everything, and they're like: ‘Oh, let's make the prize money ten times less than in CS’, for example.
I don't know, maybe they don't want players to get greedy or something. But the fact that they're adding more tournaments is a good step on their part. Yes, it's not perfect yet, but it's much better than it was, I'm happy. Maybe by the time I get to the Worlds, there will be twenty tournaments a year, and then it will be great.
What do you think is the reason for Riot's decision to allow bookmakers to sponsor teams?
I've heard that too. There are many teams that couldn't pay their five players and coach because they had no sponsors, but there are bookmakers that fly in and pay you normal money. But there was a pre-season, when the squad has to be formed, and Riot at the very end allowed betting companies to be sponsors, but without displaying their logos or names on the shirts. And in fact, it's too late, because you won't recruit a roster.You have players who agreed to have a salary of 300 euros a month, not 800, so you didn't recruit the players you wanted. And they did it, maybe on purpose, but I don't know for sure.
I think it's the right decision to allow bookmakers to sponsor teams, because it will bring more motivation for other players, higher salaries. And it won’t be so difficult to start from the second or the first division. After all, people who live in Europe often receive 800-900 euros for their first split, and you need to rent a house, buy food, have a good PC and not work at the same time. So I think it's the right thing to do.
So Riot is gradually becoming a classic tournament operator?
Yes, but they have a lot of their own, they introduced bookmakers, but they forbade mentioning them on shirts and official tournament broadcasts, allowing only mentions on the teams' social media, so that nothing is visible except the fact that the team is simply sponsored. They still have their own rules, and that's probably why they are successful.
What do you think of the Ukrainian players in LOL right now, who do you think is worth following? In the last interview, you mentioned Slayer, who has already played for the academy of the Spanish club GIANTX. What do you think of the Ukrainian professional LOL scene now?
Gradually, people are being added, like Slayer. He's been added. I don't know if I can say, but he's moved to another league. He already wants to go to a bootcamp, it's the first division, it's very cool. That's why Slayer was and still is. There's a guy called Fogzy, he plays midlevel, he played in the Ukrainian league for a long time, I think he found a team, but I'm not sure. He is also young and promising. There's Maul in the jungle, and by the way, these are almost all the people from my team, and there's Kozak. And they all play a lot, they are all young, 18-19 years old, 22-21 years old is also fine. There are a lot of players, and they are being added, and every year there will be more of them in the spotlight. So far, this is the top-3, top-4 I have identified for myself.
You have assembled a team of strong teammates, what kind of competition do you expect at the Ukrainian Championship?
I don't think there will be much competition because it was very quick, the teams won't have time to prepare and get ready. For me, the main thing here is not to assemble the strongest team in the world that will tear everyone apart, it is more important for me to find young, promising players and win with them. I need the status of a national team player, and they need it too, and then develop from there.
This is the first tournament of its kind. It appeared very suddenly, and it's very cool. That's why we're doing it this way this year, and maybe next year it will be different. The team will be renewed every year, and maybe next time there will be a qualification to get to the championship. Therefore, it all needs to be developed and moved to another level.
So far, yes, the first step is always uncertain and not the best, but the second and third are better, so this is the right way.
Are you going to be a starplayer and leader in the team at the same time, sharing your experience with the young players?
Yes, I would be very happy to, I have a young jungle player, a young midliner, I can tell them something. I play with cool dudes who get into the LEC. The players are very cool, I can take their experience and advise my guys on something, it's always very cool. And thus raising the level of the Ukrainian community and players is very cool. So yes, if I can, I will help.
The last thing I wanted to ask is, I see you have two toys, are they your mascots?
As far as I understood, I stole one of them by mistake, I thought they were given to every player, and there was a limited number of them. And it was on my desk at the bootcamp for a very long time, and when I left, I took it with me.
It's all done by the fans, they knit their own sweaters, the inscription Karmine Corp. It's a fluffy llama and it's very cool. They give you these mascots, toys and you appreciate it, it stays with you, like the fans being behind you.
