G2 Esports is the first team to be eliminated from the 2025 Mid-Season Invitational (MSI). Swept by North American representatives FlyQuest, the former titan of the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) now finds its legacy muddied by a deeply disappointing result—one that will haunt the Samurais. In an exclusive piece, toplaner Sergen "BrokenBlade" Çelik sat down with Sheep Esports for a heartfelt interview to discuss his confidence, raw emotions, and what G2 needs to do to prevent this from happening again.

Today was a tough 0-3 loss to FlyQuest, a heartbreaking result for G2. Can you walk me through what happened, how you experienced the series, and what you think went wrong?

Sergen "BrokenBlade" Çelik: "A lot of things just felt not great today—like the plays we were choosing to go for. We were just always on the back foot, and no matter what was happening in the game, nothing felt great honestly. It’s shameful to go out like this, especially against North America. We always want to do well against NA at least. The sad reality is we got stomped, so that’s very sad.

We're just going to go home and have to accept it. We have to accept the hate that’s coming—it’s going to be a big hate wave. Very justified, right? Obviously, it feels really sad to not only not bring a trophy home for G2, but also not make it far in an international tournament.

This year especially has been quite tough, you know? Like, we haven’t achieved anything yet, and that’s something we have to accept. The next tournament isn’t far away, and we just have to do better there. We’re lacking a lot of fundamental stuff that makes us lose games in high-stress situations, so we need to get better at that.

You've acknowledged that you weren't happy with your performance, and you've received a lot of criticism this tournament. How did you handle MSI 2025 on a personal level, especially since this is one of the first times since your rookie days where you've really struggled?

BrokenBlade: The beginning of this MSI was very hard for me mentally. I had a very bad start. I do think I managed to bounce back though—thanks to my staff. After I had that first bad match against FURIA, my confidence was very low. This usually doesn’t happen to me. It's something I can reflect on—for next time something like this happens, I’ll know better how to handle it. It’s a new experience for me. I’ve never really felt defeated in my life. At the beginning of this MSI, I felt really... hard on myself.

I do think I bounced back though and my performances were much better later on. Obviously, we were playing against strong teams as well, right? So it’s not going to be easy—they're not going to make it look easy either. I do think, anyways, that we managed to bounce back a little bit as a team too. But yeah, the next tournament I’ll attend will definitely be much better.

Have there been moments where you felt personally responsible for the team’s struggles?

BrokenBlade: I don’t necessarily feel guilty about this. I felt pretty bad about the FURIA match—that was the series where I heavily underperformed. Obviously, I feel bad. I always look at what I can do better, right? Before I can look at what the team can do better. For me, there’s some stuff that I can do much, much better.

This MSI, this is something I take away for myself. This is just something I have to do. I have to find what I can do better, and I have to find what we can do better as a team. There were obviously a lot of things we could’ve done better today. We have a lack of understanding of how to play the game. That is very apparent. This is going to be my motivation for EWC—play as good League of Legends as we can.

This result is far from what you expected, but G2 has shown growth from the play-in stage to now, and from the start of spring to playoffs. Do you still see positives in what you’ve learned this year? Will those allow for better results in summer?

BrokenBlade: That will depend solely on us and how we handle this situation—how we handle this loss. If we handle it well, we're going to see a very dominant G2. Not many teams get the chance to go here, experience these games, the scrims, the environment. So if we take it very deeply and we have the will to use these lessons well, I know we can do great. I know this team has the potential to make it far, because I know the ceiling that we can have. But we also have to show it, and we have to put in the effort all together to make it happen. This MSI, we couldn’t make it happen, and I feel very bad about this.

Does this result add pressure to redeem yourselves in summer? Do you feel like you have to make the third split count?

BrokenBlade: We went from winning every split to not winning a single one and losing early at MSI—obviously it's not a great feeling. We want to win. For ourselves for our fans, for our organization. We want to do it, and again, if we really want to do it, we will make it happen. I'm sure of it for next split, because the learnings we got from this MSI are good enough to go and win. We’ll take on summer as another challenge—but before that, we also have EWC in our path.

What do you think is needed to rebuild confidence in situations like this? And do you feel a tournament like this could negatively affect you long-term if not handled well?

BrokenBlade: Results should not determine your confidence. The practice and the hours you put into the game should. As long as I put in the hours and the effort into improving my game, I’ll have the confidence to get back up. I know that I’ll be confident for the next tournament, no matter what—because I don’t want this to repeat. Having performances like I had against FURIA, it was very shameful as a player, especially as someone who’s played for so many years. But I’m taking it on the bright side, and I will prepare much, much better next time.

With such a packed schedule—EWC, summer, playoffs, and possibly Worlds—how do you make sure the team avoids burnout while still preparing enough to improve? How will you manage the pressure of playing so much with this little rest?

BrokenBlade: It all depends on each individual—how we take on these kinds of things. For this tournament, we had to play a lot of games, a lot of best-of-fives back to back, so obviously it's always a bit stressful. But I feel like that’s just part of being a pro player, you know? In international tournaments, you don’t get to choose—you don’t really have free time. We didn’t take a single day off, you know? We just need to work as hard as possible to win. We also have Isma (Ismael Pedraza), who helps us with recovery, so usually I feel like this—we handle well.

Is there anything you'd like to say to the fans to close out the interview?

BrokenBlade: Thank you guys for supporting us. Obviously, your support means so much, especially in these dark times—not only for me, but also for my team. Just throwing a nice little message can help people bounce back. I know it from experience. Nice messages are much nicer than hateful messages, of course. I know you guys are probably angry and mad. Trust me—we are more than you guys are. So we're going to do our best to come back stronger and have a proud G2 that you can support."