WildTurtle Talks Rejoining IMT, Going To Worlds, And More

During the 2021 League of Legends Championship (LCS) season, Immortals were stuck as a fringe team to the middle of the pack in the standings. With seemingly no set in stone playstyle, the team struggled to break into the middle of the pack but always made sure that the teams below them stayed there.

Immortals managed to begin something with their core of top laner Mohamed "Revenge" Kaddoura, jungler Andrei "Xerxe" Dragomir, and support Mitchell "Destiny" Shaw in the 2021 season, and now they’ve added to it with the likes of Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage and Jason "WildTurtle" Tran during the offseason. This gave hope to the organisation’s fans going into the 2022 season.

We had a chance to speak to one of Immortal’s new acquisitions, WildTurtle about his long tenure in the LCS, rejoining Immortals, his new bot lane partner Destiny, and more after their Lock In quarterfinals match versus Team Liquid. 

You are one of the most tenured players in the league. Nearing a decade of play in the LCS what’s it been like to see all of these new up-and-coming players come up as someone who’s essentially seen it all? 

It's honestly pretty refreshing seeing these players play. I mean, the main goal for North America is always performing at Worlds - that's still our dream. Hopefully, the domestic performance and competition can go up. So I'm always excited for new faces and players that are trying to give NA a good name.

In that same vein of having played for so many years, you’ve also been on a number of different teams. Prior to joining Immortals a second time you were with the likes of TSM, CLG, and before that FlyQuest. What made you want to join Immortals once again?

Just another chance to play with Revenge and PowerOfEvil again, I think those guys were definitely the main reason why I chose to go to IMT. I think I had a really good time with Revenge as a person when he was on FlyQuest Academy. We had pretty good, you know, vibes, he was a good person. And then the chance to play with PowerOfEvil was good again. And of course, the Immortals brand that I used to play under.

As one of the older AD Carries in the league, which newcomer AD Carries has impressed you the most? 

I think Danny's made a pretty good impression on the league, so I think he's the most recent addition that's been pretty exciting for his career and see how it goes.

What’s it been like playing with Destiny in the bottom lane? How much practice time have you had with him?

Prior to Lock In I think we practised roughly around - well a week before the tournament actually started, and I guess like two weeks now because it's week two on the Lock in tournament. So I think we're starting to gel pretty well, starting to understand each other I think we had a chance to last game to 2v2 kill them. Obviously. I didn't dodge the Lux binding which made it into a one for one with TL winning out. But that's one thing we could have - I could have played better on. But I think overall we're gelling pretty well as a bot lane

How do you rank your duo of you and Destiny versus the other bottom lanes in the league?

Honestly, I think we’ll do pretty well. I think our practise is improving a lot day by day, and just getting better every day. I think it's something that could be really good. So I think it'll be good to see how we stack up against the other bot lanes.

Is there any bot lane you want to play specifically? I know you mentioned Danny being very surprising to you.

I'm excited to play against Berserker and Hans Sama/Core. I think that's definitely one I'm looking forward to.

You’ve had a lot of seasons to play in meaning you’ve had plenty of goals to go through. With that in mind, what are your goals for this season?

For the year, it will definitely be making it to Worlds. Obviously, I want to play in the semi-finals, because the semi-finals are hosted in Toronto this year, which that's where I'm from. So I'd love to play there, especially as a player. I mean, attending as a fan would be nice, too, but definitely want to attend there as a semi-finalist.

You’ve played pro League of Legends for over 10 years and have played with a number of different teams such as TSM, Immortals, FlyQuest, and CLG. What keeps you motivated to keep going after all of these years?

Honestly, I just want to make NA good at Worlds. I think that's one of the reasons I'm still playing. Hopefully, I'm the one to take us to the next level. I'm putting in the work. Obviously, work takes time to show. But, it's a long year and I think putting in the work. It's just January, of course. And I think we still have the whole year ahead of us. So that's pretty much my main motivation putting North America on the map as far as League of Legends goes because all that's really talked about at Worlds nowadays is like Europe, China, Korea; North America is not really talked about, and I kind of want to change that.

Although they experienced a similar result to their 2021 Lock In tournament, WildTurtle, and the rest of Immortals look to better that season’s performances in the 2022 season.