Just before Anime Expo 2023, we had the opportunity to attend LCS, The League Championship Series, for week 3. Now, two weeks later, the brackets have changed pretty drastically with Cloud 9, Evil Geniuses, Golden Guardians, Team Liquid Honda, and Team Solo Mid (TSM) holding the top 5 spots. Although there is still a chance for the other five teams to potentially come back, it will be a long uphill battle. After a devastating win over Evil Geniuses (24-3), we got to talk to Cloud 9’s Top Laner Fudge.

Introduction

Hi, can you please introduce yourself by your name and your summoner name?

Fudge – My name is Ibrahim Allami. I played for Cloud Nine and my in-game name is Fudge. I play top lane.

Okay, so how did you come up with the name?

Fudge – So when I was young, I’m from Australia, so we obviously swear a lot. And when I was like, I think nine or 10, I was playing Call of Duty a lot on the console. And I used to, I used to keep hearing the word fuck. And I started saying it myself. My dad used to yell at me he’d get really mad. So me and my brother were both swearing a lot of the time, very young, saying fudge a lot. And then eventually, my brother just made a name for me fudge cakey, which was like the full name of like, Puzzle Pirates and like all these other Steam games and stuff, and then I just kept Fudge Cakey and I shortened it to  Fudge

Matt – It’s easier to identify.

Joining the Competitive League scene

So you said you are from Australia and what other teams have you played for?

Fudge – I played for Mammoth, which was an Australian team. I’m not sure if there’s still a team in Australia. In 2019, Summer Split, I played for Mammoth. That was when I first turned 17 because the age restriction was that you can play unless you’re 17 in the main league and then I got recruited thankfully to Cloud 9 and in January of 2020, right when COVID hit actually which kind of sucked, I came to LA and the COVID hit suddenly so I couldn’t really do anything in LA. I was just playing games all the time, but I still enjoyed it obviously. Joining C9 is very privileged, I would say. You have a lot of people taking care of you. You have managers, everything, and it’s not what I was used to; it used to be much lower, you know, money-wise. So it’s been a fun time with Cloud 9 ever since.

So with the game obviously as a top Laner, you’re kind of in this like island. But what goes on your head in your head when you’re on that island?

Fudge – Um, I enjoy top lane specifically because it’s an island because I feel like in other roles you can make excuses if you lose, right? If you beat someone they can make an excuse, oh their jungler was playing better or something. In Top Lane a lot of it is like really isolated so if you win one vs one, you like a better than him you know?

Yeah, so that’s very egotistical idea but that’s how I feel playing top lane, and I enjoy it because of that reason. Whenever you are isolated, obviously, you’re not really thinking about the fact that you’re isolated you are more thinking about how to win and a lot of your prep goes into understanding one v one matchups and individual matchups and that’s what I feel like 90% of the preparation for the top lane is actually just making sure that you have a good lane situation so that you’re useful in team fights later in the game, because for the most part early game, you’re not really like affecting other lanes a lot. You’re sort of just playing for your own lead.

Matt – Your CS and you’re scrapping against each other.

What Was Expected in EG Matchup?

So with scrims, we were talking to EG Elya before, and he’s like we didn’t see the Ashe coming.  What were some of the things in scrims that you thought you were gonna see that didn’t come out or?

Fudge – Huh, that’s a good question. I don’t think there’s too much that hasn’t been played on stage. I feel like people are playing basically everything that’s been played in scrims. I guess Ivern has been somewhat popular in scrims. But no one’s really playing it on stage it seems like no one’s really highly prioritizing it. We did obviously expect Renekton, and Sejuani priority because that’s really popular in scrims recently. I’m not sure if they thought about us being Kindred and Milo. I assume so considering we played it on stage before but I don’t think that comp was very good against ours at least not Renekton. I don’t think Renekton Sejuani was a good pick.

Matt – And terms Sejuani but not Renekton.

Fudge – Yes. Yes. Yeah, Renekton Sejuanii together are good early game obviously into Kindred like 2 v 2 you probably win if you’re K’Sante. K’sante Kindred is never winning 2 v 2 against Renekton, and Sejuani. Nothing really is going to beat it early game, in terms of scrapping 2 v 2s but in terms of scaling, it’s just really hard for them to have to dive into. You’re getting turbo outranged. And then they also lost the early game which just there it’s just like completely over if you lose the early game in their comp. You are just going to get run over.

Now. So if you were on EG, and in that position facing K’Sante, who do you pick to go against?

Fudge – Like against K’Sante, the biggest counter-pick, realistically the best counter-pick is probably something like Fiora. Fiora’s probably the best counter-pick to one v one. Surely, but obviously, in the game Fiora can be a little bit worse just because you can’t. I feel like she needs a lot of time to get her items. She’s usually not good against range like if I’m playing against K’Sante Kindred, for example. You probably wanna play someone like Jax, but they obviously showed Renekton and Sejuani and that’s the reason I picked K’Sante. But regardless, the best counter-pick for 1v1 is Fiora off the top of my head.

Now how much free choice do you get when picking because obviously, there is a champion pool? Even when you’re drafting. We have this in mind. But do you get a little bit of a decision of like, oh, I want to go K’Sante versus?

Fudge – Yeah, definitely I think a lot of it happens in the meeting the night before, we have draft meetings the night before deciding like, what scenarios are gonna happen if they pick this what do we pick this sort of stuff and I talked about it with Mithy what I want to pick into certain like one two stuff like that two three and obviously I get freedom like if I’m going for five or four than five pick on the red side and when it kind of everything I can say like, oh, I want to be Fiora and like, you know, try to like shit on the enemy top laner. I’m like going to pick Gwen but realistically right now top laners are just playing like Kennen K’Sante or Renekton. Those are like the top three top laners that everyone’s playing right now just because they’re always strong in lane. They have good CC and team fighters. They are good Herald, which is obviously a very focal point of competition at least nowadays.

I felt like people sort of just started to copy like LPL now and LCK where like, everyone just fighting Heralds five vs. five. Before I feel like a lot of like NA and EU teams are just like give Herald, and be okay with it. But now there’s like people just like really highly prioritizing, obviously, it did get changed a lot since it’s been out. But yeah, a lot of top laners roll it seems right now it isn’t actually scaling entirely into the late game, but rather just bridging the gap.

First Getting Into League

Starting in Australia, what got you into League?

Fudge – So I was a minor I played Call of Duty and I played Minecraft a lot when I was like 10/11. And when I was I think I was 11 this was in like 2013 and I was watching this Minecraft YouTuber, I forgot who it was. I think it’s just like randomly guy. And he mentioned League of Legends. and I was like what is League of Legends? It’s like it’s a hugely popular game like Season Three was when it started becoming really, really popular. And also I found out about it. And then I saw the game, I downloaded it.

I started playing it and I just got really addicted. It kind of ruined the rest of my life to be honest, like I stopped going to school because I was really addicted to League, which was not good looking back at it. If I looked at myself back from back then I’d be very worried for myself, but thankfully, it all turned out well. If I didn’t become a pro player, you know, I wouldn’t have the best career path. I mean, League of Legends has been a really big part of my life obviously the past like eight years I’ve been playing it pretty much 24/7 I don’t think I’ve taken longer than like a week’s break from the League of Legends in the past like eight years.

Matt – I started in 2013 but now I need more breaks due to time constraints.

So you started back then. What roles did you pay?

Fudge – Originally, I didn’t play a specific role so I played like specific champions. I will play Lee sin Yasuo Vayne, and Riven. Yi was like the first one, I think. I think he was like the season three season four champ. And then like, as we go like to season five, season six, I’m playing like it was really highly mechanical champs. And then like Season Seven is when I started playing Fiora. I was basically a Fiora one trick. This is what I was about Diamond. I think it was still Diamond in season seven. And then I hit challenger in the preseason, playing Fiora, Camille, and Jayce was my main three champions. And I was just basically like the classic no-brain fight to-the-death top laner in solo queue that everyone hates to have on their team. But thankfully, I’ve developed into someone with some brain cells.

Matt- As a support/jungle main. It definitely hurts when someone runs it down.

Fudge – So with moving to LA during the pandemic, obviously, you had time to play games, but now that it’s kind of over. Have you got to do what you wanted to do? Obviously, with the split, you can’t just do whatever you want.

Right, I can’t do whatever I want. But like Yeah, I mean, I’ve gone out more. I’ve like been more social definitely, obviously go out for a lot of like, different like events and like there are parties and I went to like a couple of concerts, which I really enjoyed. And you know, just like I honestly before I even left Australia, I was never really like a social person. I would sort of just stay in my room all day. I would play League. So I definitely changed a lot personality-wise the past like year or so, ever since last year around April last year started being a lot more social and doing things with friends and you know, experiencing more of my life other than just League of Legends. And I’ve enjoyed doing it a lot now.

Hobbies and Interest

What kind of music do you like?

Fudge – Yeah, so I like hip-hop and r&b probably the most. My first concert was Kendrick Lamar. And then Steve Lacey, and then the Weekend, and those are the three concerts I’ve been to in the past year or so. Those are the only concerts I’ve been to in my life. So I definitely enjoy hip-hop a lot. I’m like transitioning a little bit into like, I guess like, some weird internet music fi like funk. I don’t know if you know what that is, but it’s like Funk. Yeah, it’s like going into some which weird category right now. But I mean, I’m enjoying it. It’s fun to explore a lot of different new music. And I also didn’t listen to a lot of music when I was younger. I was sort of just like, I don’t know, I was never really I guess my family was never really a music kind of people that really got introduced to it.

Matt- Nothing wrong with that, you get kind of acclimated.

Outside of music, what other hobbies do you have?

Fudge – Yeah, um, I mean, obviously go out and drink a little bit. That’s a classic. I would just love just honestly, I just love hanging out with my friends. And just like chilling and talking about life. You know, that’s what that’s why I really enjoy it for the most part. And there’s like the obvious things and just going out to dinners and stuff like that I don’t really have like super big hobbies, like outside of games. And just like listening to music, I actually bought $20,000 speakers, because I got really into music. And like, a lot of my friends are like, musicians. So we got speakers and we just hang out and listen to music or whatever. It’s a nice fun vibe.

Matt – Oh God, 20,000 on speakers? I’m like, what does that entail? Everything in the whole house vibrates.

Fudge – The Base Hits.

What are your favorite foods?

Fudge – Honestly, I’m like, just a pure sugar guy. Like, I am really addicted to sugar. And recently I’ve been cutting off sugar and it’s really hard. But I’m so addicted to sugar I eat one bit of sugar in my day and I want sugar the entire day and I can’t stop the craving.

Matt – So what’s your go-to Sugar?

Fudge – So it’s like McDonald’s Mcflurries. Like I have so much, like when I was like eating my worst I was eating so much McDonald’s every day. I was eating like Taco Bell, Jack in the Box. That’s how I was eating. And I was eating those multiple times a day I was spending like $100 on food on delivery. I was going crazy. But nowadays I’m like, I think my favorite food to eat is probably a really good steak with some really good mac and cheese, and then a nice creme brulee for dessert.

Any Go to places for food?

Fudge – I got to BOA; there’s a place called BOA Steakhouse in Santa Monica and also on Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, those are the that’s like the classic C9 Dinner Spot. C9 Whenever we have a team dinner we go to BOA. Because Jack knows the owner or something and then we can get a full 16-person table and it’s very expensive. But you know Jack does it when we win.

We only go there when we have playoff wins. The regular season wins aren’t big enough for Jack to spend that kind of money.

I went to a place called The Cut by WolfGangPuck it’s right. next to Rodeo, I think? I would say BOA is better. But The Cut was really good as well. I mean, I would just say it’s like more expensive, like slightly more expensive, but it just isn’t. I wouldn’t say better portions, I wouldn’t say better quality, but obviously, it has his name on it. So you know, it’s gonna up the price naturally.

Goals for this year.

With being in first, what are your goals for the split?

Fudge – Oh, my goals have been to keep up with all the other regions and how they’ve been playing their matchups. And like the meta. I think usually what happens is I start to like just like not really focused on what the other regions are doing sort of just focus on my own meta and not really trying to find new things to improve on or see how other people are playing matchups in LCK or LPL.

I think recently I’ve been focusing a lot more on how does LCK LPL play these matchups? What are they doing that’s better than me? What are they doing that is worse than me possibly and just try to keep up to date I guess. And I think I’ve been a lot more connected in terms of understanding matchups now that I’ve been doing that and that’s been my main goal and that still will remain my main goal.

I’m gonna consistently work on that because I think a lot of as I said before, like top lane is just understanding the matchups and winning lane, or at least being in a good spot in the early game and making sure you do your job. And that’s my main focus for this split. And I think I continue to work towards you know, being a really good player in terms of like understanding what my matchups are. I think I’ll just naturally be the best top laner and help my team win.

Cloud 9 keeps making it to Worlds but I think the furthest they got was the semi-finals.

Fudge – We got to the semi-finals in 2018, but I wasn’t the top-laner. The top-laner was Licorice. Yeah, it was Licorice, Svenskeren, Blabber, Jensen, Sneaky, and Azazel that was on the roster in 2018. Then in 2021 when I was playing, we got quarterfinals with Perkz. And then in 2022, last year, we got destroyed. We got absolutely destroyed. Obviously, we’re looking forward to Worlds.

I mean, for me, a lot of my value as a player has shifted away from winning domestically now that I’ve won domestically quite a few times. I want to do well internationally, I want to prove that I can be a player that stands up to the other top laners internationally. And I think now I’m on a better track, especially this split after playing at MSI. I would say I really like felt the loss, I think the most out of any other international tournament and felt the desire to be at that level, like really, really deeply. I think that’s definitely pushed me a little bit split to continue to work really hard. And be really diligent.

Inspiration in League

Now with you looking at the other teams, are there any certain players that you like to idolize and look at specifically?

Fudge – In general, I would say Keane from LCK. I think he’s really good on KT. Bin from BLG from LPL, I think he’s really really good as well. I think those are probably the two main ones I look at Zeus, I think is someone who I always like enjoy playing against and he’s very mechanical. So yeah probably Zeus, Keane, and Bin, I think are the three main top players I would like, if I would put them, rank them as who are the best top laners in the world. My top three are in terms of who I look at.

Now what about outside of your role?

Fudge – Outside of my role, Chovy. Chovy has always been tough. He’s always been someone like, Oh, this guy always has 12cs per minute. He’s very good. It’s like the fundamental part of the game, csing. Like, that’s really important. And he’s really good at that.  When I look at other roles, I guess Ruler has been really consistent throughout his career and it’s just like being at that high of a level for that long in your career is really difficult. I mean, I’m even starting to feel like Oh, I’m starting to be okay with just being pretty good in my region and being the best of my region. But you have to, like you get sort of complacent you know, sometimes you notice yourself slacking a little bit and then him being able to just continue to stay at that level. It’s amazing, right?

Matt- I know Eyla EG’s support, said Faker was one of his.

Fudge – Yeah, I mean, obviously Fakers is the classic but for me, it’s like, I mean, okay. Faker’s definitely a good answer. I mean, he’s been at the top

Matt – The Demon King as they call him, but like a top mid laner.

Fudge – Yeah, I mean, he’s been at the top of his role for his entire career. So, he’s also very humble. I think that’s what I like the most about, he’s extremely humble. And I’m not at least in N right but I’m sure deep down he has the confidence that he’s the best. He doesn’t feel the need to say it out loud. Because you know, he just lets his actions speak for themselves, right? He lets his gameplay speak for itself and I think that’s very impressive.

From a player especially of that caliber and it’s really hard not to get an ego when you like everyone around you is like, “Oh, Fakers the best speakers, and you still don’t have an ego, or say it out loud. That’s amazing. Right. So that’s definitely a big trait that I admire him for.