Tim "Nemesis" Lipovsek's fifth week in the League of Legends European Championship ended in defeat -- something he's become all too familiar with in 2019.
On the other side of the stage, SK Gaming rallied behind yet another strong showing from Oskar "Selfmade" Boderek, with Jorge "Werlyb" Casanovas helping in the final teamfight. Alongside them, Slovenian AD carry Jus "Crownshot" Marusic celebrated SK's ascension to the middle of the pack while Fnatic, the 2018 League of Legends World Championship runner-up, fell to 3-7 in the spring split and eighth in the LEC standings.
Nemesis' loss against SK was his second of the season and the second time in two weeks that he had lost to fellow Slovenian players. But this loss packed a little extra oomph to it.
"When it comes to SK Gaming, I'm not looking only at him," Nemesis said of Crownshot prior to Fnatic's loss to his old squad. "I'm also playing against Werlyb and Selfmade, and I also want to beat both of them."
Before joining Fnatic, Nemesis played alongside that trio on MAD Lions, and prior to joining the Spanish team he was relatively unknown outside of the Slovenian circuit. Although he believed he was good enough to play in the LEC at the time, it wasn't until he moved out of Slovenia and headed to Spain that he began to shine.
"It was different there -- different lifestyle, larger events, stuff like that. I think I adapted really fast," Nemesis said. "I had to adapt to living in a gaming house with new people every day, focusing entirely on League, leaving my family behind, then going on events in Spain, where there were more people, more fans, and harder competition than in Slovenia."
The extra effort paid off, as MAD Lions won the LVP SuperLiga Orange's spring and summer splits in 2018. In addition, they won the 2018 European Masters summer split and in the spring came close to beating Origen's makeshift superteam, with a roster that included current LCS mid laner Henrik "Froggen" Hansen and Konstantinos-Napoleon "FORG1VENGRE" Tzortziou.
Overall, Nemesis made a strong case to premier teams, and he had many suitors in the offseason.
"They were all pretty good," he said of those offers. "I couldn't decide: If you make a bad decision, you instantly regret it."
He hesitated at first, and that opened up a new opportunity when Fnatic learned that they had lost Rasmus "Caps" Winther to free agency. The news was as unexpected to the organization as it was to Nemesis, whom Fnatic contacted shortly afterward.
His wait had paid off: He would join the team that had reached the world championship finals less than a month ago.
In addition, Fnatic's background as the most prominent European organization throughout League of Legends history gave the organization a clear edge. It's no wonder that SK Gaming, which signed Selfmade, Werlyb and Crownshot, could not field a comparable offer.
"Logically speaking, Fnatic's history beats every team you could offer me," he said. "It was definitely the safest option."
However, Nemesis saw some hiccups on the horizon. Although Fnatic's players boasted individual talent, they needed to click in a new meta following crucial departures with a new mid laner and coaching staff.
The reality check came quickly as Fnatic went 0-4 to start the year. Since Week 3, they are 3-3, and progress has been steady, but the team might have learned too late that it can't count on past results for current improvement.
Sorry to all the fans. Will practice hard for week 3
— Nemesis (@nemesis_lol) January 26, 2019
"I don't think we realized that we were Fnatic," he said. "We realized that we were bad at this game and bad as a team."
In the process, Nemesis recorded his first losses ever against two players he'd consistently beaten in the past: G2 Esports' Mihael "mikyx" Mehle and Crownshot. Friends from their time in the smaller scenes, the three had similar roads to the European league.
"I definitely was looking forward to this type of moment because I have deep respect for both Slovenian players in the LEC right now," Nemesis said. "There's nothing that I enjoy more than competing against them and trying to show them that I'm better. That was always a friendly rivalry. We competed against each other in Slovenian LANs, and I always won. But this time, it was different."
Very different, in fact, as mikyx's G2 destroyed Fnatic on Feb. 9 in the shortest game in LEC history at just 20:30 of game time. Since then, Fnatic has bolstered their coaching staff, brought in a sports psychologist and taken a different approach to team meetings. The team has adjusted, but it's unclear if that will result in more wins.
For Nemesis, although the losses sting, the approach is the same.
"My mindset is I'm trying to win everything that I can in League," he said. "My ultimate goal is to be the best player, and that's what I think every player should have as a standard."
Adel Chouadria is a freelance writer for ESPN. His work also appears on the League European Championship website.