BDS Adam reveals the key to his unwavering confidence and gigachad playstyle

Dexerto sat with Team BDS’ star top laner Adam to ask about the gigachad playstyle he’s known for, as well as how he’s held onto the confidence to break the top lane mold. Though he still has a big hurdle ahead in the form of PSG Talon, he’s confident that BDS can make it to Worlds 2023’s next stage.

Adam ‘Adam’ Maanane career has been a very quick rise, fall, and rise again that has made him Europe’s star top laner in recent times. While players like BrokenBlade and Wunder have certainly earned their legacies in the LEC, Adam’s gigachad playstyle and “GODS” (Garen, Olaf, Darius, Sett) champion pool have earned him a level of fame few players achieve.

A fan in Korea wound up giving Adam the poster above, and the top laner plans to bring home to Europe and hang it up in his room. Adam has garnered a fanbase that spans far outside his regional league.

He’s shown himself to be a confident player who isn’t afraid to try something new, even if his champions aren’t in the pro play meta normally. Adam would be more of a trailblazer if other players weren’t so afraid of trying out champions he’s made a name for himself on. Instead, he’s just an impossible act to follow.

Dexerto finally got the chance to sit with Adam hot off of a 2-0 win over CTBC Flying Oysters. He spoke about how crucial confidence is to making his playstyle work, along with the difficult process of regaining that confidence and moving past the lackluster year he had in 2022.

Team BDS’ final hurdle before Swiss Stage at Worlds 2023

Team BDS’ upset loss to Team Whales really threw a wrench in everyone’s predictions for how well BDS would do after stomping Golden Guardians. Fans’ belief in Team BDS was certainly shaken. However, with them having an incredibly strong performance against CBTC Flying Oyster to keep themselves in the tournament, it’s hard to say who will come out on top between them and PSG Talon.

However, the most important thing to note is how strong the rest of Team BDS was in comparison to the start of the tournament. Playing for Adam seemed to be their strategy at the start, but now things are much more even with the rest of his team really picking up steam as the tournament has gone on.

“I don’t think we found a special, like… formula? Because if you take a look at what we were doing the whole year, we were really relying a lot on bot lane, right? So generally, for example, if you take our journey in Spring, like this year, we went to finals and we were perma playing for bot because this is how we were winning games, right? And I think we’re just going back slowly, because we might have forgotten because of the break, etc., what worked the best for us. I think if we just keep playing like we do right now, we have a decent chance to qualify for Swiss.”

Adam’s bot lane comment was an interesting one. It’s a widely held belief that top lane is a weak role, and, while players like Adam fly in the face of that notion, the man himself agrees that top is fairly weak in comparison to the other roles.

“If you take a look at the higher level games, you know, like the ones we will see at Worlds? I believe that top lane doesn’t have that significant impact compared to the monster that we could have from bot, right, like AD carry? But you just try to do the best you can.”

Adam’s best is pretty damn good.

He continued, “I believe that top lane still – I mean, in this current meta, it’s not in bad form, right? Like, you can really do a lot of stuff. You have a lot of good items that make the bruisers really powerful. I think K’Sante is really strong. Even though top lane might not be the best role, you can still fight for it.”

From Adam to Chadam

Adam is a pro player who benefits from having a name that’s very copypasta-ble when it comes to Twitch chat. It’s either “Badam” or “Chadam,” and there’s no in-between for viewers. With how aggressive and all-in Adam’s playstyle is, there isn’t really room for anything in the middle. That said, he’s been landing on the gigachad side of things lately.

This was a trend that started in 2021 through Adam’s turbulent yet successful time on Fnatic, disappeared in 2022 as his top lane success the previous year was written off as him being a one-hit wonder, and it has now come back with a vengeance in 2023.

“Yeah, for example, Spring 2022. You know, we ended up ninth in the LEC, which made me even demote from LEC to regional league in France. But… even though I got demoted, it was like the first down in my career, I had to come back with even more confidence, right? Because I knew that I deserved more. I knew that I was a better player than what people might think of me.

“Generally, I try to not think too much about what people think of me, and I’m just focused on myself only. And I try to play also without stress. Even [if it was] at the Worlds final, I will probably play the same way I’m doing right now.”

For many other top laners, hitting a wall in your career can mean leaving your champion pool behind. 369, for instance, swapped to playing mainly weakside tanks despite having a good many carries in his champion pool early on in his career.

Adam, meanwhile, didn’t feel the need to change despite results not being what he wanted in 2022. And according to him, his team has always supported him and hasn’t tried to dissuade him from playing the style that put him on the map.

“I mean, with my playstyle, I’ve had pretty good results in my career. So… as long as it succeeds, I don’t see why I should stop having this playstyle. I mean, my play style works, but… You know, if I feel like one day my play style can stop working, because, I don’t know, the meta changes? I’m always able to adapt, right? And I don’t need to wait for my teammates to tell me to change. I will do it myself.”

All that said, it doesn’t seem like Adam will have to switch things up any time soon. His carry playstyle is paying off for Team BDS, and it’s gained him notoriety in spades.

BDS Adam stands out from the crowd while respecting his opponent

Looking at Adam’s playstyle alone, the way he expresses himself in-game may lead you to believe he’s a big personality, a s*** talker who emotes on his opponent and does everything he can to win the mental battle against his enemy.

While this can be true at times and Adam has been punished by his opponent for having a little too much fun in-game, he’s also very calm in-person and has the utmost respect for his opponent at the end of the day. This was true even of Golden Guardians, a team they absolutely obliterated on the path to Worlds 2023.

Though he had every right to talk trash after their 3-0 win, he chose not to when asked about GG.

“I don’t want to be too mean against them, but overall, I think the NA region is way lower than EU, right? But, at the center of it, I think like they just underperformed. So I don’t want to like attack them too much because I think they shouldn’t be feeling good about that. I don’t need to put like even more like pressure on them than they have already. But, I just think that we played insanely good, you know? During this day, I think they massively underperformed as well.”

It’s important to note that Adam’s matchup into Licorice was one that was highly anticipated given both top laners high level of importance to their team’s overall success. And, ultimately, Licorice couldn’t figure out a way to stop Adam’s Garen. This is an obstacle many other top laners have run into, and we wanted Adam’s opinion on why other people can’t replicate his performance on champions that are, at a surface level, simple, mechanically speaking.

“I would say it’s not that easy to have such playstyle, you know? You need to have the confidence, you need to have the theory, you need to have the practice, but also, you know, if anyone wants to play this type of Champ against me, I know how to counter myself, right? So, I mean, they can do it, but in the end they’ll still get countered. And I can always find an even more spicy pick to play.”

Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games

Chadam takes home Ws with a smile

Dexerto asked whether or not Adam thought other top laners in pro play were playing things a bit too safe by not trying out off-meta picks. While he somewhat agreed, he could also see why players may want to mitigate risk in arguably the most volatile role on the map.

“I mean, maybe not too safe, but – For example, the career of a professional player in League, you know, it’s always tough because you never know what can happen. And generally, you know, you have this tendency to try to not take as much as much risk because… Let’s say you do a mistake, you can get blamed for it. And you know, if it keeps accumulating, who knows what can happen, right?

“Your career can end pretty quickly, or it can go like really, really down and it can be hard like to stand up from this. So, I don’t think that people play too safe – I mean, actually, they do, right? But, if they think that this is how they’re gonna win the most games, well, you need to let them do it. But me personally? I’m not scared. So, even if I need to go 0-10 every game – I mean, this is just who I am. I don’t see why I should change myself.”