—— Reason for Going Live
Why did I decide to go live? There’s a background to it. After returning to Korea from London, I took a three-day break, and from now on, I should be getting busy. I thought, “How about reviewing the World Championship with everyone like last year?” Not only to review the World Championship, but also to share my thoughts from this year, nothing special. Compared to game content, I just want to talk about this challenging year; there’s not much to discuss about the game content.
—— Reflecting on This Year
When talking about this year, I have to mention lane swapping. Since MSI, lane swapping has been present on the stage. Although I don’t know if there will still be lane swapping next year or if the version will be updated, lane swapping has been a constant this year. In fact, we suffered a lot due to lane swapping during MSI, the Saudi Electronic Sports World Cup, and the Summer Split; I believe our understanding of lane swapping was very low. Lane swapping is not something one person can control; it requires everyone to work together. Compared to other teams, we didn’t study lane swapping much and didn’t pay much attention to it, resulting in a generally low understanding of lane swapping. We played for a long time under such conditions, and it was particularly difficult. We felt that lane swapping would definitely appear at the World Championship, so we worked hard to study it. I believe our lane swapping operations during the World Championship can be considered among the best; we really improved a lot. We are confident in our lane swapping, but I personally feel that GEN has the leading understanding of lane swapping, so I find GEN the most formidable when it comes to lane swapping, and I pay special attention to this aspect when playing against GEN.
I don’t know if there will still be lane swapping next year, but it feels like the existence of lane swapping can instantly determine the outcome of the match.
Lane swapping often occurs during matches, and the same goes for scrims, but sometimes we suddenly start normal laning. In such cases, we become a bit cautious because it’s been a while since we’ve laned, and starting to lane again feels quite challenging.
(Watching the semifinals vs GEN Game 2) Lane swapping is not just an issue for one person; it’s something everyone must coordinate well together.
—— Entrance Ceremony
Starting from the quarterfinals, each player enters according to their position. I kept hearing people around me say, “Why are you so nervous?” I don’t know why it looks that way. To be honest, I was very nervous when I first debuted, but over these three years, I’ve played a lot of matches. Compared to being nervous, I was just thinking, “Wow~ the sound is so loud,” and then I wanted to put on a strong expression, but it didn’t convey well.
—— Dealing with Tower Diving
We didn’t practice specifically for this; such situations don’t often occur in scrims. We just tried more, and there weren’t many opportunities to practice how to deal with tower diving during the World Championship. It was just based on the luck of the day, and we achieved very good results. It felt like once the match started, my mental capacity increased to 200%, always thinking about staying alive, and then I gave it my all. Dodging the scorpion’s E with Flash is actually the safest.
—— Top Lane Gragas
I often picked top lane Gragas this time; this build is quite good. I felt great during the matches, and the damage balance was also good. I think Gragas is particularly strong in this version; he has both damage and tankiness. I’ve been thinking about Gragas’s build, and I feel that Gragas is particularly good in this version.
—— Top Lane Malphite
Zeus : Whenever I see Malphite, I think about the last scrim we had with WBG before the semifinals, the day before the WBG match. At that time, I really liked using Malphite against Jax; after trying it, I felt that Malphite was particularly OP. Compared to Gragas, Malphite can even 1v2 against Jax in the late game, and in team fights, Malphite is also particularly strong. Because the recent mid laners and AD carries are relatively weak, it’s not easy for Malphite to die in team fights. I feel that if I play Malphite, I even have the confidence to deal the most damage, so (in Game 2 against GEN) I picked Malphite.
Breathe also picked Malphite in the match, and seeing him lose with Malphite made me feel a bit regretful. Malphite played two games, and both were losses, which I found very unfortunate. I still think that Malphite is particularly OP in theory, but because we lost the match, I chose Gragas afterward. Malphite is really OP; in late-game team fights, he can even 1v4.
In the match against WBG, Malphite looked quite good, but we still lost.
—— Team Fights
In fact, this World Championship has many moments where the outcome was determined by the slightest difference in battles; the outcome of the match was decided by the slightest difference in team fights, and I believe we are very good at those team fights and have a lot of confidence.
—— Bug Abomination
Recently, the side benefiting from the Bug Abomination in team fights, after getting six bugs, it became too difficult for the opponents to turn the game around. The Bug Abomination is too OP. If we want to eliminate lane swapping, it feels like we need to adjust the Bug Abomination. It’s really hard to eliminate lane swapping.
—— Semifinals T1 vs Generation Gaming Game 4
In this game, the early game in the bot lane went really well; we gained a significant economic lead, but the game slowly became a bit strange, and suddenly we lost the dragon team fight and the opponents got the Baron.
We often lose the fourth game when we are in a 2-1 situation, so after the opponents got the Baron, those past memories flashed through my mind like a slideshow; clearly, we had such a big advantage, yet the game turned out this way (referring to being caught up by the opponents).
GEN held on very stubbornly, and then this dragon fight was really well played. In the end, we fought well and won the team fight. After killing the little cannon, I really felt relieved and thought, "What a stroke of luck." If we had lost with such a big advantage in the fourth game, it would definitely have been detrimental to our mentality. At that moment, I really felt it was a stroke of luck. — Finals promotional video shooting We played the semifinals on Sunday, and the finals are next Saturday, so we have about 5 days to prepare, but the result is that we need to shoot for three days. The first day we shot some usual scenes, but then suddenly they said we needed to go up to the roof of the venue to shoot. I was really resistant at first, thinking why do we need to do this, but everyone else seemed fine with it. I thought, "If the other guys are going up, I might as well go up too." I originally didn't want to go up, but in the end, I did. While climbing up, I kept thinking about why I was doing this. It was scary, higher than everyone expected. Hyuk was very excited, walking backward, and Gumayusi said he didn't understand why we needed these safety devices; he said he could just roll up. It was fine going up, but coming down was super scary. I was also watching this promotional video, and it only appeared for 3 seconds! So why did we need to shoot this? I was there for an hour. If the audience feels satisfied, then that makes it a meaningful time.
