[M Zedd] : Hi Kkoma, first of all congratulations for today, you did two wins : one over CLG and one over Supermassive. You did good in these two games, what was the key points that led you to the victory ?
Kkoma : The point of today’s victories was basically just improving our playing field. And this is just the group stages, the real thing is next week, so we’ll try to get our skills back to compete at a higher level next week.
[M Zedd] : Between the finals of the LCK and the MSI there is a huge difference inside SKT, inside their games : why is that so, what happens between the finals against ROX Tigers and the MSI ?
Kkoma : I don’t think it was us that changed, neither that we started to play poorly. This is the MSI, a tournament between the best teams of each region, so I think the level here is just higher.
Scene of the MSI in Shanghai, FW v RNG playing on stage
[M Zedd] : Were you surprised after the firsts games ? Because on the first day you did two wins against G2 Esports & Supermassive, and after you started to lose all your games on the second day, so where you surprised and what will you do, for tomorrow, to improve your games and the plays in the team ?
Kkoma : I wasn’t really surprised, even after four straight defeats. This is only the group stages so I felt like the most important thing is to eliminate the mistakes we are making, and just improve the level we are playing right now. I wasn’t really panicking or anything.
[M Zedd] : The Chinese look very strong, and today we have seen that they can bleed, thanks to CLG : are you afraid of tomorrow ? Because even if you do one win, there is possibly a tie-break between you and G2 Esports. So are you confident about tomorrow and what are your plans for the possibly tie breaking ?
Kkoma : Those kind of things don’t really make me nervous, I think if you didn’t have the nerves to endure that kind of pressure, so you don’t deserve to go very far.
[M Zedd] : G2 Esports have shown some improvements today, unfortunately they didn’t win against the FW, so are you preparing something specially for them or just playing normally against them ?
Kkoma : So, so far we haven’t prepared anything special, but I think the primary focus for us right now is to improve our fundamentals and stop making mistakes.
Crowd watching the match on stage
[M Zedd] : The Wildcard team looks very strong : what is your opinion about it ? Through the years, we have seen that they are becoming stronger and stronger, do you think it can be a strong region as Europe or Korea ?
Kkoma : I was quite surprised about how better the Wildcard regions have become, and I think League of Legends eSports is uping the plainfield all across the world, and the average skills are just becoming a lot higher. So as time goes on, I believe that each region will be more or less competitive with each other and the Wildcard will become even more strong.
[M Zedd] : The gap between Korea and other regions is becoming smaller and smaller : what are the tools you can use to stay on the top and to stay the best region in the world ?
Kkoma : It’s kind of difficult for me to say right now, because I still do think we are the best. But look what’s happening in this tournament (we’re not doing that great), the general playing level rises. I think that eventually any region would be able to become champion, and for me, this is the natural way of sports.
[M Zedd] : Last question, what is your opinion about the MSI : is it a good tournament to see each region against each other and the reward of the first seed ?
Kkoma : As far as we are concerned, this is the only tournament that we haven’t won, so it means a lot for us to try to compete and to try to win this as our last trophy. And this is a good midterm evaluation up to Worlds, so I find a lot of value in this event.
[M Zedd] : Thank you Kkoma for this interview, good luck for tomorrow, and let’s see which region will win !
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Opening title of the LCK's finals (Spring Split) |
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