The second round robin of Group C at the 2021 MSI started off with a huge upset, as the LCS representatives managed to take down the favorites of the tournament, DWG KIA. Despite looking shaky in the mid game, Cloud9 managed to outscale DWG KIA and eventually destroy their Nexus.

After the interview, the bot laner for C9, Jesper “Zven” Svenningson joined Jeesun Park for a quick interview. When asked about the victory, Zven commented, “I’m feeling really great. I didn’t play super well, but my team played really well, and I did well in the late game. It feels great to beat DWG KIA, because I don’t think anyone else in our group beats them, and it’s a point that’s worth more than any other point. It’s a huge mental boost for us.”

When asked about the preparation for the match against DK, he emphasized the team’s early game. “Getting Blaber scuttle crabs was the key [laughter]. We had a lot of trouble with our first 5 to 8 minutes of our game; Blaber was getting ‘double-crabbed’, losing too many jungle camps, and fell behind early every game. I think we needed to make sure that our early game was stable, so that we can actually play the game.

He also shared his thoughts on how C9 was able to deal with the poke from DWG KIA. “Once we got a lot of kills in the early game, it got easier to deal with the poke. At some point, poke just becomes useless; Udyr can tank it forever, we secured Mountain soul, and with Bloodthirster on Tristana, I think we just outscaled. Getting a lot of kills early made the mid game a lot more playable for us.”