On day 41 of the 2021 LCK Summer split. T1 defeated DRX 2-0 in the second match of the evening. While T1 looked as if they had a dominating victory in game 1, game 2 was a tougher game for T1, as DRX had built up advantages through the early-mid game. Despite this, one teamfight was all T1 needed to take the victory.

After the match, the support player for T1, Ryu “Keria” Min-seok, joined Inven Global to talk about the upcoming playoffs and this year’s World championship

Congratulations on the victory. How do you feel?

I heard that it was important for us to keep our points up in the standings, and while I’m happy that we won, the series left us with a lot of things to improve for the playoffs and beyond.

Can you share some specifics on what are the things that the team needs to work on?

The biggest thing has to be on the ‘turn-based’ macro; knowing where to go based on where my teammates are at certain points of the game and properly gaining vision.

T1 had a very rough early game in game 2, where Ezreal got caught out by the enemy Thresh/Nidalee, which snowballed into getting dove. Can you tell us what happened?

In terms of the bot lane matchup, we had a bot lane that was never going to get early game priority. With Ezreal taking teleport, our plan was to get advantages elsewhere on the map; even if we did get dove under our turret, we knew that he was going to take his time to scale. However, misreading our enemy’s movements led to Ezreal getting caught out, which snowballed very hard.

You hovered a whole bunch of champions intro Thresh during game 2 draft, and one of those champions that seemed interesting to me was Blitzcrank. He did get buffed in patch 11.15, so what are your thoughts on the buffed Blitzcrank?

I have a good winrate with him in solo queue and in scrims, but because of his kit, I think that he’s only going to be a situational pick.

Early in the night, DWG KIA flexed Syndra into bot lane. What are your impressions of bot lane Syndra?

The biggest merit with bot lane Syndra comes from her being able to be flexed. From what I remember, Gen.G picked Aphelios; I think that the pick was good because she was paired with Trundle support, and the fact that it can lock down Aphelios.

Recently, G2’s support player Mikyx stated in an interview that the LCK bot lanes aren't as good as the LPL or the LEC. Where do you think LCK bot lanes are in comparison to other leagues?

While I think LPL bot lanes are stronger than LCK bot lanes, I don’t think LEC bot lanes can compare to LCK/LPL. I personally feel that I improved significantly since last year’s Worlds, so if I make it this year, I’m confident that I can make the other bot lanes believe that I’m a very strong player.

Speaking of Worlds, are there any teams and/or players that you believe will be very strong right now?

I’m most curious about how we will fare against EDG’s bot lane [Viper-Meiko]. RNG also did well in the last international tournament, so I’m curious how they’ll do on the international stage as well. As for the team, I’m most curious about FPX.

Your choices were all from the LPL. Were there not any teams/players from the west [LEC/LCS] that impressed you?

No. There are things to take from their drafts because of interesting picks, but when I tune in to watch how they're played, there isn’t anything to learn from their gameplay, so I always end up turning the stream off.

With playoffs just being around the corner, which team do you think will be T1’s biggest adversaries for the playoffs? Is there a team that you really want to beat in the playoffs?

There isn’t a specific team that I want to beat, but I think that DWG KIA will be our toughest opponents.

T1’s last match of the regular split is against Hanwha Life Esports. What are your thoughts on the matchup?

When the team underwent their roster changes before the start of the season, I thought they’d be really good, but they’ve been pretty disappointing during the Summer split. I still think they’re a good team, however, so we can’t let our guard down.