“We’ve taken a long detour; we really wanted to start the playoffs in round 2, but… whatever happened has happened, and we’ve had more time to adjust to being on stage. Right now, I feel great.”

After defeating Afreeca Freecs in round 1 of the 2021 LCK Summer playoffs 3-1, NS RedForce’s jungler, Han “Peanut” Wang-ho did not shy away from expressing his happiness. Afreeca Freecs definitely put up a fight in that series; both teams were neck to neck in game 1 and 2. Despite being down in the early-mid game, NS did not stop being proactive. One Baron Nashor attempt was all it took in game 2 for the momentum to shift in NS’ favor, a turning point of the game, if not the series for NS.

“After the game 1 loss, we identified two points of the game where we made mistakes. The coaching staff immediately pointed them out, and told us to not make those same mistakes twice. When we went for Baron in game 2, there were only two minutes left on dragon, and it felt like if AF was able to take the dragon after those two minutes, we felt like we couldn’t win. So we decided to make the play, and after the teamfight win, we all knew that we won because of the momentum swing.”

NS is a team with clear strengths and weaknesses. They struggle in the laning phase, but the team has a keen eye for kills and has great teamwork in teamfights. Peanut shared that in order to overcome a deficit, it’s important to minimize the damage that they suffer throughout the game, and hit back just as hard as the enemy would.

“It’s critical to not fall behind in scaling when you’re behind. You have to always capitalize on your enemy’s mistakes, while minimizing your losses. If the enemy’s ahead, we tend to bait them into our jungle. Enemies tend to make more mistakes in your jungle, so I always keep a keen eye out for those blunders.”

Even with Diana nerfed on patch 11.16, Peanut still opted for Diana in this series. Even with the AS nerf to her kit, Peanut picked her three times, leading his team to victory in two of those three games. 

“Truth be told, I didn’t have enough time to adjust to the Diana nerfs. Although I practiced her a lot in solo queue, I didn’t have enough practice on her in scrims. I think that I started to get used to her nerfs in game 2, but nevertheless, tonight was tough. I learned that Yasuo-Diana struggles against champions like Alistar and Sejuani.”

Lastly, Peanut expressed his desire to beat NS’ opponents in round 2 of the playoffs as well. “I’m very lucky. Whenever I tell people this, they always say that luck is part of my skill. I really wish lady luck would be on my side for our match in round 2 as well.”