Day 7 of the 2022 LCK Spring split kicked off with T1 facing DRX in the first match of the day. It was a clean 2-0 sweep for T1, and extended their match win streak to three matches. While DRX did show signs of life in various points of the match, T1 managed to shut down their attempts at snowball, seemingly outclassing DRX at almost all points of the game.

The mid laner for T1, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, joined the press room for a post-match interview. 

Thoughts on the victory?

I heard about my 450th win in the LCK, and it feels good to set another record. In terms of our performance, I feel that we played pretty well against DRX tonight.

Tryndamere marks the 70th unique champion that you’ve played in the LCK. Can you tell us why you decided to pick Tryndamere into Corki in game 1?

I was researching various matchups for Corki, and I felt that Tryndamere would do well against Corki because he has zero CC in his kit, and his laning phase isn’t as strong. It’s mostly used in the top lane, but I felt that it was the right opportunity to use it in the mid lane tonight. 

Lots of Tryndamere players only put one point into his ultimate, and finish off the skill tree at the very end. However, you decided to put points into his ult before maxing out your Q,W, and E. How come?

It depends on the situation. The CD goes down with every point you put into Tryndamere’s ultimate, so after factoring in the enemy team composition and the flow of the game, I decided to put more points into the ultimate early.

Highly contested mid lane picks like Corki and Viktor make great use of the new rune, ‘First Strike’.  What are your thoughts on the balance of the rune?

I think the rune itself is balanced, but it changed the balance of the champions that utilize it.

Historically speaking, T1 had a rough time in the beginning of the season, but this split, the team’s on a three-match win streak. How far do you think the team will be able to push this momentum?

I think that so far, we faced off against relatively weaker teams, so I’ll have to see how we fare against the stronger teams. One of those teams is Gen.G because they’re also on a win streak, so I think the match against Gen.G will be the most fun.

In your 6th year as a pro, you stated that you wanted to play six more years. How long do you see yourself playing as a pro and continue to achieve various records?

I think it’ll be fun to play as much as possible so that other pros can’t catch up. While I don’t have a specific number in mind, I do believe that there will be pro players that will play longer than my career, so I want to keep building my career to the fullest.