It's been a strange year for Royal Never Give Up. After the team succeeded in winning the prestigious Mid-Season Invitational, their performance throughout the summer left a lot to be desired — narrowly qualifying for Worlds. However, considering how talented the roster is, as well as their previous success, it'd be foolish to discount them as a contender for the title.

Though they still have not returned to the form they've shown earlier in the year, they're still a dangerous lineup that no team should breathe easy playing against. Inven Global spoke with the team's support Shi "Ming" Sen-Ming, to discuss the team's preparations, the current meta, and which bot lane stands out the most at Worlds.

Thanks for chatting, Ming. RNG came into Worlds as one of the lower LPL seeds. What did your personal preparations look like heading into the World Championship?

In terms of our team's preparation for Worlds — it's good to get adapted to the tempo of the games at Worlds, to maintain a good form during the Play-Ins and to get well-prepared for the matches. So personally, my preparation individually was just to cooperate with my teammates and prepare with them. 

Other than DRX — which teams or players have impressed you so far at the event?

I won't say there's a specific team that really impressed me a lot, because I do think that every team has their own unique style. And also the players themselves have a very special style too. So I won't say there's a very specific impressive team for me, but I think they're all very unique and special.

Something I was curious on given your experience in the bot lane — Yuumi is a champion that is in a far different position than she was in previously. There have been nerfs to her, and nerfs to hypercarries in general. What do you think of Yuumi's current value in the metagame?

I will say there's a very, very big nerf on Yuumi. Zeri is really nerfed, so that's a big effect — that she couldn't really be used in the game with Yuumi. But according to the matches during the Play-Ins, we see that Sivir can be played with Yuumi together. So I think Yuumi is still an available pick during the group stage.

Looking on to the main group stage — what teams stand out the most to you?

As for the teams to watch out for during the group stage, I will say Gen.G, because this is a really strong team and they're the champion of the LCK Summer Split. So what they will prefer on the meta probably will be some trends on this meta during the group stage, so I'm looking forward to facing off against them.

Gen.G is known for having a very strong bot lane — what bot lanes stand out to you at the moment as exceptional in the tournament?

So besides Gen.G's bot lane and all the LPL bot lanes...I will say actually LCK and LPL — we all have very good bot laners. But if I were to pick a specific one bot lane among all these bot laners, I would say T1. Because I still remember the matchup between us back in MSI. And I will say Keria definitely is the player to watch. I watch a lot of the videos of him playing matches, and he plays very good — playing a lot of champions in the support position.

Interesting. So to clarify: you believe that LPL and LCK bot lanes are fairly comparable?

Yeah, the strength of the two regions' bot laners is very similar. 

Thanks so much for the interview, Ming! For my final question, I simply wanted to asked about your experience in Mexico City — what has your travel experience been like? 

So at the very beginning, everything was very cool in Mexico. But recently, there was construction in our hotel — it was upstairs where there were some electric drill noises that went around till 3am to 4am. So that was pretty a big problem for us —  especially that affects our sleep. So that's probably what would be the biggest point that I feel a little bit frustrated with.