On the 7th (CST), LCK’s KZ-SKT-KT defeated LMS 3:0 in the Rift Rivals 2018.  KZ, that lost both of the group stage games, managed to get their first win and SKT defeated LMS’ FW.

The following is the interview of LCK coaching staff and players.

Q. There are a lot of fans that criticizes KZ’s performance. Do you have anything to say?

KZ coach Yeon “Sin” Hyeong-mo: Our international stage performance wasn’t good, so I think it’s inevitable.

Q. On the team’s last game against RNG, people said that the bottom dive was the reason for defeat. What are your personal thoughts on this?

Sin: Our bottom lane players are good, so it would have been better to plan a dive a bit earlier. Braum and Rakan can initiate a fight anytime they want and in case of the opponent Nocturne, we thought that Draven can kill him with 2 or 3 strikes.

Q. Some say that the team’s performance is worsening.

KZ GorillA: I’m not going to try to concern about that. We are doing better than when we were in Korea. I think we need to improve our international stage performance.

Q. Fans say that SKT is performing better than expected. Wasn’t it rather frustrating to lose against iG?

SKT head coach kkOma: We are still in the middle of the split and our ultimate goal is the Worlds. The loss is frustrating, but we’re improving. We need to make feedbacks about the defeat against iG and fix our problems.

Q. You are the only LCK team to win FW.

kkOma: Every team prepares a lot. The teams that lost were just in a bad condition. I believe that they’ll win once they face them [FW] again. Bo1s are full of up and downs. We were just lucky. Every team is a quality team, so I hope that people just don’t judge them by just one match. I know that there are negative thoughts about KZ. I wish that people would support them more since they are participating as the best team in Korea.

Q. A lot of Korean fans are expecting something more from your team. Do you feel any pressure? Or do you have any team that you want to face?

KT coach Jung Jae-seong: Every team feels pressure about results. Personally, I would prefer RNG or EDG. RNG is current the best in China and EDG is performing very well; I’d like to go against them in the finals.

KT Smeb: I want to go against EDG. They seem like the best performing team in this Rift Rivals.  I’d like to meet them since facing them would be a tough challenge.

Q. The Chinese team staff thinks that the Afreeca Freecs is delivering the most stable performance among the LCK teams. How do you think about this? Do you have any team you want to face?

AFs coach comet: We might seem to snowball rather late. However, if it seems to have a better possibility of winning, we stick with that plan. I would like to thank them.

AFs Kuro: We follow our head coach’s directions, which is to focus on the basics. It’s my first time as an AFs crew member to participate in an international tournament. I’d like to face EDG, who gave us our first defeat.