On the 13th of July (KST), Hanwha Life Esports (HLE) defeated SKT T1 (SKT) 2:1.

After losing game 1, HLE managed to win game 2. The match eventually went to the final set. SKT had some aggressive bruisers in their comp. They did gain the early-game advantage, but HLE recovered right away by succeeding a gank near top. The game slowly snowballed to HLE; SKT champs clearly had a hard time focusing on the high mobility champions on HLE. They closed down the game and advanced to the 3rd place in the standings.

After the match, HLE’s Lava and Key were interviewed by OGN,

Q. How do you feel about today’s win?

Lava: It’s good to advance to 3rd place.

Key: It’s my 3rd year as a pro, but I’ve never been to the postseason. Now that we’re on 3rd place, it’s going to be a great motivation for me to do better.

Q. I heard that tomorrow is Lava’s birthday.

Lava: Tomorrow is my birthday and it feels good to win against SKT, who we’ve never won before.

Key: We were especially weak against Afreeca, Kingzone, and SKT. Well, after winning them, it feels like the team has improved compared to the past.

Q. Your Tahm Kench was remarkable on game 3. Did you think that Darius would go to top again?

Key: I thought that he’d come back since Darius didn’t use his Teleport.

Q. On game 1, the opponent’s Darius delivered quite a performance. Wasn’t Lindarang afraid?

Lava: He did look a bit afraid after game 1, but it was okay since we thought that we can win the matchup if the team covers him.

Q. You showed some good performance with your Ezreal.

Key: Ezreal is a champion that needs team care. I figured out that in the past, we didn’t really take care of him. It’s wasn’t Sangyoon’s fault.

Q. As a mid laner, you must have a lot of things to concern regarding picks these days.

Lava: After Rift Rivals, I was really busy since there were so many new champions and strategies. I was able to use Talon because I had some good results using him. As a matter of fact, I don’t have a hard time adjusting to a new champion.

Q. The team finished on 3rd place for round 1. It's the team’s best so far! Any last remarks?

Key: Well, we finished in 3rd place with 6 wins and 3 loses. However, we’re going to meet some very strong teams once we get to round 2. We’ll do our best and try to deliver good results early.

Lava: Thank you for your support. I’m not going to be satisfied by this and try to get better results.