On the 18th (KST), in the 2019 Mid Season Invitational, G2 Esports brought down the most decorated team in League of Legends esports history, SK Telecom T1, and set foot on the finals. After the match, Sjokz interviewed Perkz and Wunder, and talked about the game, and the finals against Team Liquid.

Sjokz: What does it mean to make it to the semifinals after a win over SKT nonetheless?

Perkz: It means everything to me because I remember last year, I was kind of sad and sour because I couldn't make it to MSI. I wasn't sure what I was doing wrong and right. And now that we're doing so well, with a little time together. It's so amazing; I have no words to describe actually. But we're here to take it all. This is not the end.

Sjokz: This is just the first step, Wunder?

Wunder: During the series, I was a bit skeptical because they looked a lot better than when we played them the first time. But still, I knew that we kind of had some secret tricks. I mean, we played a little bit bad, we played a bit worse than we could have in the first couple of games. I always knew we could probably take down SKT, and the final boss was supposed to be iG in the finals. But now we're playing against Team Liquid. So it's not really like the finals I was expecting. But I appreciate them for taking down iG for us.

Sjokz: It is unexpected, it is Team Liquid that looked incredibly strong. How are you expecting that to go instead of playing iG?

Perkz: Honestly, it's just hype. You know, EU vs NA finals. Whatever happens, it's really hype. It's kind of like a dream. If you look at it like two years ago even, you would never say EU and NA would barely make it out of groups. (Laughs) But now, it's our finals at MSI. So it's a really huge step for the whole westeren scene in general. And it's a definite thing that we're going to win.

Sjokz: Wunder, what do you think about the clash?

Wunder: We lost to them, we went 1-1 in groups against them. So they shouldn't be underestimated. But I also think in a Bo5... As I see it, if you play ten games against Team Liquid, I would probably expect us to win like 8 or 9 of them. So I think at a Bo5, it would favor us a lot more than a Bo1. Anything could happen in a Bo1, and there's this adaptation which I think we're good at. I'd look forward to those.

Sjokz: In terms of the mental aspect, do you think you learned or took away a lot from the fact that you guys suffered a really big loss in Game 1 of the series but were able to keep it going and surpassed the pressure of a Game 5?

Perkz: Honestly, after Game 1, it felt like all our team was a bit down. Just from looking at everyone's faces. We just played Sona-Taric and we got smashed so I wasn't really sure. We decided to go away from it even though we were pretty good at it before. We didn't want to go like Fnatic and go 0-2 and hope for a reverse sweep. So we went with our own style, which we know we're good at. When we were 1-2 down, I just had flashbacks from the RNG series. I was in my comfort zone. I told my team that we're going to win this game, if I pick a mage the next game, we're going to win and it all happened.

Sjokz: You actually beat Faker and SKT with a mid laner [champion]. Does that count for something?

Perkz: Yeah, my Syndra is 2-0 against Faker.

Sjokz: Wunder, the Pyke is something we saw you pick against SKT last time. How much mental advantage did you think it would trigger?

Wunder: It was mostly Perkz who said he wanted to play AP bot. And we need AD in other lanes. I guess Pyke was one of the picks that we could go for, and also with the bans they had, I knew that I was going to play Pyke into Kennen even before they picked it. That's also what I said to my team. If we ban the two champs after I pick Pyke, they would be playing Kennen. That was a fine matchup for me. It seemed to be pretty fine.

Sjokz: We talked about it already. This is really a monumental occasion when it comes to LoL history. NA vs EU in an MSI final. It's really a sign of the times changing. I'm going to give you the open floor to say whatever you want to Team Liquid that you're facing in the finals tomorrow.

Wunder: I guess good luck to them. I think they're playing way better than they did the first couple of days they played in the MSI, so I'm still looking forward to it even though it wasn't the finals I expected. But NA vs EU, and the Rift Rivals coming up soon, this is going to be really good competition for us.

Perkz: I definitely respect TL; I think they're a good team, but I just don't really see what they have over us in a Bo5 where we're very flexible and they don't really know what we're going to show up with. And I just want to win against Doublelift. I'll make them the second best.