“If all goes well, I think we can get out of our group in 1st place. My goal is to beat the LCK and the LPL.”

Rogue is on a very successful run in the group stages of the 2022 LoL World Championship. With a win over DRX and GAM Esports, they’re currently 2-0 in their group and look to pick up their third win over TOP Esports on day 4. Making their first appearance at Worlds this year, Rogue stands tall as one of the top contenders in the tournament.

The jungler for Rogue, Kim “Malrang” Geun-seong shared his thoughts on Rogue's win over DRX, as well as his mindset heading into Worlds for the first time. 

“I felt that we were going to win as soon as they locked in Lee Sin, because he’s not a good pick into Trundle. We had priority in our lanes, so the game plan against DRX was to gain advantages via vision. Although there were moments where we briefly gave up priority, I felt that we were going to win when Lucian-Nami rotated mid and gained prio, because I thought our macro was on point.”

He also shared that he doesn’t really think the jungle meta has changed from the Summer split.

“I don’t think much has changed from the Summer split. I can still play the champions that I played in the Summer split, but there are new additions to the jungle champion pool. I still think ADCs are really strong.”

Maokai’s been a highly contested pick so far in the tournament, and it looks as though Maokai will continue to be perma banned/picked. On Maokai, Malrang stated,

“Against DRX, I was actually going to play Maokai, but Odoamne said that he wanted to play him. I had other champions I could play, so I let him play it. We practiced Maokai on three different positions, top, jungle and support, so the draft was flexible.”

Malrang also reflected on his career in the LEC so far. He’s won a championship and made his first Worlds appearance in the first year he went over to EU, but he shared that the competition will always remain the same, no matter which region he played in.

“In the end, the competition remains the same anywhere I go. Sure, there’s more freedom in the practice schedule in EU, but in the end, I just have to work hard to win. The feedback itself is a lot more flexible, and such a trait also helped my playstyle become flexible as well. I think playing in EU fits me better.”

He also shared that at Rogue’s current performance level, Rogue can get 5th-7th in the tournament.

“Right now, I think we’ll get 5th-7th, but depending on how the teams play that day, I think we can beat any team in the tournament. The DWG KIA vs G2 match was very interesting. I thought they would either do really well or really poorly, but they looked incredibly dominant. There was a lot to learn from that match.

If I do meet them in the knockout stages, I really want to beat them. I was Canyon’s sub, so it’ll be more fulfilling to beat DWG KIA than any other team. In the end, my goal of the tournament iis to beat the LCK and the LPL. To get there, we’ll need to work on our early-mid game, because we still looked pretty shaky.”