It was a clean 3-0 victory for JD Gaming, as they took down the last remaining Western team, Rogue, and knocked them out of their tournament. On day 1 of the 2022 LoL World Championship knockout stage, JDG proved that the gap between the East and the West cannot be easily overcome.

JDG’s jungler, Seo “Kanavi” Jin-hyeok, joined Jeesun Park for a post-match interview.

Congratulations on the 3-0 victory over Rogue. To my knowledge, this is your first time heading to Worlds semifinals, so how do you feel?

When I was at Worlds the first time around, I got knocked out at the quarterfinals, so I’m thrilled that I’m able to advance one step further this year.

It was a complete shutout against Rogue today. What was the biggest difference that led to JDG’s victory today?

We won easily tonight because of the laners playing really well.

It also felt like there was a huge jungle diff against Malrang today as well. What were you the most wary of against Malrang in this series?

He’s the type to pressure his enemies by staying out of vision, so we all tried to minimize our deaths. We all had the mindset that we were going to win in the late game as long as we didn’t die, so we all tried our best to not die.

In game 1 and 2, JDG’s bot lane faced Rogue’s Lucian-Nami with Aphelios-Lulu, while JDG drafted Lucian-Nami in game 3.

I don’t really think matchups really matter in the bot lane, because the better bot lane will simply win. I think all lanes are equally important in the current Worlds meta.

Many fans were worried about Yagao testing positive for COVID. How’s he doing at the moment?

He did say he felt a bit dizzy during scrims yesterday, but I think he’s completely fine now. He’s a strong person.

JDG will face the winners of T1 vs RNG in the semifinals. How do you foresee the matchup between T1 and RNG?

Both T1 and RNG are very good teams, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see either of those two teams advance.

Is there a team that you want to face out of the two?

I do want to get revenge on RNG because we lost to them during the season, but I also want to face T1 because we’ve never faced them before. Either way, I made it to the semifinals for the first time, so I hope to beat whichever team makes it and the finals as well.