On May 13, T1 faced Gen.G at the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational in the winner’s bracket. After a close five-game match, T1 stood victorious, having revenge for the LCK spring split finals. As JD Gaming defeated Bilibili Gaming on the other side of the winner’s bracket, T1 will face JD Gaming. Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong shared some words with Inven after their win against Gen.G.

Jinx wasn’t picked up by either team in the last game. Was there a reason?

I can’t say everything since it could reveal our strategy, but what I can say is that we drafted based on several comps and opponent picks.

You won games 1 and 2 but lost 3 and 4. Did the two losses shake up your mentality?

I’m happy that we won, but it’s regretful because we made regretful plays. I feel that we need to improve even more. I think we hurried too much in game 4 because we lost game 3.

The game was over after the last mid lane teamfight. How was the situation?

I thought we had the better comp, and we were advantageous. We gained much during the laning phase, and since we had more dragon stacks, they got anxious. It could have seemed that their skill combo connected well, but I don’t think it did. We were able to win since we countered it well.

How was it facing Peyz again?

I think we both played well. We did well in some games and didn’t in some games — we both weren’t perfect today.

Did you feel more pressure as you played games 3 and 4? How was your mindset going into game 5?

We lost one game due to a turnaround; in the other game, we lost from the beginning. However, considering that we dominated games 1 and 2, and since we had a better draft, we thought we would win if we played as we always did.

Do you think Gumayusi-Keria bot synergy is gifted or from countless hours of practice?

Being gifted is about individual performance. I think there’s a correct answer to every play, and if someone is gifted, they often know the answer in advance. If there are two of these players, countless hours of practice make the synergy.

Unlike many people expected, you lost in the spring finals, but you won today. What was different?

T1 has always been one of the favorites, and winning is expected of us. If I thought, ‘We’ll be able to defeat Gen.G easily’ before the spring finals, this time, I respected them more. It was more like, ‘Can we win? Since we’re good, we probably can’.

There were many critical moments in today’s series.

There were critical situations, and we weren’t able to overcome them in games 3 and 4, and we lost them. There were mechanic issues, shotcall issues, and macro issues — issues came all over, so we need to improve those things. As for the games we won, there weren’t that serious problems. We did everything well except the things we didn’t.

Who do you think will win between JD Gaming and Bilibili Gaming? Who do you want to meet?

(Note: This interview was conducted before the JDG vs. BLG match)

I believe JD Gaming has a better chance to win, but Bilibili Gaming also has a shot. Even if we were to meet JDG in our next match and we beat them, I feel that we’ll meet again in the finals, so I hope BLG wins.