On the 15th, at the Hanoi Vietnam National Convention Center, the last of the 2019 MSI Group Stage matches were played. G2 Esports, who was leading the group in 2nd place, lost both of their matches on Day 5 and finished the group stage in 3rd place. 

The following is an interview with G2 Esports' bot laner, Perkz.

** This interview was conducted in conjunction with Korizon.net and Laodong.vn

You've qualified for the knockouts as the 3rd place team. How are you feeling right now?

I'm actually not feeling quite fine. We realized yesterday after our loss against IG that we had some issues. I think we were a bit complacent - a bit overconfident. There were small things that were going wrong in our games. We were skipping steps and rushing our plays. 

Today, after we lost against PVB, we had a talk, and it was really good for us. We were open to each other and got a lot of our feelings out. As crazy as it sounds, I'm actually more confident heading into the knockouts now because we don't usually have these kinds of talks.


 What is the one thing that you want to fix about G2 before heading into the knockouts?

The players on G2 have a lot of trust in each other. So when someone makes a call, we all jump in to make that play, even though it was a bad call in hindsight. This is something that we need to work on because we're all good players, so we should know when a call is bad or not. We should know when to say, "No, that's bad! We should do something else."


What's your thought on the current MSI meta?

I think the meta is very early game heavy. Whoever gets the lead in the early game is probably going to win. The games that we won, we won because we snowballed. The games that we lost, we lost mainly because the enemy team snowballed. In the current meta, I don't think there is a strong chance for teams to make a comeback in the late game - unless you're IG. They're the only team that seems to be able to do it. 


You've now played against every bot lane competing here at 2019 MSI Group Stage twice. Who gave you the most difficult time?

We went 0-2 against PVB and IG... I definitely think that IG's bot lane is the best. They know their job - they know what to do. When we played against IG, we had winning lanes in both matches, so it wasn't like they could win lane against us. But in general, they don't die a lot, and they stay safe for the team. That's why I think they're the best.


Looking back at the group stage, was there ever a moment where you wanted to swap lanes with Caps? 

(Laughs) No. That hasn't crossed our minds. 


You'll be facing either IG or SKT in the knockouts. Who would you rather face?

If I can choose, I'd choose to play against SKT. We went 2-0 against them in the group stage, so we have momentum on them. SKT is definitely a strong team, especially in BO5's - but so are we.