On day 35 of the 2022 LCK Spring split, T1 defeated KT Rolster 2-0. Amidst the famous ‘Telecom War’ rivalry between the two organizations, T1’s victory also meant that they tied their own record of going 14-0 in the regular split, a record that was set in 2015.

After the match, the jungler for T1, Moon “Oner” Hyeon-joon, joined Inven Global to talk about their victory.

Thoughts on the victory and going 14-0?

It feels really good to set such a grand record of 14-0, but in terms of our performance, I feel that I didn’t play as well as I hoped. I was missing skillshots, was impatient, and I was not coordinated with my team. Something wasn’t clicking tonight, so in that regard, it was a bit disappointing.

Game 1 was very back and forth, with the global gold being very even at one point in the game. Can you tell us what went wrong, and what the team talked about to stabilize the game?

We actually didn’t know that it was pretty even at one point in game 1 because we can’t see the gold ourselves. We didn’t feel that we were behind, so we told ourselves to stay proactive, hit our item power spikes and win teamfights.

At the end of game 2, Faker said “[KT’s] pretty good”. Do you think that they actually played well? Or was it more on T1 making blunders like you just described?

It’s a mix of both. KT also tried new strategies, with some of them working and some of them not. We panicked a little bit to see some of their new strategies working, and more than anything, I played really poorly tonight. Overall, there were things we could’ve done a lot better, and at the same time, KT played well. 

You picked Lee Sin for both games tonight. For a long time, Rek’sai’s been considered a counterpick to Lee Sin, so what can you tell us about the Lee Sin vs Rek’Sai matchup?

Although Rek’sai is considered one of Lee Sin’s counters, I actually thought Lee Sin’s stronger than Rek’sai until a few months ago. But now, I just can’t seem to beat her on Lee because Rek’sai’s really strong. KT’s mid-jungle had priority over us in the early-mid game tonight, so it was a bit frustrating to play against. As long as Rek’sai plays well, I think it’s a good pick into Lee.

Hecarim’s back in the current meta. What makes him so strong? What are his strengths and weaknesses?

Due to ADC champions with low mobility like Jinx and Aphelios being on top of the current meta, Hecarim’s really good at jumping on top of them and can practically target CC the enemy ADCs, alongside champions like Nautilus. He also has decent clear speed and ganks pretty well, but he’s very reliant on his ultimate to make plays.

In the competitive meta, it always feels like junglers fall behind in items. Can you explain why that’s the case? What are your thoughts on the state of the jungle right now?

I think that junglers are really important in the early-mid game because of how they can snowball a laner, but due to how ADCs are doing the heavy lifting in the mid-late game, junglers tend to just let them take the jungle camps and funnel a lot more resources into them for the scaling.

On a personal level, are you a fan of the current jungle meta in competitive play?

Hmm… I have mixed feelings about it, but I think that a new jungle meta could be more fun. I missed the ‘carry jungle’ meta, where champions like Nidalee and Graves thrived.

As T1 looks like the strongest contenders to make it to MSI, are there any overseas teams/junglers that you’d personally like to face?

I haven’t thought much into it, but I want to face the top LPL teams and their junglers. It’s right for them to be called the best because they’re the region that won Worlds last year, but I think that the LPL harbors a playstyle that’s completely opposite from the LCK. Only time will tell whether or not LCK can be considered to be the better region this year.

Are you confident that T1 will be on top?

Definitely.

Recently, Faker recently stated on his stream that the overall level of Challenger is at the lowest it has been. If duo queue gets completely removed, do you think this potential move will affect the overall player level of the Challenger solo queue ladder [in the KR server]?

Hmm… I’m not sure how the potential changes [of removing duo queue completely] will impact the ladder, but I do agree that the current level of Challenger queue isn’t that high. It’s still very early in the season, so I’ll have a better perspective of it towards the middle-end of the season.

What are some of the current problems that plague the KR solo queue ladder?

There are a lot of people from other regions, and since most of them don’t speak Korean, there are communication issues in the game, which leads to very selfish plays. Because of such griefers, there are games that ultimately turn into 4vs5s, where they just give up early and end up either not intentionally feeding to end the game early, or just not playing at all. I think it’s the same reason that made Faker angry, as well as a lot of other people. Such a mentality can also infect other players to follow their footsteps in griefing.

Next match is against Kwangdong Freecs. How will you prepare for the upcoming match?

While tonight was definitely a blunder, I think that I’ve been performing pretty well overall. As long as I maintain my performance level and look to reduce mistakes, I think that we’ll win. I want to beat them and go 15-0.

There’s only two weeks of the regular split left. Do you think you’ll be able to finish the split undefeated?

Honestly, we’ve made it this far, so I think it’s definitely possible at this point.

Lastly, what are your personal goals for this split?

I want to first win the Spring split, and be considered one of the best, if not the best jungler in the LCK and the world. It’ll also be nice to at least be considered a candidate for the Asian Games, but for now, I’m focused on winning the split.