On Mar. 9, in the 2023 LCK Spring Split, T1 had a clean and swift 2-0 victory over DRX and secured a bye to the 2nd round of the playoffs. T1 has been playing so many different champion combinations this season in their bot lane, and they added another bot comp today in Cho’Gath-Senna. After the match, head coach Bae “Bengi” Seong-woong and Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok joined the media room for an interview.

How do you feel about today’s win?

Bengi: With today’s win, we’ve secured a bye to the 2nd round of the playoffs, so I’m happy.

Faker: I’m satisfied with today’s clean 2-0 victory. I’ll prepare for the next match well too.

Today, you picked Cho’Gath and Senna into your bot lane. How did you prepare it, and what do you think about the result?

Bengi: Non-ADC champions appear in solo queue, and Gumayusi plays those champions well. We tried it in practice, and it was quite alright, so we played it today. The early laning phase was good. It was a holding role, and he did it very well.

As you said, non-ADC champions often appear in solo queue, like Veigar. Are you practicing any other compositions?

Bengi: We’ve been practicing. We’ll have to see whether or not we’ll pick them in our matches when we get here. If the situation is right, we could use them.

(To Faker) As the mid laner, how do you feel about the non-ADC composition in the bot lane?

Faker: I don’t mind whatever champion is picked since I have a broad mindset about it. I can adapt well to whatever the meta is.

Your magic number is now 1. If you win one more game, you’ll secure 1st place for the regular season. Do you think you can secure it next game?

Bengi: Our next match is against Hanwha Life Esports, whom we lost to in round 1. Since I have my eyes on them, we must win.

Faker: Beating Hanwha Life Esports is important because we lost to them in the first round and need revenge. We played well up to now, so I thought we’d be able to secure 1st place, so it’s not that important now. What’s important is improving our performance so that we can show our best in the playoffs.

DRX came back hard in game 2, and they even went ahead in kill score. How do you evaluate your performance?

Faker: We were cut off from time to time, and the game was stalled a bit, but I thought we would win. We did win game 2, but we made a lot of mistakes.

Any last comments?

Bengi: Our next match is against Hanwha Life Esports, and since they’re the only team we lost to in round 1, I really want to have revenge, so we’ll be prepared.

Faker: We won 2-0 today, and we’ll prepare well for our matches to win 2-0 as much as possible.

All photos by LCK Korea