On Nov. 19, in the grand finals of the 2023 LoL World Championship, Weibo Gaming faced T1. As the fourth seed from the LPL, Weibo Gaming had a great run throughout Worlds, but they weren’t able to overcome the Unkillable Demon King and T1, as they suffered a 0-3 sweep. After the match, members of Weibo Gaming joined the media for a brief conference.

(To Daeny) Why did you ban Ashe throughout the finals despite that Light and Crisp are known to be capable of playing Ashe?

Daeny: The blue side has to pick first, and the Ashe ban was to pick up Kalista when the opponent bans Orianna.

(To Xiaohu) Another stop short at the finals. Many players around the world started to step down. Have you thought of stepping down for the next phase of your life?

Xiaohu: I’ll be taking a short break and think about it. Thank you.

(To TheShy) This is your first finals after 2018. How do you feel about it?

TheShy: This was my second Worlds finals. The results may be regretful, but I accept it. Our team has reached here through rough roads, and it’s not as disappointing since we did so well.

(To Xiaohu) What was the motivating factor that kept you competing over all this time?

Xiaohu: As a pro player, I need to do what I need to do, and hopefully, I could improve every year.

(To TheShy) You had an arm injury, and the fans are discussing whether you can keep going on next year. What are your plans for next year?

TheShy: My injury is alright. It’s not much of an issue right now. For next year, I haven’t fully decided yet. While I think that I’m capable of continuing as a pro player, it feels that taking a break seems good too. I’ll need to think about it.

(To TheShy) You had a great performance in 2018 and won Worlds. This time, Zeus led T1 to the championship. What are your thoughts?

TheShy: I think I won Worlds when I was too young. There wasn’t enough time for me to feel the sadness of losing. However, this time, I got to lose, so I feel I matured a little bit. As for Zeus, our draft enabled Zeus to play so freely. Since he’s still very young, I hope he has the best future.

(To Xiaohu) Your starting items for Ahri were Long Sword and Refillable Potion. What were your intentions?

Xiaohu: It was to play strong in lane, and fight well in skirmishes.

(To TheShy) How do you evaluate this year?

TheShy: It’s a bit regretful. After all, I’m only human, and obviously, losing in the last match is disappointing. The most regretful thing, however, is that I think my life would have been more fun if I met Daeny when I was younger.

(To Daeny) What did you prepare for the finals? What was the most regretful?

Daeny: T1 had a vast champion pool, so we thought it was difficult to find a weakness there. The current mid lane carry meta is Neeko, Orianna, and Azir, and we thought it would be good to try a matchup excluding those champions. As for the other lanes, there were too many variables, so I thought it was uncontrollable.

In game 1, we prepared Senna-Tahm Kench, which our bot duo wasn’t as proficient with. It might have been better if we tried a stronger comp in Caitlyn-Lux or Varus-Ashe. Another regret is that we focused on the bot lane too much, so TheShy had to play on the blue side in all three games. We had a few drafts prepared for the red side, but we didn’t want to go over ourselves.

(To Daeny) How did you prepare for the finals? It would have been difficult to find teams to scrim with.

Daeny: I believe this is an advantage for the home teams. Back in 2020, when I played at Worlds in China, we were barely able to scrim for about a week. I felt it that time, and this time, there weren’t many teams to scrim with except for maybe Kwangdong Freecs and Nongshim RedForce. Besides them, there were only teams that were doing trials.

(To TheShy) Any regretful moments in game 3?

TheShy: If I have to pick, during the first gank, I should have played more thoughtlessly and just dove. It was playing mind games, and there was some luck involved, so that was regretful.