On the 8th of March (KST), Griffin faced SK Telecom T1 in the 2019 LCK Spring Split. SKT took game 1, but Griffin struck back right away in Game 2. Both matches were close, fierce, and exciting, but the last game was a lot more exciting than the other games. The game ended in a successful backdoor via Griffin. The person that made the backdoor possible was Sword, who destroyed both twin towers before in a split push. After the match, we interviewed Sword.

Below is our interview with Sword.

The level of the game was insanely high and it was so close. How do you feel on the win?

Having a clean win has always been our goal, but winning like this is also quite thrilling.

Dominating the other team for the win would be the best way to win, but personally, which would you prefer: dominating and winning without much fun, or winning like today?

Frankly, winning like this reminds me of the mindset I had in the beginning so it’s really fun. But in the pro world, dominating is better. (If it’s close like today, are you scolded?) Of course (Laughs). It’s fortunate that we won, but we’ll get massive amounts of feedback later.

Can you explain a bit about the Urgot pick in games 1 and 2?

Urgot was nerfed in mana management in the early game, but after doing some research, if I take Biscuit Delivery and Manaflow Band, passing the early game safely brings back the original Urgot of before. I tried to take advantage of that, but it didn’t work out very well. I feel sorry to Urgot.

You lost Game 1. What do you think the problem was?

The biggest reason was that we weren’t able to utilize Urgot well. If it’s a Nocturne-Urgot comp, we had to kill Aatrox at least once, but Khan reacted well and it wasn’t very convenient to do so.

Khan was hitting you hard in the first two games, but you got back in Game 3 even if you let him play Jayce. Do you feel that you had your revenge? Why did you let through the Jayce pick?

Personally, I think he hit me hard in games 1 and 3 but Game 2 was alright. When we started the split phase, it was a bit hard but laning was alright. I tried to stand up to Khan’s Jayce in the early game, but it didn’t go as planned.

As for why we gave him Jayce, I was confident to play against him since I have a good understanding of the champion as well. I try to predict what the opponent does thinking how I would play, but Khan was really good. Lehends and Tarzan helped out in balancing the power at top lane.

Do you think SKT would have been able to end if they didn’t fall back when Tarzan revived?

I don’t think so. SKT’s decision was good. They may have been able to end, but the possibility was extremely low. We also thought that it might be the end, but after seeing how it went, we realized we had one last chance.

Who made the shotcalls in the last ‘Trojan Horse Operation’?

We both only had the Nexus left. I play many ‘messy’ games in solo queue. Seeing the situation, I thought we could finish, so we lured them to be conscious of Baron. Tarzan did well sneaking in.

From what we know of, you’re really close friends with Khan. Did you talk to him before the match? Any friendly banter?

We just had a regular conversation; he told me I lost a lot of weight. After we won, I just hugged him. Since Khan is really competitive, he should be pretty angry. More than anything, I think Khan did extremely well today. I respect him; I just wanted to hug him out of respect rather than say anything.

This was probably the most difficult match of this season, but you won it. Can we expect an undefeated championship?

All the other teams’ prowess has come up now so it won't be easy. We won’t fall careless and maintain our performance, play to our style. We’ll be fixing the little mistakes we made in previous matches.

Lastly a word to your teammates and fans?

I was sorry to my teammates and the fans for today’s match. My teammates were so good and they made up for my bad performance. I won’t be complacent and show better performance. I’m thankful for always supporting us.