“Without ‘Faker’, T1 thought this was a huge opportunity to seize”
DEPLUS Kia’s “showmaker” Heo-soo shares his thoughts on ending his eight-match losing streak against T1.
The Difference Kia earned a 2-0 victory over T1 in the second round of the League of Legends Champions Korea Summer 2023 at the Grand Seoul LCK Arena in Jongno-gu, Seoul on Saturday. With a hard-fought victory in both the first and second sets, the team snapped a two-year losing streak of eight straight matches against T1 and added another valuable win. In the match, Heo-soo played Nico and Yone to help his team to victory.
In a post-match interview, Heo-soo expressed his joy at breaking his eight-match losing streak in T1, saying, “For almost two years, we’ve been losing all the time, so the players, managers, and coaches have been preparing more than usual before each T1 match, and I’m very happy that it paid off.”
“We’ve been on a good run lately, and they’ve lost a key member of their roster, so we thought this was a great opportunity to get T1,” Heo added, “So I think we brought out a champion that we don’t normally do, like you guys today. Before the match, we thought that we could win if we played well enough, so we went into the match with the mindset of doing our own thing.” He spoke about the mindset he had before the T1 match.
True to his word, Heo-soo played Yone that day. Playing Yone, which he had only played once before in his LCK career, Heo-soo looked good in the early laning phase. However, he was disappointed with his performance in the second half. “It seemed like a good pick against the recent champions,” Hsu said of Yone, adding, “I also referenced the play of Kim ‘Zeca’ Gun-woo, who actively used Yone earlier. I thought it was worth practicing enough, and I thought Yone was a good fit for today’s combination overall, so I took it out,” he explained.
Heo added, “I’m not satisfied with (my performance). I think I played well in the early to mid game. But it’s hard for Yone to grow, and after he grows, he’s an explosive champion, so it’s a shame that he did the hardest thing and made a mistake in the easy part,” he said, adding, “I want to play one more game. I don’t want to give him a high score,” he said soberly. “I got cut off too much in the second half, and he had a survivor, which is a combination that you shouldn’t get into, but I think I didn’t see the survivor angle well enough later on,” he said.
Despite the disappointment, DePlus Kia’s next opponent is KT Rolster, who continued their recent good form against a strong team in T1. “I think KT is a really strong team,” he said, “and they can easily beat us. I don’t think we’ll be able to win easily with the way we played today,” and concluded the interview by saying, “We’ll have to practice well and prepare well.” 먹튀검증