2023-05-06 01:00:01
“It seems to be a moderately tense and burdensome tournament. I will go well with the heart of a challenger.”
T1’s long-distance dealer ‘Kumayushi’ Min-hyeong said this at Incheon International Airport on the morning of the 5th to attend the ‘2023 Mid-Season Invitational (MSI)’. On this day, the T1 team, which boarded a plane to London, England, will start their tournament schedule from the bracket stage (quarterfinals) starting on the 9th. MSI is an international tournament in which 13 teams that have qualified for the LoL eSports regional league compete for the championship trophy. T1 competes in the tournament as the 2nd seed in the Korean region according to the rules of the tournament where the right to participate is given up to the 2nd place in the league.
This is the first time Lee Min-hyung expressed his feelings of pressure ahead of a tournament. He is a player characterized by strong self-confidence and confidence. After his debut in 2021, he used to pick T1 as the favorite to win in every tournament without hesitation.
Lee Min-hyung said, “I feel a lot of pressure because I won runner-up four times in a row. Until now, if I played games with the thought of ‘I can do well’ or ‘I will win’, I think I’m going to play with a slightly different mindset this time around.”
T1 has only finished runner-up in three consecutive tournaments since MSI runner-up in Busan last year. In this spring season, despite finishing the regular league with an overwhelming record of 17 wins and 1 loss, they knelt down to Gen.G eSports (Gen.G) in the playoff finals.
For T1, this tournament is a good opportunity to soothe the disappointment of repeated runner-ups and the spring season.
Lee Min-hyeong said, “I learned a lot during the runner-up. He also thinks he has to change a lot. Even though there are obviously many things left behind, it seems that the regrets left behind following finishing runner-up are the same. I think it should be changed to words this time,” he emphasized. He said, “The most important thing is to keep the mindset from start to finish. Even at the time of the spring season, that part was insufficient not only in the finals but also in the middle process,” he added.
This year’s MSI has undergone significant changes to the tournament format. The bracket stage will be held in a double elimination system with 5 premises divided into a winner’s bracket and a loser’s bracket. It is a burdensome schedule in which multiple premises are unfolded several times in a short period of time.
Lee Min-hyeong said, “The schedule is tight,” and “I think a team that is good at managing their condition will have an advantage. We are working hard to adapt to jet lag quickly. From yesterday, I adjusted my condition according to the London time.”
Lee Min-hyeong cited Gen.G and Jingdong Gaming of the Chinese Professional League (LPL) as teams to be wary of in the tournament. Jingdong is also a team where Jae-hyeok “Ruler” Park, a long-distance dealer who dominated the league last year, is in charge. Lee Min-hyung, who usually showed respect for Park Jae-hyeok, said, “I wonder if his style has changed following going to the LPL and what his skills will be like. It would be nice if we might fight and win.”
Lee Min-hyung did not hide his confidence in the MSI meta, which is progressing with patch 13.8. He said, “I think I have good proficiency with the distance dealer champions currently emerging in the competition. I am confident. I thought I might become a long-distance dealer carry meta, so I had to do well.”
Meanwhile, Lee Min-hyung said in a personal broadcast earlier that he wanted to shed tears regardless of whether he won the MSI or not. He has never shown tears of joy or regret in the competitions he has participated in so far. Lee Min-hyung said, “If you have calmly accepted defeat or victory, you seem to have a little bit of greed that you really don’t want to miss this time, that you really want to win this time. I said this in the sense that I wanted to put a little more emotion into this tournament. I want to work with all my heart,” he confessed.
Finally, he said, “I have painful memories from MSI last year. I want to show a contrast this time. If the long-distance dealer carry meta comes, I want to show the feeling of ‘Kumayushi’ carrying the team.”
Reporter Moon Dae-chan mdc0504@kukinews.com View articles
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