Once again, T1 reigns supreme, advancing to the upper finals of the 2025 Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) upper finals. Following a dominant victory over Bilibili Gaming, Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok and Ryu "Keria" Min-seok sat down with the press to discuss the LCK's success at MSI, their upcoming matchup, and the standout players to watch at the tournament.

Faker, Gen.G are still undefeated. How are you planning to prepare for your next match against them?

Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok: "Throughout MSI, I could tell our teamwork has become very solid. Preparing for them will be about individual performance and making sure we’re in good condition on match day.

Who do you think was MVP today?

Faker: Oner

How would you evaluate your match-up against Knight today?

Faker: Today, things went more smoothly than I expected. There are minor parts I wish had gone better, but overall it was very good.

Your next opponent is Jeong "Chovy" Ji-hoon, who has had the edge against you domestically this year. How do you feel about this matchup, and what do you expect from yourself?

Faker: Chovy, the entirety of this year, has been displaying great performance. I'm really excited for it. Still, I feel I’ve been stepping up a lot throughout MSI. I’m anticipating a chance to finally beat Gen.G this time around because of that.

On stage, you said the match against BLG wouldn’t be as difficult as the one against CFO. What gave you that confidence—was it something in training, a team moment, or a strategic detail?

Faker: I thought that together as a team we were improving so much, so I was expecting even better games. Even if we struggled against CFO, I felt we were leveling up. I knew we were good enough to beat BLG.

Keria, you’ve played Gen.G many times in high-stakes matches. If you make it to the final, you might face them again. Would you welcome that rematch, or would you prefer to face a different team for a new challenge?

Ryu "Keria" Min-seok: We still have a match to play before we get to finals so I don't want to get ahead of myself and think of that. Gen.G is a very good team so I think we can have a great match, I'm very excited. This MSI has many very good teams so anyone can make it to the finals. No matter we are gonna face, we need to do our best preparations.

This was a rematch of last year’s World Final, where T1 also won. Have you noticed any changes in BLG’s playstyle or skill compared to then?

Keria: Last year, BLG was really strong — they still are this year. The main difference is obviously Xun (Peng Li-Xun). He had great synergy with ON (Luo Wen-Jun) and was very flexible on the map; they made a lot of plays. This year, I realized those plays don’t happen as much anymore, and they focus more on lane priority and pressure to convert that into a bigger snowball."