Those who had written off
Nongshim RedForce after their difficult spell following
Masters Santiago may have been too quick to judge. The Korean side secured a place in the top four of the
Esports World Cup by defeating
Team Vitality. Playing in front of their home crowd, the
French squad who reached the top four at
Masters London, claimed the opening map on Ascent, but Nongshim showed greater resilience on Split before completely taking control on Breeze.
Now just two victories away from claiming their second international title of the season, Nongshim will face either MIBR.LOS or 100 Thieves in the semifinals. Before that, the team's Duelist, Lee "Dambi" Hyuk-kyu, who once again delivered an outstanding performance, spoke with Sheep Esports to give his first impressions after the game.
What’s your first feeling after the game?
Lee "Dambi" Hyuk-kyu: “Yeah, it feels so good overall, to beat a super team like Vitality because that’s how they are called right now. And being able to play in front of a crowd at the really big stage in Paris is great. We are also two steps away from the title now. So yeah, overall I'm feeling really great.
Are you satisfied with your team’s performances in the tournament so far?
Dambi: I feel satisfied of my journey so far because I'm able to play on stage in front of the crowd. But that being said, we still are two steps away from the title which is obviously our ultimate goal, so I'm just going to go straight to it.
What are your chances to win now, and who should be your biggest opponent right now?
Dambi: Personally I feel that we have 90% chance of winning. Right now we don't have a big opponent that we feel pressured to fight against. But the only team that I feel we could lose to now might be BBL. They're very young, and they’re all playing really well individually. They have a very aggressive play style like us, in that way, we are very similar. So I think BBL might be the closest team to beat us.
A lot of international fans who didn’t follow VCT Pacific were surprised to not see your team in Masters London after a perfect start at the beginning of the year, what were the issues your team met during the Stage 1?
Dambi: After we won Masters Santiago, the meta shifted drastically, and we didn't have much time to prepare for that shift. So actually, I think it was more like a journey for us to find the right plays into shifting metas and we made a lot of mistakes and we missed some opportunities. We had a lot of missed opportunities that we should have had. So overall I feel like it was just a journey to get right back to the good path.
Is there any player in the world right now that you feel is underrated or should receive more praises? It can be from your team or any other.
Dambi: I would say Rb (Goo Sang-min). Rb needs more praise, I think, because he's a great team player, and he's the one who actually supports the rest of us. He's doing a lot of things for the team because the others are doing their own things and he makes things much easier for me or everyone else depending on what we want to do. So that's why we actually perform well and I think people are just seeing that I am doing good or Xross (Jung Hwan) is good or Ivy (Park Sung-hyeon) has really good shots, but, behind that, Rb's support is actually excellent at this level. So I think Rb needs more praise for that.”
