The defending champions' undefeated run at the
Esports World Cup League of Legends tournament has come to an end.
were eliminated by
in Saturday's semifinal and will not compete in the tournament's Grand Final. Instead, they will face T1 on Sunday in the third-place match, a fixture more commonly associated with deciding the championship itself.
Following the defeat, two of the team's star players,
and
, spoke with
Sheep Esports to reflect on the end of their Esports World Cup campaign.
You had not dropped a single game in the tournament before today. What do you think DK did better than the other teams you faced?
Jeong "Chovy" Ji-hoon: “Compared to the other teams, I think the thing DK did particularly well was that they were simply better at the fundamentals of the game.
What did you prepare specifically for that series, and looking back at the game, what do you think went wrong for your team?
Chovy: They defeated Bilibili yesterday and advanced, and in terms of what we prepared for, it seemed like they had a preference for champions like Viktor and Poppy, so we paid attention to that. The thing that was disappointing was that I think we lost because our play was a bit too passive.
What would you say is ShowMaker’s main strength? What’s the most difficult thing to deal with when you play against him?
Chovy: ShowMaker's biggest strength right now is that his playstyle of not giving up easy deaths is very impressive. Recently, I've also been thinking that, as a midlaner, playing in a way that minimizes deaths as much as possible is a pretty good approach in the current meta.
Ruler, you picked Senna in Game 3. It’s not a champion we see very often in the current meta, so what was the idea behind this pick?
Park "Ruler" Jae-hyuk: The reason I picked Senna in Game 3 was that I thought she was a good pick into Lucian-Milio. Also, looking at both our composition and the enemy's composition, I felt that Senna had a lot she could do in that game. In practice, once we reached our power spike, there should have been several situations where we were able to push them back and maintain control, but that didn't happen. I think a big factor was that even when we had the advantage, we kept getting pushed back instead.
You’ll face T1 in the third-place match. Do you think the match will have the same level of intensity despite it being for third place, or will your approach be different?
Ruler: Tomorrow, we'll be playing T1 in the lower bracket finals, and I think my mindset is a bit different compared to usual. My approach feels different from how it normally is. Because of that, I think I'll spend a lot of time thinking about how I want to play, so I expect the game to feel different from previous matches.
Chovy: I'll do my best so that we can play well and win.”
