On the 17th (KST), Afreeca Freecs defeated SANDBOX Gaming 2-0 in the first match of the 2020 League of Legends Champions Korea Summer Split. Jin “Mystic” Seong-jun recorded a pentakill from the first game of the season. After the match, the team’s captain, Lee “Spirit” Da-yoon sat with Inven for an interview.

Congratulations on today’s win. How do you feel?

Both us and SANDBOX Gaming were considered as weaker teams, so it was really important to win in today’s match. It’s a relief that we won. I’ll do my best to beat the remaining teams as well.

Why do you think SANDBOX picked Jarvan IV in the first game?

They probably needed a champion to pressure Aphelios. As you know, it’s hard for Jarvan IV to do anything when there’s Trundle, so that’s why people were surprised. If Jarvan IV was able to scale well in the early game, it would have been alright, but if not, it gets really difficult.

Mystic’s Aphelios was amazing. Did the team feed him the penta?

We didn’t even know it was a quadrakill after the fourth kill. Kiin told us that there was one more. That’s how it happened.

Many LoL users are complaining about Aphelios’ strong damage. As a player, how do you think he is?

During scrims, I didn’t think Aphelios is that OP. But after watching Mystic play today, he may be really OP. Mystic played a lot better than scrims today.

It may be because it’s just the start of a season, but there were big and small mistakes. What was the most regretful in today’s match?

We were really wrecked in Round 2 last season. We weren’t able to quite fix everything yet, so there were regretful moments. Though, since we had a satisfying win, we would be solving our problems with confidence.

Afreeca Freecs tend to do well early in the season, but lack concentration towards the end. What do you think?

That seems about right. We often were caught up in small things. Despite that we have many veterans, we made many rookie-like mistakes. This time, we tried to look after each other more during our preparation.

It was a regretful season for Afreeca Freecs. How did you motivate yourselves for the summer?

Except for Kiin, many members of the team are at an age where they may have to consider retirement. We all need to prove our values. So we’re all doing our best thinking it’s the last time.

Many players watched the Mid-Season Cup, learned and felt many things. What did you feel watching the MSC?

When I was watching, I thought, ‘players could be that good’. Watching the MSC, I felt that the Korean players, especially the mid laners, were scary good and thought I need to work harder. It made me really want to get to international competitions.

With a good start, what’s your goal for the first round?

Since we didn’t do that well during the second round last season, my goal is to beat all teams thinking that they’re all above us.

Lastly, a word to the fans?

We had a satisfying 2-0 win at the beginning, showing decent performance to the fans. We’ll return with performances that fans would really like. Thank you.

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