Legacy Esports of the OCL moved on to the next stage near the top of the standings in the 2020 League of Legends World Championship play-ins. They put up a good fight against Team Liquid in the tiebreakers for first place, and ended up heading straight to the qualification round of the knockout stage. After they secured a spot in the knockout stage, top laner Kim “Topoon” Ji-hoon joined Inven Global and talked about how he felt moving on to the next stage.

Congrats! You’re headed to the knockout stage. How do you feel?

My goal for this whole year was getting to the group stage at Worlds. Now, I have just one more step to take. I’m really nervous, but at the same time, I’m extremely happy.

I saw you being interviewed by Jee-sun last time. You seemed really nervous. Are you less nervous now?

I just had another interview before this one, so I’m less nervous now. [Laughs]

You’ve played five games at Worlds now. Is the stage more comfortable than the start?

I still get really nervous on stage. Even so, I don’t think I was as nervous as the first match in our game against Team Liquid.

How long have you been in Australia? Tally mentioned that your English is really good.

It’s been about three years now. I can speak really fluently now.

You’re headed to the knockout stage. Did you predict that you’d do this well?

At first, I thought teams like MAD Lions or SuperMassive would be at another level compared to our team, but when we actually played against them, their performance wasn’t that far away from ours. But I think Team Liquid was at another level for sure. [Laughs]

You’ll be meeting Rainbow7 or LGD Gaming. Which team would you like to meet more?

I hope we get to play Rainbow7. Even if LGD’s form isn’t at their best, since they’re an LPL team, they would be really hard to play against.

They say “the gap is closing”. As a player from the OCL, do you feel that the gap is closing?

In the other group as well, teams like Rainbow7 won against the LPL. In our group, INTZ defeated Team Liquid. I agree that the gap is in fact closing.

As you said, Team Liquid was at another level. How was it playing against Impact?

Honestly, I thought I would be able to beat Impact. I thought that I would beat him on stage, but he was really good on stage. I was really surprised. He really seems like a player whose solo queue and performance on stage are really different. There's a reason veterans are veterans.

Are there any teams or players that you’d like to meet at this Worlds?

I’d like to meet TSM. One of my teammates, Halo is a TSM fan, so I think it would be really fun to play against them. I don’t think there’s any player that I’d like to meet, though.

Do you have any role models as a top laner?

I think Canna is a great player. I also watch Nuguri a lot and learn from him.

Ornn is quite hot in the top lane. He was undefeated until that last tiebreaker match. How is he?

If the team is aiming to play bot-centric, Ornn is the best champion.

Any last comments?

We’ll be moving on to best of fives. I really want to win to get to the group stages, so I’ll be doing my best to deliver good performances. Thank you.