On day 36 of the 2022 LCK Spring split, Gen.G took down DWG KIA 2-1 in the ‘Match of the Week’. Baek “Ophelia” Jin-seong subbed in as the team’s mid laner tonight, due to Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon testing positive for COVID, thus being out of commission. Even so, he and the rest of Gen.G’s starting lineup was able to take down after a full three-game series.

The jungler for Gen.G, Han “Peanut” Wang-ho, joined Inven Global for a post-match interview. 

Thoughts on getting the rematch victory against DK?

Personally, I think I performed really well tonight. I even thought, “Why am I playing so well tonight?” I feel happy about my performance, and it gives me hope that we were able to beat DWG KIA even without our full starting lineup. 

Ophelia started in the mid lane today for Chovy. The last time you played with subs, you stated that the team didn’t even have proper time to prepare. Tell me about how the preparation process went with Ophelia this time around.

When Ruler came back for scrims, he was in very poor condition. With tonight’s lineup, we played about eight games of scrims, with about six of them being actual practice. Even still, Ophelia absorbed everything, listened well, and even made the proper in-game calls, so tonight’s game went as smoothly as it could have.

Prior to tonight’s match, what sort of in-game advice did you give Ophelia?

It was mostly detailed things, such as the vulnerable timings as a mid laner, where to ward level 1, and where he should be heading after he recalls.

How would you rate Ophelia’s performance tonight?

Especially as a rookie, simply not being nervous on stage was his biggest merit tonight, so he played very well tonight.

Game 1 saw Gen.G put more priority on dragon stacks while DWG KIA got more Barons, while game 2 was kinda flipped in terms of objective priority. When did the game plan fall apart?

In terms of game 2, we just ended up losing so much bot priority. We were bleeding from our bot side, so we tried to gain as many advantages as we could on the top side. There were moments of slight miscommunication between Ophelia and I, but when factoring in how many actual matches that he played in the LCK, I feel that Ophelia played very well. Even when we were down, we kept talking about how we’re going to play out the game, what our win conditions were, and when we needed to take the fight. 

Game 3 saw Nidalee from Canyon. As a pick that’s fallen off the current competitive jungle meta, what went through your mind when Canyon locked it in?

I feel that both Viego and Nidalee felt comfortable in the matchup, because they both had different roles within their team. I thought that Canyon would actually play an AD champion, so when he locked in Nidalee, I was a bit confused at first. At the same time, I was relieved that he locked in Nidalee, because I felt that Nidalee was misplaced in DK’s game 3 team comp.

In both times Gen.G played DWG KIA this split, the series was decided by the game 3 elder drake teamfight. Was it purely coincidence that both of those teamfights started with Lehends dying?

[Laughter] It’s purely coincidence. In terms of Lehends dying right at the beginning of that teamfight, both team compositions were very volatile, in a sense where any player could’ve gotten bursted down. However, it’s not like they were just going to hand us kills on a silver platter, so it’s purely coincidence. 

The rematch that everyone’s really looking forward to is against T1 with the full starting lineup. With the rematch most likely happening in the playoffs, how do you foresee the matchup?

Personally, whenever I play with my team, it feels like I’m continuing to find things I need to improve on. Just like how it was with Nongshim last year, it feels like our team’s continuing to get better, so I think it’ll positively impact the rematch against T1.

Assuming that Gen.G wins the Spring split and makes it to MSI, are there any teams/players you want to face?

I have way too many candidates, but If I had to choose, I want to face RNG Wei and EDG Jiejie. I think both teams have great support-jungle synergy.

In my previous interview with Oner, he stated that the LPL has a very different playstyle from that of the LCK. What can you tell us about some of the playstyle differences between the two regions?

I personally don’t think the two regions are too different from one another, but the one thing I will say is that the LPL’s a little bit more aggressive.

Gen.G’s next matches are HLE, Fredit BRION, and KT Rolster. What does Gen.G need to work on to win the remaining matches?

Even if we don’t end up winning the upcoming matches, I still want us to perform well. I think that we’re minimizing the amount of mistakes that we make, and since we all have our sights very high, we always think how we need to play in the matches that really matter. However, we’re not perfect, so we’ll continue to look to reduce the number of mistakes that we make.