“I want to become a Ditto-like player.”

When Choi “Zeus” Woo-je joined Inven for an interview, Zeus mentioned the No.132 Pokemon out of the blue. When he said "Ditto", I glanced at his face. Although he had a bit of a mischievous expression explaining about Ditto, what he was saying was quite serious.

In League of Legends, the game’s direction changes with every patch. In Zeus’ words, “the taste changes”. By saying he wanted to be like Ditto, he meant that he wanted to become a player that can change flexibly following every meta change. Zeus wanted to play well regardless of the meta.

“I like damage champions, but I like tanks as well. So I don’t mind the meta changes much. Even in the next patch, I’ll prepare well in the direction the team wants — whether it’s a damage champion or a tank champion.”

In this day’s match, Zeus had a great performance playing both damage and tank champions. In game 1, he had an amazing performance playing Fiora, and was voted the Player of the Game. In game 2, he played Sion and deleted the presence of the opponent laner. Although Zeus is great at being both the sword and the shield, it seemed that it took a bit of time when he had to change forms. Zeus said that when he played Sion in game 2, he lacked the mindset of being a shield.

“When I played Sion today, I missed about 15 CS when there were 25. When I played that, I thought Sion really sucked. [Laughs] I’m confident when fighting in teamfights or skirmishes, but I think I should focus on my laning more.”

Zeus has grown to be one of the best top laners in the LCK. One of the secrets behind his performance was “1v1 special training”. Whenever Zeus was curious about champion matchups or counters, he played 1v1 with players around him to find the answers. Some of the players that played 1v1 with Zeus were Liiv SANDBOX Noh “Burdol” Tae-yoon and Kwangdong Freecs Lee “DuDu” Dong-ju.

“I need to be fully convinced about the matchup to make good plays, so I ask to play a LOT of 1v1s with players that I’m close with. Every top laner has their own way of practicing, but for me, I like to train myself through 1v1s.”

With Zeus’ top-notch performance, T1 has been sailing pleasantly with a 7-1 record. Their last match in the 1st round will be against Liiv SANDBOX. Zeus spoke about his connection with Burdol, and said that he wanted to have a great match. 

“I knew that Liiv SANDBOX would do well, but I didn’t think they would do this well. Burdol and I got close since Worlds last year. We communicate a lot and play a lot of 1v1s. I’m happy that we will be facing each other, and I hope we both play well.”

Lastly, Zeus concluded the interview by talking about his expectations for the 2nd round of the spring split. 

“I hope I can keep playing well through the 2nd round and get good results.”