On the 1st of October(KST), the Play-In Stage of the 2018 League of Legends World Championship officially began, at the newly established LoL Park in Seoul Korea. Having played games 2 and 6 against G-Rex and Kaos Latin Gamers respectively, Gambit Esports finished Day 1 with a score of 1-1. On his first day at Worlds, Diamondprox played Gragas and Taliyah, engaging for his team in teamfights. 

The following is an interview with Gambit Diamondprox.

How were today's matches?

Today's matches were pretty interesting, probably for both us and the viewers. Our own draft was planned pretty well, but we didn't expect some of the enemy picks. They surprised us, and we made some poor plays; those two made us struggle. We managed to slightly come back [in game 1], but it wasn't enough. 

In game 2, we had a really good draft, and we played really well -- except my early jungle pathings. 


Who was the best player today in Gambit? 

I think our best player was our top player. He played really well during the laning phase. 


You've been to Worlds a countless amount of times. You've been a part of the scene for a really long time. How does it feel being such a long-time veteran?

During my career, there were both times where I loved this game, and times where I hated this game. I loved being a professional player, and I hated being a professional player. Also, there were times where I loved Riot, and times where I... (Laughs) 

It was really tough for me in the past few years, trying to come back to perform at the highest level. I couldn't get into a good team. Although Gambit did miraculously construct a good roster before, we still failed at Worlds. The past few years have been very hard for me -- I was getting exhausted from how hard everything was. Due to it, I couldn't enjoy the game like how I used to. 

However, this exact moment, for the past few months, I have been really enjoying this game. A big reason why I began enjoying League of Legends again is that Riot did a great job of making this game better in the past one and a half years. 

The Rune changes, the new champions that came out, and the balance changes. Right now, I think Riot knows exactly how each role should impact the game. When Lee Sin was the strongest jungler, what Riot did was nerf him instead of buffing other jungle champions because Lee Sin was the only champion that was relative to playing other roles. For example, he was able to actually play fine against some other champions such as melee top lane. Lee Sin had like a 90% usefulness, whereas other junglers were at like 50%. But from this point, instead of buffing other jungler, Riot nerfed Lee Sin. 

Currently, Riot brought junglers to be about maybe 80% usefulness. You no longer have like half of your champion pool at 50%. That's why the game is very enjoyable for me.

You seem to think opposite to a lot of streamers and professional players that have recently been very vocal about the game being less and less enjoyable to play. 

I don't think they understand the game that well. (Laughs)


Do you have any last words to say to your fans?

A big reason why I still enjoy this game is that of the fans. Thank you so much for cheering for us. There are some people that still message me on SNS. I still read them, and it cheers me up, even during the hardest times. That's why I'm really thankful for everyone to cheers for us.