On the 15th, at the Hanoi Vietnam National Convention Center, the last of the 2019 MSI Group Stage matches were played. G2 Esports, who was leading the group in 2nd place, lost both of their matches on Day 5 and finished the group stage in 3rd place. In the upcoming knockouts, G2 Esports will play against SK Telecom T1. 

The following is an interview with G2 Esports' support, Mikyx.

Now that you're locked in for the 2019 MSI Knockout Stage, how do you feel?

It feels alright... it doesn't feel too good because we lost both games today. But at the same time, we were kind of trying out different things today, so it doesn't feel too terrible. We'll most likely play against SKT unless IG decides to pick us. 


Out of all the bot lanes that you played against, who left the biggest impression on you?

I really enjoyed playing against IG and maybe, PVB's bot lane. PVB's bot lane is a bit underrated. I think their support is really good. He's not that well-known, so not a lot of people recognize him. SKT's bot lane was alright, but they were kind of playing towards the top side of the map on our second game, so they were giving up on a lot of stuff during the laning phase. 


G2 had lost both their matches against Phong Vu Buffalo. Why do you think you guys struggled so much when playing against them?

We underestimated them on our first match. As for our second game, our draft was better than before, but I played really horribly on Rakan. We opted into a lot of 5 vs. 5 teamfights, even though we had drafted a splitpush comp.


What happened during your match against TL? What do you think caused G2 to lose?

I think our draft was a bit experimental. We didn't get a lot of practice on Corki, and we also haven't played Rek'Sai until today. We wanted to try these champions and see how it goes. And on top of that, we played Irelia, a splitpushing champ, whereas TL played a lot of teamfighting champs such as Galio, Vladimir, Jarvan, and Kai'Sa. 

It's also worth noting that we didn't have any lane priority, so TL was just pushing us nonstop while taking every objective - all the dragons and the Herald. In addition, we had little to no CC. The only reliable form of CC that we had was Rek'Sai's knock up and Irelia's 'E'. It was really hard for us to teamfight, and that's how we got behind in the early game.

Our match against TL wasn't too important, so it didn't feel too terrible... but it still felt kind of bad because you know, they're NA. (Laughs) 


Wunder has stated in an interview that TL and SKT's defensive playstyle brings consistent results against weaker teams, but they aren't used to the aggressive playstyle that IG and G2 bring. 

Usually, weaker teams can't snowball their leads in the early game, and SKT and TL are good at playing defensively, setting back and waiting for the enemy team to make a mistake. They don't try to force out fights as often as we do, so I think that could lead them to miss out on a lot of opportunities to capitalize on mistakes. IG and G2 are very aggressive, so I feel TL and SKT are getting caught off-guard. 


Any predictions for the knockouts?

IG is probably going to 3-0 TL. And as for us and SKT, I think it's going to be a close match, 3-2 in our favor. At the Finals, G2 against IG, I think it's going to be another close match, 3-2 in G2's favor. (Laughs) We'll give them two wins so that it's not too easy for us!

Jokes aside, both SKT and IG are formidable opponents, and we, G2, have been playing badly recently.  We'll need to work on our basics again before the knockouts, as we messed up a lot of the simplest things such as the 1-3-1 in our games. 

We have a lot of hidden pocket picks at ready, so hopefully, it works against them. 


Is there anything you want to say to your fans before heading off to Taipei?

I don't want the fans to worry about us because we just went 0-2 against arguably weaker teams.

I want to tell the fans "don't worry. We're going to be fine. Keep cheering for us. We'll do fine in the knockouts and potentially win it all."