FunPlus Phoenix knocked out Fnatic in the 2019 LoL World Championship Quarterfinals. Although Fnatic had a great run out of Group C, defeating both SK Telecom T1 and RNG on the last day, they weren’t able to continue that momentum in the knockout stage. After the match, they gathered for a press conference to answer questions from the media.

(To Rekkles) You won against Uzi in the group stage. Now you played against another LPL ADC. How did you see the individual matchup against LWX in this quarters?

Rekkles: I actually thought he was a lot better than expected. When I watched his group stage games, I didn't think he was that insane but at the same time, to win LPL, you have to be really good. 

His laning phase was really good, he was really smart about the waves and stuff. So he almost always had a CS lead on me, and I think he just played really well with his team. They set up a couple of 4-man dives on the bot lane; they just played really well together. 

That's something they have on RNG that they do better. When we played against RNG last week, they didn't really do that well together regarding lane to lane or lane to jungle. Meanwhile today, FPX was always on point with each other.

What's the biggest hurdle western teams have against eastern teams?

Broxah: I feel one thing that's really different when playing against an eastern team compared to a western team is that all these guys are really really high-level mechanically. They play really really well individually while having better teamplay most often. There are some western teams that play well together with really good mechanics, but many of these eastern teams have the whole package. 

As Rekkles said, they make really good plans and that we don't play at a really really high level individually while making even better plans is really hard to take them down and that's where we fell today.

(To Broxah) Would you be able to sum up this tournament and what was the biggest difference this compared to last year?

Broxah: I'm not sure exactly what the biggest difference this year compared to last year is. I think in week 1, we also had the problem of playing games passive; we were not aggressive enough. And week two, we turned it around and started to play really aggressive. I think today was a bit similar story of where we played too passive to begin with.

We had to bring it back but we didn't manage to bring it back in time. It was just so difficult after being down. I think we weren't as proactive and aggressive. We didn't really take the matter into our own hands as much as we did last year. We recognized that today after the second game, but that was too late.

(To Nemesis) This was your first year in international competition. Now that it has ended, how would you rate yourself this year?

Nemesis: I would rate myself pretty well; [I did] better than most people expected. I had high shoes to fill and I think I did fine.

The fans really exploded when Fnatic did well. Was that a motivator at one point?

Bwipo: Yes.

(To Broxah) There's a lot of talks about DAMWON and G2. DAMWON are the scrim gods of this tournament. Who do you think is going to take it tomorrow and how do you think DAMWON is and all the hype around them?

Broxah: I think it's a pretty hot match coming up tomorrow. It's going to come down a lot to momentum. For example, if DAMWON wins Game 1, I would they are going to take the series and the other way around. Both teams are really strong, but I think G2 has a really good show of actually taking it home.