With the unexpected rise of Longzhu Gaming in the League Champions Korea summer split, mid laner Kwak “BDD” Bo-seong said that the whole team is secretly excited to win the tournament, a sentiment Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyun tried to quell.
Longzhu defeated the Jin Air Green Wings 2-1 on Thursday to take over first place in the LCK standings. As one of the MVPs of the match, BDD joined the post-game interview with OGN casters Kim “Dangun” Eui-joong and Lee “CloudTemplar” hHyun-woo. He said the team is excited about the prospects of winning the summer split but not outwardly so.
“We don’t talk about it aloud, but it feels like everyone is looking to win the summer split,” he said, as the casters started laughing.
GorillA, the other MVP, followed up with a warning about the players getting ahead of themselves, as there’s still time left for another team to win the regular season.
“We still have matches against KT and Samsung, so we need to stall the early celebration and need to focus on doing well in the coming matches,” he said.
Longzhu’s success is more astounding when taking into consideration how poorly the team has played since its inception. Longzhu finished seventh in the spring split and struggled throughout last year, too. After another rebuild in between splits, Longzhu has looked like a different team.
The match against Jin Air looked like it was going to be a 2-0, until Longzhu lost the lead and gave Game 2 to Jin Air in a comeback victory. GorillA talked about that game, specifically responding to a moment after the game in which AD Carry Kim “PraY” Jong-in looked dejected.
“We fell behind thinking that we should make plays to get more ahead, which is why I think we lost the game,” he said. “PraY dealt about 5K damage in Game 1, so he wanted to do really well, and he did look like he was going to hard carry Game 2. I thought that he would carry the game, but the character I had wasn’t good at keeping him safe, so I felt responsible.”
GorillA lived up to his title of “team mom” as he continued to praise the performances of BDD and top laner Kim “Khan” Dong-ha, even though he was the one nominated as an MVP of the match. Longzhu’s remaining two matches in the split are against heavy hitters KT Rolster and Samsung Galaxy, and an automatic berth in the summer finals is not out of the question.
Cover photo courtesy of Riot Games