All five members of last year’s ROX Tigers have made the League Champions Korea playoffs on different teams. For Longzhu Gaming support player Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon, it will be fun to see which of them — if any — might meet his team in the finals.
After Longzhu secured first place and a berth in the finals by defeating Samsung Galaxy on Sunday, GorillA was invited to the post-match interview with SpoTV. He shared his thoughts about all his former teammates making it back to the LCK playoffs.
“I’m certainly happy that (the former members of ROX) are all doing well in their own teams,” he said, smiling. “Since we are in the position of waiting for them at the finals, we’ll have fun watching them fight among themselves on their way to us.”
Of last year’s ROX Tigers, who made the semifinals of the League of Legends World Championship before losing to eventual champion SK Telecom T1, GorillA and AD Carry Kim “PraY” Jong-in are with Longzhu, top laner Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho placed second with KT Rolster, jungler Han “Peanut” Wang-ho in fourth with SKT, and mid laner Lee “KurO” Seo-haeng in fifth with the Afreeca Freecs.
Sunday’s 2-0 victory against Samsung also saw a rare Gragas top pick from Longzhu’s Kim “Khan” Dong-ha, which was quite successful. GorillA said that it wasn’t necessarily a strategic pick, but more one based on faith.
“It wasn’t a strategy, more that Khan is really good with Gragas,” he said. “To the point when I play Gragas in solo queue, he teaches me what to do and I actually win. We went with our faith in him.”
Game 2’s MVP was Longzhu’s rising star Kwak “Bdd” Bo-seong, who managed to end both games with no deaths. His performance as Galio in Game 2 saw his successful roam to both top and bottom lane, getting the game rolling in Longzhu’s favor.
GorillA had high praise for his mid laner, who he said has performed admirably despite not having much experience before this split.
“It’s been a year since we were a team with Bdd, and we’ve been practicing with him at the beginning of the summer split,” he said. “I’m happy that he showed such growth so quickly, and I think he’ll do even better in future.”
Cover photo courtesy of Riot Games