Samsung Galaxy AD Carry Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk had a different dream opponent for the League of Legends World Championship grand final than many might expect.
Samsung defeated Longzhu Gaming in a stunning 3-0 result Thursday to reach the semifinals of worlds. In a video interview with Fomos’ Park Sang-jin, Ruler said he didn’t expect the match to end in the way it did.
“I never would have dreamed that we would win this hard, so I’m happy we managed to pull it off,” he said with a smile.
Samsung was considered to be the underdog in the matchup, as Longzhu was Korea’s top seed at worlds after winning the League Champions Korea summer split championship and beating three-time world champion SK Telecom T1 along the way. Longzhu then went undefeated in the group stage of worlds, the only team to do so.
The win seems to have been spurred by a change in gameplay philosophy in the bottom lane, which Ruler said was a result of questions regarding how Samsung’s bot lane changed lane advantages to the rest of the map.
“As the bottom lane I’ve often heard people say that we’re good in the lane but that we don’t contribute to the team,” he said. “So we tried shifting our strategy to helping other lanes, and it worked very well.”
Samsung’s semifinals opponent will be the winner of the quarterfinals match between Cloud9 and Team WE. When asked which team he would rather face in the semifinals, Ruler said that he wanted to face the bottom lane of WE.
“I hope WE makes it out,” he said. “Since their bottom lane is so strong, I’ve been talking endlessly about how I wanted to face a strong bottom lane, so I hope to face them next.”
WE’s bottom lane of Jin “Mystic” Seong-jun and Nam “Ben” Dong-hyun has impressed at worlds with high caliber mechanical plays in the group stage. With the power of Ardent Censer, the bottom lanes have been a main focus during worlds, and Ruler seemed more than happy at the prospects of playing WE.
As for Ruler’s dream opponent in the grand finals? His thoughts are aimed at revenge — but not against the SKT team that defeated Samsung Galaxy in last year’s finals. Instead, Ruler said he wants another shot at Royal Never Give Up, which won Group C over Samsung.
“I want to take revenge,” he said. “They were incredibly good, and I wish to play against them again.”