Q: How does it feel to get into the round of 16 of the winners' bracket?A: Even though Kespa players haven't been having good results, I am personally quite confident. Even though it was ZvT, I had the confidence that I would win.
Q: Reality made it into the round of 16 as well in yesterday's games.A: His TvZ has always been really strong, and so I thought that he had a chance of qualifying for the next round even before the games. Watching him advance really gave me motivation to play well. I thought that I should be able to win as long as I don't make any mistakes which are too huge.
Q: You defeated a strong opponent.A: I had very little information about my opponent. My feeling is that my opponent is a more experienced player than I am, so I thought that I just had to be careful in the early to mid game and it'd be ok. While winning, I also got to see some strategies which I never saw or thought of before, and I learnt a lot.
Q: You were harassed really badly in the first game.A: I wanted to use the strategy that I was most confident in, but I was harassed so much by my opponent in the early game. Even though I tried really hard, it was still one-sided.
Q: You were harassed really badly by his hellions in the second game too. That put you in a pretty bad shape in early game.A: The early game for the second game was really tough too. However, I did not think I was in that bad a shape while I was playing in the game. I was confident of dragging the game into the mid-late game and defeat my opponent based on mechanics, and so I was working hard to readjust my mentality.
Q: The third game saw both of you playing really standard.A: The more a ZvT drags into late game, the more confident I become. As long as I can drag it into the late game, I have the chance of defeating my opponent. It was a good thing my opponent was playing really passively too, and as such I was able to win more easily.
Q: You are the only Kespa seeded player who made it to the round of 16 of the winners' bracket.A: Getting the seed actually makes me more stressed. I didn't play in the preliminaries, and I also almost never won in SPL. It made me quite ashamed to see myself get the seed. I would have had to find a hole to hide in out of embarrassment if I had performed badly today. Fortunately I managed to win.
Q: The players from Samsung team seem to be performing quite well in WCS.A: That's the case too in SPL. Our skill level in Starcraft 2 is improving at a fast rate in SPL, but recent defeats have led to a loss of confidence. But from what we can tell from the inside, our improvements have been really good. Currently, Reality is playing the best. As for me, I think I'm on a similar level as him (laughs).
Q; Your next opponent is either MC or Leenock.A: Looking at the brackets, I feel that even if I had made it past the winners' brackets games today, it'd still be very hard for me. But I feel that it'd be better to play against Leenock than MC. Recently, ZvP has been really hard. But my record in recent SPL against Zerg is also that of straight losses, so I don't really dare to say too much.
Q: Do you think Kespa players will begin to do better and better?A: I think that as long as we can live past the early-mid game, our ability in the late game is roughly the same as them. We are still mainly losing because we are not experienced enough, and the players in this tournament are all really experienced players. That's why I believe that it'll be better in the future.
Q: Any last things to add?A: I talked quite a lot regarding SPL in this interview. I'm losing a lot recently, and it makes me really upset. But I'm still confident in my abilities, and I hope everyone can believe in me. Everyone in our team is really working very hard.