Fnatic played a very close game against SK Telecom T1 on Day 2 of the Mid-Season Invitational Group Stage. Despite a potential bug around Baron pit, they were able to recover and go on to defeat Besiktas to qualify for the semifinals. After defeating the International Wild Card team, Reignover took a moment to discuss his reaction to the bug and his thoughts on the Mid-Season Invitational overall.

Hello, how are you?

Doing really good.

How do you feel about the visual wall bug in the game against SK Telecom T1?

How do I feel? Hmm, when that happened to me, I didn't know exactly what happened to me, so I was confused. This was the first time this has happened to me in a competitive game, so I said to my team, "Oh I think I got bugged," but I just kept playing.

Did that hurt your morale, or did you just bounce back?

During the game, I had to focus, but after the game ended, I knew the game was lost at that moment because SKT got Nashor. I felt really down, and maybe I was tilting after that.

Well, you did manage to regroup after that to beat Besiktas and make the semifinals, so congratulations. The game between AHQ and SKT is actually very close right now, so it might not be clear who you face in the semifinals. Between AHQ, Edward Gaming, and SK Telecom T1, which team would you rather face, and which team do you have the best chance against?

The Chinese team is really strong early game, and our weaknesses come out early game, so I want to avoid EDG mostly. I don't know if AHQ is a really good team or not since we didn't scrim them, and we made a lot of mistakes against them. So I don't know about AHQ. Against SKT, I feel like I get more nervous because they're a Korean team, but after playing them once, we got confidence, and in recent scrims we win most of our games. We have scrimmed SKT, so I would prefer to face them since I don't know how AHQ will play.

So your preferred opponent of the other three teams is SK Telecom T1, then?

Yes.

You said before that you believe the recent patch change helped you since you like to play tank junglers. Do you think this is still the case on 5.7?

After 5.5, before the tank item was nerfed, the gromp effect was really good too. At that time, tank junglers could beat early game junglers even if early game junglers get early game kills. Before, if early game junglers get kills, tank junglers cannot do much.

Now, it's about half-half. Junglers like Rek'Sai have an advantage if you make plays early game. Tank junglers are safe and really good for team fights, but if it's a strong team against a strong team, I think it comes down to the early game.

In Playoffs semifinals, every team will try to get strong early junglers rather than scaling junglers, but both are really important.

Is Rek'Sai the champion you feel the most comfortable on in the current meta?

I am confident on every champion almost equally, but I play Rek'Sai the most. It depends on champion counters. It depends on what the enemy team picks. If they pick laners with dashes, Rek'Sai might not be as good, since she won't get as many early kills. It depends on the draft.

You were the first team in the Group Stage to play Team SoloMid. Did you feel confident that you could beat them?

Before the match against TSM, we wanted to scrim against them, but they avoided scrims with us, so we didn't really know how strong they are. We were hearing that TSM was beating EDG and SKT in their scrims, so we were a bit scared, but we had confidence in ourselves that we can play well. Then we played, and they were not as good as we expected — or maybe we were just lucky, but we just played our game, and we won.

Of the junglers at the tournament, which one has been the most difficult to play against?

I haven't had a hard time against any junglers. The three games we lost — against SKT, I felt fine, but against AHQ and EDG, they weren't games where we had an equal start. They got so many bottom side kills. I was busy following up. I'm not worried about who I face. I think they're good, but I can play as well as they do. I don't really have a feel for who was good.

I think your game against SK Telecom may have been the closest of the tournament so far. Why do you think the games have been mostly one-sided?

The best team from each region is playing. All teams know how to really snowball an advantage, so it's really hard to come back against them. SKT is the first team that came back from behind. Every other game one team just knew how to snowball an advantage, so that's why I think it's been one-sided.

Do you think a weakness of a lot of the teams here is that they might not know how to come back?

Teams here know how to come back, but very few of their opponents make mistakes, so it's really hard to actually come back.

Since the early game is so important, do you feel comfortable just picking early game champions? Do you have other strategies prepared besides being focused on the early game that you've saved?

Of course there are other cards I didn't show in the best-of-ones. I think my strength is in the early game, but I'm really good in the mid game and the late game too. I usually scale better than the enemy jungler by one or two levels and more items, so even if I don't get points in the early game, I still can perform really well.

What made you decide to come to Europe and play for Fnatic?

I was trying out for SK Telecom T1, but the regulations changed in LCK, so I couldn't play on SKT. At the time, most other teams had also already finished tryouts. I went home and didn't know what to do. Huni went to Fnatic first, and he told me to come. They offered me a good option. There was no reason for me not to go. I know how to speak English, and I have no problem living in a foreign country, so I just decided to try playing in Europe.

What are your chances 1) of advancing to the finals, and 2) winning the entire tournament?

It depends on who we face. I think our team is stronger in best-of-fives. Our champion pool is large, and we have YellOwStaR, who never tilts, no matter what happens. He'll know what to do in every case. Even if we lose one game, it's going to be hard, but I think we have a chance to beat any team.

Thank you very much, Reignover, and good luck tomorrow.

Kelsey Moser is a staff writer for the Score eSports and recent convert to #EUphoria (though she hasn't quite gotten the hang of it). You can follow her on Twitter.