Hanwha Life Esports defeats Jin Air Greenwings to continue their pursuit of playoffs. Jin Air was coming off of their first win of the season, taking down Afreeca Freecs to hint at the start of a resurgence. However, it was not enough to deter Hanwha Life today, who finished this series with a hard-fought 2-0.

Riot Korea interviewed Park “Thal” Kwon-hyuk and Gwon “Sangyoon” Sang-yun following the match.

Jin Air Greenwings claimed their first victory recently and was looking to continue their momentum. However, Hanwha Life must have been quite prepared.

Thal: I thought that Jin Air had quite a force behind them when I faced them last time. In today’s match, I think both teams did well.

Sangyoon this is our first interview since your 1000th kill in LCK. I believe your father is also here to watch the match.

Sangyoon: My father comes to watch often, so it’s not quite that surprising. For now, we are currently hanging over a cliff, where if we lose [today’s match] we lose our grip. So right now, every win matters for us.

How is the team’s atmosphere usually?

Sangyoon: Our team’s atmosphere is quite good. It’s always good, it’s just that we lose games… but the team environment is fine.

Thal, Irelia was picked against your Yorick in game 1. Irelia is able to get rid of Yorick’s ghouls quite quickly. What was it like playing against it?

Thal: We anticipated the Irelia counter pick when we locked in Yorick. I was confident piloting the Yorick pick and it worked out.

Yorick has been seeing quite a lot of plays recently, being put as a tier 1 champion currently. Do you agree with that?

Thal: Oh, I think it’s tier 1 because of me.

The top lane dive was quite spectacular. In the dive, I remember the timing was quite well done on Hanwha Life’s part. Can you tell us who planned it?

Thal: I saw that the wave was stacking [towards my opponent]. So I called for my jungler and mid laner to dive, saying “believe me”. We were able to get the kill easily, thanks to my team being there.

Weren’t you worried that Lindarang would back?

Thal: No, that was a wave that no top laner would abandon.

Sangyoon, your Kalista has been quite exceptional. Kalista is being picked more often nowadays; can you tell us the reason why?

Sangyoon: Kalista’s early laning phase is quite powerful, and the champion’s ability to secure objectives makes it a great pick.

Do you think it has decent synergy with Thresh?

Sangyoon: I think Kalista is quite good with all melee supports, like Alistar and Braum. Not ranged champions though.

Key was also quite impactful this series. Do you remember Key’s Thresh saving you when you were quite low on HP?

Sangyoon: If you want I’ll say I remember that.

In the Baron fight, it looked as if all of Hanwha Life would be backing off, but then a fight occurred.

Sangyoon: At first I thought “oh no, we’re in trouble. We have to retreat”, but then Lindarang made a mistake, missing the Q-E combo on Jayce. If that hit, it would have been quite bad for us. So that gave us a chance to rebound.

Hanwha Life’s synergy has been quite noticeable recently. Can you tell us how you maintain that level of teamwork?

Thal: It’s our family-like environment of course. Family[in English].

With the result of our next series [Kingzone DragonX vs DAMWON Gaming], planned to start at 8:00 PM KST, there could be another change in the rankings. Which team do you plan to support?

Sangyoon: I hope, just somehow, a disaster occurs and both teams lose that match [crowd laughs]. With minus ten match points.

How will you prepare for your next series [against DAMWON Gaming]?

Thal: Our next match is quite important, and we will prepare well. I think it’s Hanwha Life’s time to rise up [in rankings] so I will try my best to do just that.

Sangyoon: If we lose even a match, we have to start relying on other teams’ records, and since we had to do that in the last few splits, I hope this time we manage to go [to playoffs].