This interview was too good and too interesting to pass up, and it would have been a shame for English readers to not be able to read them. So, here’s the translation of an interview with Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyun, hosted by Daily eSports’ Nam Yoon-sung.

*Important Note* This is a collection of only the questions and answers.

Original article here: http://www.dailygame.co.kr/view.php?ud=2018021508251111110

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Q. When did you decide to become a professional gamer?

A. I’m the youngest of three siblings. As both of my brothers were gamers, so I had plenty of opportunities to interact with games. I was also a gamer my entire life. I got to know LoL during my senior year of highschool. I was in the school dorms to get ready for university, and my friends were really into LoL at the time. I tried not to get too deeply into it, but I could help it.

Q. If you were in a school hosted dorm, you must have been successful academically.

A. The school put me into it as it judged I would able to enter a 4-year college in Seoul. As I got into LoL I couldn’t focus on my studies and entered into a Hotel Management major in my university. When I got into uni, I put even more time into playing LoL. My ranking went up, and Najin e-M Fire contacted me. I was in the middle of midterms but I skipped out on school so I could tryout for Najin. I then immediately moved into the gaming house.

Q. What does Najin mean to you?

A. It’s the place that taught me how to be a professional gamer. I thought it would be more liberating to live as a pro-gamer than a university student, but I was convinced otherwise. There are more things to keep in mind and things that I had to do as I was doing something I love as a profession. Things that I had to take care of because I became a “pro” gamer. I learned how to have the best life as a pro gamer from head coach Park Jeong-seok, one of the first generation pro gamers, and I learned the game from people I’ve only seen on TV, like Zefa and Save. I think that the reason why I could have continued to improve during my career thanks to my time with Najin.

Q. Did you always like playing support?

A. I started as a mid laner, but I changed since supporting fit my personality better. I first learned LoL during season 2, and Ahri was a perfect fit for me. I improved my LP with Ahri, but I couldn’t keep it up as she got nerfed. So I switched to support.

Q. There must be stories from solo queue when you were an amateur.

A. I met my second teacher in Life, NoFe, during a game of solo queue when he was also a player. I was playing mid then and he heavily criticized me for not knowing how to coordinate with my jungler. I learned that I had to be more of a team player even in solo queue, and I started to feel the pressure as the mid laner, the center of the map.

Q. Was it hard to transition to a support?

A. I had a high understanding of ranged champions as a mid laner, so I was able to easily transition with meta support champions at the time, such as Lulu and Sona.

Q. You made it to worlds in 2014 as a member of Najin.

A. It was a miracle that we made it to worlds at all. We didn’t really do that well in the LCK, but we were able to qualify for a chance at worlds thanks to the circuit points we had. I felt like the team was doing much better as we played through the regional tournament, and that reached its peak when we took down SKT T1 K, the previous world champions. We made it to quarters after a tight run during worlds, including a tiebreaker against Cloud9. When we met OMG, we lost 0–3 without being able to do anything. I cried my heart out backstage. I was a member of Najin Shield, but it was like I didn’t have the drive to win. I was frustrated feeling that I wasn’t able to show anything of myself and I started to grow my own competitive spirit.

Q. Is that why you moved teams?

A. After the 2014 season a lot of problems came one after the other. The biggest one was that all the teams would be consolidated into one. At the time, Cain was a member of Najin. I wanted to avoid competing against a player who was my senior for a long time. I was considering of going to a team that needed me because I thought we would get in each other’s way, and that’s when I heard NoFe was making a team and I moved there.

Q. What were your thoughts about the team at the time? (GE Tigers)

A. All the players that NoFe recruited had one thing in common. They were all players that had a lot of potential, but like me, haven’t been able to reach their respective peaks. I thought that if we can really work together, we could pull off something ridiculous.

Q. There were stories of difficulty.

A. At first the company support was great. It was a streaming platform, and it was a place where streamers and MCNs could have their brands built. They could have been more strict, but they gave the gaming teams a lot of autonomy. The rumors weren’t great around 2015 worlds. It wasn’t known to the public, but the support from the company dried up. The team was running on the hungry mentality and more concerned with trying to make something happen. Coming in second might seem disappointing on paper, but considering what we went through, it was close to a miracle.

Q. Do you have any memories surrounding 2015’s worlds?

A. We had a week free after making it to semis, but because there were a lot of articles saying that we were going to disband due to problems with the sponsor company. We were doing our best to not let our mentality waver right as the finals began. When we got on stage, the European fans cheered for us by chanting “Koo.” I understood it as the crowd wanting the underdog to win, and their support touched me as we were the weaker team going in. This is the moment when I thought I wanted to go on as many big stages as I can.

Q. You went on to make it to worlds again in 2016.

A. It was under the ROX Tigers banner. The managing company changed, but the players were mostly the same and we stopped at semis even though we were looking to win the whole thing. I do like being the ‘regular’ of worlds, but I thought that it was meaningless unless I won the tournament. It was personally a challenging year. I felt sorry because I thought we were doing worse due to my personal performance. There were stories that the team would disband afterwards, and we all went our separate ways since.

Q. You had a lot of anticipation going into 2017 as you moved to Longzhu with Pray.

A. Many fans were expecting great things from me, but I couldn’t respond to them in the Spring split. It was because the Pray-rilla lane underperformed. I think we couldn’t structurally be successful in the spring split. The players and the companies couldn’t focus. Everything was more flustered, as the process had a couple of hiccups.

Q. Your team ended up winning the LCK summer split, the time when the team was most undervalued.

A. After the disappointment that was the spring split, Pray and I promised each other something. It was that we had to prove that our bot lane was the strongest in the world, no matter who else joined the team. We agreed that as long as we played well, we could create an environment where the other lanes can also succeed, and keep being competitive. We also talked about leading the team and setting a good example as the veteran players.

Q. Does this mean the success was thanks to the two veteran players coming together?

A. We all did what we were supposed to do. I think we were able to win the summer split thanks to the great plays all of the new players made. I’ve always thought Bdd was a player with vast potential since the spring split. Although he didn’t play much in China, the strong laning style of Khan gave us a lot of anticipation, and the aggressive jungling of Cuzz gave us that last bit of color to our play style. On top of that they were all easy to get along with, and made the team atmosphere better. People outside of the team predicted that we would be all over the place going into the summer, but we all thought we could make it to the playoffs.

Q. What was the most memorable game in 2017?

A. The LCK summer finals against SKT T1. We couldn’t reach to the point we wanted to in 2015 and 2016 due to the wall that was SKT, but we had a good performance during the finals. The team did very well, but I was personally happy with my own performance. Khan was the MVP of the finals, but I honestly thought it could have come my way as well.

Q. Winning worlds wouldn’t have been that impossible of a goal.

A. I thought it was our strongest ever right before we made it to China for worlds. There were many moments when I was convinced that we could win regardless of who our opponents were, I think expectations were at an all time high in 2017.

Q. There were evaluations that Longzhu was the favorites to win worlds that year, seeing as you went undefeated into the round of 16.

A. The players who have never made it to worlds really stepped up. They didn’t get nervous even for the LCK finals, and still kept it together during worlds too. But quarters was a different story. As Samsung really started doing well, we had no way of dealing with them.

Q. What was different between LZ and SSG?

A. CoreJJ just played amazingly well. Even when their team lost, he made some breathtaking plays in the bottom lane each time. I always knew CoreJJ was good with Zyra and Taric, but his Taric play hit a golden age during worlds.

Q. How do you compare to CoreJJ?

A. If I am a traditional support, he is a support that transitioned from AD Carry. Before our match at worlds I thought I would edge out on top based on my experience, but I learned a lot after out loss. CoreJJ taught me that I mustn’t be overconfident and complacent. I went up against tough opponents like Wolf and Mata in 2017, but the CoreJJ I faced during worlds was like a mountain in my path. It was a moment that I realized I shouldn’t judge just based on past accomplishments.

Q. 2018’s King Zone Dragon-X is now powerful in a whole new fashion. What changed?

A. Going into 2018, we minimized any changes to the roster. We kept the original roster and we bolstered with the addition of Peanut. Both junglers would be classified as aggressive, but they have small differences in style. They’re both learning from their shortcomings and improving. On top of this the former jungler Sin joined as a coach, so the feedback for the jungle has been much more detailed and improved. Peanut shared the ways of feedback he learned during his time with SKT, and feedback has been much more plentiful as Sin had a lot of conversations with Peanut. I think there’s a synergy there.

Q. Isn’t it hard living and working with younger players?

A. I’m not exactly old, so it’s not that hard. *laugh* There are moments when I think my early career was much different from the newer generation of pro gamers. When I joined Najin among names like head coach Park Jeong-seok, Expession, Pray, Cain, Ssong, Save, etc, made me feel a bit intimidated. Bur players nowadays don’t let fame of other players impact them. They have the confidence that they can beat anyone, and they show their own mettle as players too. I think they’re much bolder than I was at my early career.

Q. As a person who was born in the year of the dog, how do you feel going into the year of the golden dog?

A. I’m not feeling anything special. Other than the fact that my old age is now public? *laughs*

Q. What are your goals for 2018?

A. As a player and as captain, the goal this year is to win worlds. I don’t think I need to explain any further. I personally hope it doesn’t end up being a year od regrets. There were always feelings of regret and disappointment, I hope people inside and out will be able to say “Gorilla did a fine job this year” regardless of our results as a team. I want people to think that during the smooth sailing of King Zone, Gorilla did a fine job as team captain.

Q. That response seems a bit too professional and team-based. Do you have strictly personal goals?

A. I set the goal to be a good person inside and out. I’ve been trying to lose weight through a diet recently. I was 66 kg when I started out, but I realized I blew up to 76 kg at some point. I started a diet out of shock, and I’m now down to about 68 kg. I found old pictures of me and saved them and compared them to when I gained weight as a way to motivate myself, and now I successfully dropped 8 kg. I am a bit proud that I was able to find the time to take care of myself even as a pro gamer.

Q. Do you have a role model?

A. My father. He’s currently the CEO of a company called Booxen, which was his first job. He’s worked there for 30 years, starting out as a regular employee and climbed to CEO. Pro gaming isn’t a career that’s going to last forever, and I will also one day retire, but I felt like I wanted to be a pro as long as I can by watching my father work.

Q. Are you looking after yourself for this specific goal?

A. Taking care of one’s self and health is necessary to be a pro gamer for a long time, but I also have a separate goal. I decided to give up on love to better focus on my career. I’ve never had a relationship, but I deeply reflected on the time I spent on trying to be in a relationship, and decided to not have one while I’m a player.

Q. This means you’re putting a love ban on yourself. Don’t you think it’s too harsh?

A. During worlds, CoreJJ was like a mountain in my way. In the already stacked opponents in Wolf and Mata, CoreJJ was added to that list. This season saw the surge of Tusin from Afreeca, and Ignar, who gained experience in Europe became a scary opponent from BBQ. The idea machines in MVP’s Max and ROX’s Key have also improved greatly. Just because I did well in the past doesn’t mean people will continue to value me in the same way going forward. They might actually think it’s time for me to crash down as I hit my peak. To keep my spot and continue to grow, I must focus more and work harder. To have no regrets, to remove that word from my vocabulary, there needs to be a sacrifice, and my sacrifice is a love life.