Translations provided by @swingchip930





Beginning his Overwatch career early in 2017, Lee "Water" Min-sung has competed across numerous regions playing for teams like MVP Space, Going Water S, GE Pantheon KR, and even playing for Legend Young Beyond in China. Now he’s brought his talents to North America and is a part of the Los Angeles Gladiators academy team, Gladiators Legion. Water spoke candidly with Upcomer about how his parents took the news about his budding esports career as well as his goals going into this season of Overwatch Contenders with Gladiators Legion.





I feel like people in the west don’t know you very well, so I want to go all the way back to the beginning and talk about your history with games. Did you have any previous experience in any other esports? Were you interested or did you follow other esports?





I don’t have experience in other esports. When I was seven, I played online games for the first time, but it was so fun, and that was when I started playing a lot of games. To be honest, Overwatch is the first game I started my pro career with. Other than that I used to play a lot of League so I used to watch a lot of their pro matches.





How did your parents handle the news that you wanted to pursue esports professionally?





When I first told them that I wanted to be a pro gamer they were vehemently against it. Even when I tried to convince them they refused to hear even a single word on the subject. I’m not sure why, but the parents in my generation really hate games, so convincing them or bringing up the subject of games is very difficult.









The one thing people might know you for is your Genji, so I wanted to know how you first start playing Genji? What was interesting about him as a character?





When Overwatch first came out I played it since the open beta. Back then McCree was OP so I played McCree a lot. But while I was playing, I ran into a good Genji player, and he deflected my Flashbang. And since then Genji looked extremely cool in my eyes. After that, when the competitive ladder came out for the first time, I won all 10 of my placement matches, reached 75 points, then won three more consecutive times, which put me in 4th place globally.





You’ve played in a number of regions so I wanted to take a little time and talk about some of your past experiences. The first time we heard about you, you were playing for MVP Space during Overwatch APEX Challengers Season 3. What kind of environment was that like, and what lessons did you learn from your stay with the team?





If I’m being honest, at that time convincing my parents was difficult so I did my team tryouts in secret and then got accepted. When I told my parents that I got in, we fought a huge amount over it, and when I asked them “can’t you help me just this once?” They replied, “yes, but we’re not going to support you financially and we’re cutting our ties off with you so you can figure out life on your own now”.





Because of that, I was so out of it and explained my situation to my coach, which lead to me only playing in one match before I left. I felt really bad for my teammates. At that time they had been rebuilding and I had been picked during that process, but I left so quickly. But I learned through that experience that if I wanted to be a pro gamer I had to fix my personality and if a player wanted to rise, they had to practice more than anyone else.

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The next team I wanted to touch on was Legend Young Beyond. First, I wanted to ask how you thought of the Chinese teams you played against? Where there any teams or players that you thought were very good?





That was my first experience playing with a foreign team, but back then I didn’t know much Chinese so I was really afraid. But my teammates were all Korean so in games, we would talk and give callouts in Korean, so that was convenient. Also, I came to realize that everyone’s really talented and doing their best. Teams and players that stuck out to me were MoLanran on T1W and Eileen from LGD. MoLanran’s Pharah is especially top-class.





It was obvious that all of the players on Legend Young Beyond were very talented but the team never could find consistent success. How difficult was it playing on such a high ping? Would you say that was the main reason the team could reach their potential?





Back then I played in China, so my ping was only at 40~60ms, which wasn’t too bad to play with. But the problem was that our team had literally only 7 people, with one of them being our playing coach. So coming up with strats etc. was super hard. So sometimes things would get emotional during feedback sessions, or it’d be pretty disheartening when we heard comments like “that team only got this far purely from mechanical talent”. I think we all wanted to play well and we all wanted to “broaden our horizons on how well we could see the game.”





We were also treated amazingly well by our Chinese managers and I was super grateful for them. I still recall my time in China as a fond and precious memory.





And now you’ve landed in North America with Gladiators Legion. What is Legion like compared to all the other teams you’ve been on? What’s different, or, what stands out about Gladiators Legion?





Compared to other teams Legion takes better care of us in literally every aspect imaginable, and everyone is super kind and they're all really great people. My teammates try to accommodate for me in case I find it hard to understand what they're saying, and everyone helps me so much so I'm so thankful, and in my time here I've learned a lot so I'm thankful for every day I get to spend here.





Last but certainly not least, how important would it be to you to return home to South Korea to play in the upcoming Contenders Gauntlet? Is that a long term goal of yours?





I don't think we're good enough to go and win the gauntlet per se, but since we got second place last time I'd like to get first place this time, go to the Gauntlet, and get first place again. I'm a really ambitious person so once I think something's obtainable, I set a goal I practice all night and all day to achieve it because I believe that starting small and gradually succeeding from there is the coolest way to go about doing things.





I’ve gotten first place in Open Division, I’ve gotten global first place on the competitive ladder, so now my goal is to get first place in Contenders.





Then I’ll aim for Gauntlet or League championship as my goals.





Also, I heard that the gauntlet was going to be held in Korea, and I have a ton of people there who miss me so I’m gonna make sure we go to the Gauntlet, and buy a meal for my parents, the people I cherish, and my friends. I also want to go and make good memories with my friends!