Following their first-ever LoL Pro League Finals, China are once again represented by legacy organization Team WE at a Riot-run tournament, the first time since the Season 2 World Championship.

As Day 1 of the 2017 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational came to a close Yahoo Esports caught up with Team WE mid laner Su “Xiye” Hanwei to talk about the overall strength of teams at MSI, and facing Team SoloMid again after two years.

Team WE is currently one and one after Day 1 along with three other teams. What do you think of the strength of competition thus far?

This is an extremely competitive tournament. Maybe not for LCK, LCK is obviously better than the rest of the regions but for the rest of us, a lot of the opponents are strong so it’s a competitive tournament.

Your international debut was at IEM Katowice where you faced Team SoloMid in the finals, then as a late substitute. What was it like facing TSM today and how have you evolved as a player?

We should have won today and I’m pretty sad that we didn’t because we were expecting to win the match. As for myself, I wasn’t a consistent player. I was more flashy and took more risks, made more aggressive moves. Now I’m a more consistent, controlled mid lane player.

Team WE this past season was known for relying on teamfighting if their early game didn’t work out, or picking scaling but losing lanes, and you seemed to approach TSM this way. How has this worked for you in the past and why didn’t it work for you today?

I think the reason why we lost today is that we decided to camp bot lane whereas TSM decided to help top lane. We didn’t snowball the bot lane whereas TSM successfully snowballed top lane and Kennen became an unstoppable beast that could split push, could teamfight. Our strategy didn’t work out and our comp, if we didn’t have early advantage in mid game, it was going to be hard for us to play against TSM’s comp.

This is Team WE’s first international event since you played in 2015, and their first major event for Team WE since the Season 2 World Championship. How does it feel to represent China as part of Team WE on this international stage?

When I played at IEM, I didn’t play to get that seed. It was another WE at the time that played for that seed. I just played at the event. This time I actually played myself to become an LPL champion and that qualified us for this event. It’s a lot different. Coming to this stage, I realize how big the world is. There’s a lot of competition out there. I didn’t feel as much pressure coming to the event, but now I feel a bit more pressure on my shoulders.

Emily Rand’s love of the 2013 KT Rolster Bullets will never die. You can follow her on Twitter.