"We've just got to keep winning" -- Kez on TDK's first victory
Here comes the real Team Dragon Knights. With AD carry Jin Hyun "Emperor" Kim and mid laner Geon-Woo "Ninja" Noh finally on the permanent roster, the squad has found their first win of the 2015 NA LCS Summer Split.
And they did it in stylish fashion, bringing down the then 1st Place Team Dignitas. After the game, Lolesports sat down with TDK's jungler Kevin "Kez" Jeon to talk about the win, how they're feeling after the game, and what they're going to do to keep their newfound winning ways.
Finally
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Normally, Kez is calm when on the Rift. "In comms, I don't ever get excited until we're hitting the nexus."
But once he and TDK had taken down Team Dignitas, he wasn't afraid to show emotion with the rest of his team. "I was going crazy," he says. "I was like, 'Oh my god, we won the game. Finally.' Seraph was about to cry. It was just a great experience."
Interestingly, despite their struggles throughout the first half of the Split, Kez told us that most of his team was confident coming into their Week 5 matchup, even if he wasn't. "Personally, I was kind of scared," he says. "I was afraid we might lose again, because that's what's happened for the last nine games. We just kept losing with the sub roster. But everyone else had a really optimistic and positive outlook. They just wanted to play and win the game."
And win they did. In fact, they were barely thinking about the pressure going in. "We weren't really talking about Team Dignitas that much. We just wanted to play the game. I didn't even know that Team Dignitas was in 1st Place," he laughed.
Keep on truckin'
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They may have found their first victory, but Kez isn't happy yet. Their 1-9 record puts them firmly in 10th Place, and they've got to do a lot of work to avoid relegation.
"We still have to work on a lot of the shot-calling issues," he says. "Laning phase, lane swaps, stuff like that. We have to play a lot of scrims and talk to each other a lot more… We can still definitely improve on it. The most important thing is that now, everyone is confident in their calls. We're not scared to do anything."
That confidence comes largely from Emperor and Ninja, he says. "With this roster, with Emperor and Ninja having a lot of experience from the other regions, they can just say what we should do. Before, it was just a lot of questions."
According to Kez, it's key that they avoid getting cocky. "I don't want people to get overconfident. People are going to make a lot of mistakes by doing that. I like the atmosphere right now. It's just enough confidence to go into a game and let us do what we want and accomplish what we want."
With their first win under their belt, TDK know they need to keep taking things one game at a time. They've got to continue to improve, carefully prep week-by-week, and walk the line between confidence and cockiness. To do that, Kez has a very simple strategy.
Says Kez, "What's the plan? We've just got to keep winning."
ready for first place TDK?