After Damwon Gaming (DWG) destroyed Europe's hopes, Kim “Khan” Dong-ha revealed his thoughts about facing Western teams at Worlds 2021. He also talked about getting camped up top and whether he felt anxious at all when his team went down by a sizable amount of gold against MAD Lions during the quarterfinal series.
Aligned with our predictions, the defending titleholders swept their LEC opponents, 3-0. They also kept their undefeated streak alive, now 9-0 in their 2021 World Championship campaign. But despite what the scoreline may imply, the series did not turn out to be a walk in the park for the LCK giants. Especially in game 2, MAD kept the match as close as they could in the early and mid game.
In his post-match interview, Khan said he didn't feel very threatened while preparing for the quarterfinals. Instead, Damwon already had their minds on a potential all-Korean matchup in the next knockout round. T1 had already locked in their semifinals spot after sweeping Hanwha Life. Similarly, Faker in his interview also shared that he was looking forward to the LCK Summer finals rematch.
“Generally, Western players are a lot weaker in lane, so I didn’t feel too pressured about it,” Khan revealed in a translated interview on Inven Global. “I was sure that we were going to make it out of quarters, so we focused our practice around our semifinals opponent.”
The perception that Western teams have a weaker laning phase also led to Damwon's choice to play Syndra with Predator runes in game three. Khan said that his teammate, Heo “ShowMaker” Su was certain he would do well in lane.
Despite brimming with confidence going into the quarterfinals, Khan also admitted that he felt “really nervous” during the second game of the series. Damwon found themselves substantially behind in kills and gold. MAD Lions had camped the LCK top laner with a vengeance.
Even before the game, the LCK top laner already had a hunch that “things were going to be rough.” He later rued that the “execution from [his] end was way off.”
“If I knew that, I should’ve been more careful, but I got careless at some points of the game,” Khan shared.
“When I went 0-3, I felt like we were in deep waters,” he added. “However, my team was playing the best cards they had in that scenario, so I had faith.”
With Damwon locking up a spot in the semifinals, Khan and team will face off against another LCK powerhouse in T1. The top laner recognizes how strong the next round's opponents are, saying that they'll “have to prepare thoroughly for the series.” The heated Worlds matchup will unfold on Saturday, October 30.
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