Original article: http://bit.ly/1OetSE6
Interview and photo credit goes to Mr. Nam Yoon Sung of dailyesports.com. This is just a FAN translation
The interview was conducted after the first week of group stages of the 2015 LoL World Championship.
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October of this year was the month CJ Entus League of Legends team wants to forget about. They lost the chance to compete in the world championship and are now in their off-season, resting.
The top laner of CJ Entus Sang-Myun “Shy” Park would rather forget his 2015 season performance. The team experienced a win and a loss streaks and had the chance to compete in the world championship but couldn’t overcome the hurdles they faced. Park even suffered an injury midseason and had to watch his junior top laner fill his role.
Park was so embarrassed by his performance that he wanted to “Shy” away from 2015 and forget it ever happened.
It’s a pity
When asked, Park said round 1 of the summer season of LCK was the saddest moment of the year. Park also suffered through a slump in the post season, but the loss during the summer season affected him and his team to fall into the loss streak. The match in question is the match against SK Telecom T1. CJ Entus wanted revenge for suffering through as reverse sweep in the spring playoffs, but instead, suffered a crushing defeat in the hands of SKT T1 which disrupted their pace. Park thought that this was the starting point of CJ Entus’s difficult summer season.
I think this season might be your saddest season
After we failed to qualify for worlds, my team and I looked back to this year’s performance. Many teams didn’t think of us as the upper half team in the LCK, but I think we did well for ourselves this year. We were shaky in the first half of the spring season but by the time the season was wrapping up, our team communicated and coordinated very well. It’s just a shame that we got reverse swept in a series we could have won. It’s a pity.
Min-Ki “Madlife” Hong said in his interview that he considers the match against SKT T1 his worst game of the year. Do you feel the same way?
The one where we got reverse swept? Yes, of course I remember that game and yes, I do consider it as one of the worst games I played this year. It was like I got possessed by a ghost or something and lost. Going back to your question, if I had to pick a game as my most disappointing game this year, I would pick the series against Jin Air during the regional qualifiers. We took it to the blind pick match but because Gangplank was free to use, GBM snowballed out of control and we lost the game.
If you could rewind time, where you would you rewind to?
I would go back to the start of the summer season of LCK. To be precise, to the point where we were on a 4 game win streak winning against Anarchy, KT Rolster, SBENU Sonicboom and KOO tigers. We kept losing the first game in the set but won the next two. We were on a roll. Everything seems to go well for us until we met against SKT T1. It was a total defeat for us. We lost two games straight and the kill difference between the two team was enormous. I think after that game our mentality just broke down as if we lost the entire season.
Kyung-Hwan “Marin” Chang is the number one top laner
There are a lot of killer top laners playing in the world championship. When a top laner’s total KDA matches the ADC’s KDA which is among the top 10 highest KDA rankings, you know that the golden age of the top lane has come once again. As a fellow top laner, Park’s anger is burning inside. As one of the players known for his carry top style, he is disappointed he didn’t have the chance to play against the different top laners from across the world. As a viewer of the world championship, Park praised Chang’s performance highly from the rest.
Are you watching the world championship?
Of course. I keep thinking “I should be the one up on that stage playing”, but watching it as the audience has its perks as well. When Origen and Cloud9 came over to Korea to scrim, we were one of their scrim partners. The results were more favorable for us which was good. I won’t get into details, but let’s just say it was very entertaining seeing those teams do well in the group stages. I think this is why I’m so sad right now. They are like a totally different team than the team we scrimmed before.
The top laners are on a rampage. How do you feel about this?
(The interviewer tries to imitate the in-game announcer here. Cute.)
I think the tournament patch heavily favors the top lane champions. The Juggernaut champions and other top lane champions affected by this patch has great carry potential. This is one of the factors that led to the great performance by the top laners.
Which game made an impression on you?
The game with the pentakill of course! The pentakill An “Balls“ Le got on Darius was beautiful. I thought Le was the weakest player on Cloud9 but when we scrimmed against him, he performed better than expected. Although I didn’t expect him to get a pentakill of all people.
Who do you think is the best top lane player playing in the world championship?
For me, the Korean top laners are the ones that stand out the most. If I had to pick one, I would say “Marin” from SK Telecom T1. He knows how and when to use teleport and performs his duties as a top laner during team fights brilliantly. Many people say Chang is lonely in the top lane, but on the contrary, he has the ability to take command and lead the game himself at times. Chan-Yong “Ambition” Kang shares my thoughts. Even when Chang dies once or twice, it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die after those first few kills. He just heals right back up and once he gets past level 11, he just dominates the map. I think his vitality and ability to survive is amazing.
What do you think about Darius?
I think his solo queue prowess doesn’t translate fully in the professional environment In the professional setting, where all the members are coordinating, Darius isn’t as reliable as he would be on solo queue to carry. Not all Darius’ are equal. A skilled top laner can put opposing Darius players to shame. There is a risk picking Darius 1st in the pick and ban phase as he has a certain distance he is effective in. However, if a team messes up their spacing and movement and get in the range of a good Darius, they will suffer his wrath. Le’s pentakill on Darius occurred because Fnatic misplaced themselves on the map which led to their death; that’s Darius.
Who is the best champion on the 5.18 patch?
I would say Lulu is the best. Lulu is quite popular in the draft phase at the world championship. Because Lulu can be played in multiple lanes along with her utilities makes her a very viable and useful champs to disrupt the enemy team during the draft phase. Lulu is also a ranged champion, making her favorable against certain top lane match ups where you can trade from afar as a counter pick. If teams want to use champions like Darius or Malphite, they have to ban Lulu for this reason.
Isn’t Jax viable in this patch?
Jax has the potential to destroy everything, but I think people need time to figure out how to use him effectively in this patch. Champions that are able to snowball are good picks in this patch. But Jax takes too long and is hard to snowball to a point where he can carry. Even if the jungler camps top lane and get Jax kills, he just takes too long to ramp up and snowball like other top lane picks.
But you used it during the spring season
I think that was the game against Longzhu-IM. To be honest, my opponent at the time was a Hecraim and picking against Jax against Hecraim isn’t a bad match up.
How to spend time during off-season
Shy goes to the karaoke often. During the regular season, he had no time to do any side activities from practice, but with the season over, he has the time to go to karaoke with his teammates and attend seminars. Park is also spending the time to treat his wrist injury in preparation for the next season.
Here’s a question; Why “Shy”?
I’m a shy person in real life. I used to use the handle “GoldenPo” (Tr note: reference to the kids show “Pororo the Penguin” maybe?) before I became a pro. But I had the intention of using “Shy” as my new name when I decided to become a pro player. I thought it was a pretty word to use as a name.
How are you spending your off-season? There are a lot of fans asking how your wrist is doing ever since you missed some games during the regular season
There’s not much to do in the off season. I’m putting a lot of time in Korean solo queue these days. To answer the question about the wrist, I haven’t been going to the doctors to treat my wrist as much due to some personal issues. The pain was unbearable during the regular season, but it doesn’t hurt as much anymore. It still hurts, but it’s better than before.
According to MadLife, you two are going to the karaoke often these days. Is this true?
Karaoke is one of the few hobbies that I enjoy. Because there are no games in the off-season, my teammates and I go to karaoke to relieve our stress. I went on the “True LoL show” a while ago and when I sang in front of them, they told me to never ever sing again. (Laughs)
Is there a song you are confident in singing?
I like “SarangTWO” by the YunDoHyunBand. I practice this song often at Karaoke so I think I’m fairly good at it. Although I will never sing it in front of a live crowd or anything like that.
You enrolled in JungAng University as an athletic major. How’s school going?
I had no time to attend classes during the regular season. It takes 7 to 8 hours round trip for me to go to campus from the team training facility so it is hard for me to go to classes. Although when the season is over, I will go back to school since I have the time to.
Streaming to connect with the fans
Streaming is one of the challenges that “Shy” had to face due to his shy personality. Even though the CJ Entus players do not stream with a mic device, playing in front of his fans online was hard for him. However, after streaming for a full year, Park has picked up the know-how to overcome this obstacle.
How does it feel to be streaming for a full year now?
I mentioned before that I used the handle “Shy” because of my shy personality. Because of this, I never had the chance to interact with my fans. However, when I started streaming, it gave me an opportunity to interact with my fans through AzubuTV. I was surprised by how my fans really liked me. The chat screen is a good way to interact with my fans.
Any fun moments you want to share?
I think when we showed Ho-San “Space” Sun’s phone by accident on stream was hilarious. This happened when everyone on our team including our coaches were streaming. We were fooling around and we accidently showed Sun’s phone on stream. Coach Dae-Young Son’s contact in Sun’s phone was “Coach2” which disappointed him that he didn’t have some cute nickname for him. I was “Top2”. Coach Son then stole Sun’s keyboard and told this story to the chat screen. I remember laughing very hard when this happened.
Any frustrating moments?
We have a set schedule of when we stream but sometimes I really don’t want to stream. For example, we had a stream scheduled the day after we lost in LCK. I mean, if I won that day I would’ve streamed like no tomorrow the next day, but streaming after a loss is never fun. Especially when we are on a losing streak I just want to hide up in a rat hole. The fans would try to cheer me up saying “It’s okay” and “the team lost but your performance was great” but I couldn’t read any of those because I felt so sorry for my fans. I’m really sorry.
How is AzubuTV 3.0?
Maybe because I’m used to the Azubu 2.0, but I think the previous version was better. But I’m sure I’ll get used to it. I do like the live stats and voting function built into the system.
KeSPA cup is starting in November. How do you think you will perform?
I think the teams that failed to make it to world’s will have something to prove during KeSPA cup. There are no other chances to show our fans and sponsors a great performance until the next season of LCK starts. We plan to play like our lives depend on it.
There are a lot of fans that want to see “Shy” in next year’s world championship. Will they be able to see you on the world stage?
Next year, I am going to play with the mindset that it will be my last year as a pro and play out of my mind. With my wrist and age, I know my career as a pro player won’t last long. I want to perform well and make it to next year’s world championship. I will burn through the Korean scene and cause an uproar at the world championship next year.
