G2. Caps: After not making S11, he considered quitting the pro league

In the competition before the 2022 LEC Spring Games, G2 achieved a 5-1 record second only to the all-win RGE, and the offseason G2 single player Caps was interviewed by Korean media Inven.

Caps spoke in the interview about his racing thoughts, his thoughts on G2 and his plans for the future.

Q: First of all, I want to ask a question about your own performance. When some people ask you, you will always say that you have enough confidence to perform at the best. Where does this faith come from?

A: They are always changing over time. Last year, I often thought about how to make my performance better. Honestly, I didn't listen to myself fully last year. I wanted to get the best solution, try to optimize all my places, I listened to a lot of other people's opinions, but I didn't listen to my own inner voice.

In the past, I always made my ideas the most important thing to help myself perform at the best. After the S10 World Championship, my confidence began to be insufficient, and I felt that my performance needed a lot of room to improve. It could also be that I'm deluding myself that I'm not doing my best at everything.

So I tried opinions from a lot of people, and they also told me all kinds of good habits. Then I listened to them and began to slowly develop the good habits they told me. But it got really bad, and I felt like it was going to snowball too. I made these habits, but I didn't do well, and then my self-confidence would be weaker, so much so that I listened less and less to my opinions.

As I just mentioned, in the old days, I was very clear about when I needed to do it. Now, I'm back in that mindset. Obviously, I'm not happy with how well I've performed so far in LEC. But given the coronavirus — I did have a fever in my first game — I think we've done a good job. Our training sessions were also good. I just need to get more of the current version of the game experience because I was really unlucky in the first few games.

Q: Is it because the players in your team are not doing well, is this because your body has become a little weak? Or is there some other reason?

A: The main problem, of course, is the coronavirus. We did really well in the offseason, but before the season started, we had two people test positive. Then at the end of that week, everyone else on our team tested positive. This means that our bodies become very weak.

While we cashed out well the following week, we still haven't recovered. The training session felt weird because we all had to play in our own rooms, which made us feel bad throughout the game. It was somewhat detrimental to our performance. But now that we can play together, we haven't reached our best yet. But we've been working on it.

I think self-confidence is really a very important thing, especially in esports, at least for me. I've always been very confident in myself. Like I mentioned before, when I say "I want to win a world championship", some people think I have paranoia. But I'm still very confident in me and my teammates. Last year our confidence declined. And then there's my teammates, who may have their own problems, which can lead to our poor performance.

Q: It's interesting to hear about your self-reflection in the offseason. Did you draw any conclusions from this?

A: I want to win the World Championship and win the World Championship. Winning the World Championship has always been my goal and the reason I became a professional. But I also learned a lot of other things. It's nice to win the world title, it's a big goal, but it's very far away. And now that goal doesn't help me much. So a lot of my thoughts are about how I'm going to get into the World Series.

In the past few years, it seems that I have never had a low. But when I have such a long offseason, I feel a little bored. That's exactly what I love – I don't have anything else I want to do. Of course, I value spending time with my family, but I want to go into the World Series, I want to be an All-Star, I want to hone myself and prove how strong I am. I really like having a team that I trust and I joke with them all day or talk about BP, talk about LOL. I love being on the road. I don't really like to travel, but I love going to other countries to meet fans and go to these crazy places.

Q: Are you now going back to the old Caps, or are you a whole new Caps?

A: I think it's brand new. You'll never go back in time. The situation is very similar to what I did in S9 and S10. I haven't figured out how I can present myself better.

The S11 season is a fresh start. Because I don't think I'm doing well enough. I want to be able to do better. I did a poor job in the S7 season. By S8 we suddenly won the LEC championship, entering the MSI and world championships. By S9, we won consecutive LEC titles and we reached the world finals.

Since S7, I have always had this idea: "Although I have not yet won the world championship, every year I will get better and closer to the world championship", which is a powerful spiritual weapon. I've always liked my self-confidence. So I thought, when I lost that, my confidence broke down and I didn't have anything really reliable anymore.

So, I thought I had to change something. First of all, I don't want to give up on what I've been trying. Second, it is more difficult to achieve the goals set during the season than after the season. Doing what I love will make me feel great, but the results aren't ideal. But so far, things have gotten better and better. I don't think my performance was crazy, but at least I felt more confident. It was really great to feel like coming back.

Q: What was it like not qualifying for the World Championship last season? How does it compare to the past? What kind of process did it take to overcome this?

A: It's really tough. [Laughs] Honestly, it was probably one of the toughest weeks of my life. Honestly, I was in the room in a daze and didn't do anything. It felt very unreal. I was mentally preparing for the semi-finals, but we didn't have to prepare for the semi-finals. I guess everyone is talking about the big list because they know what they're going to do next year. But it was a tough offseason for me. I don't have the energy to think about the future.

To be honest, I had considered quitting the pro league. I was thinking, I'm not doing well enough, we're not doing well enough. But everything heals over time, and that's a magical word. Luckily, I still have a lot of time. I have a lot of support from a lot of people. I stayed with my family. Although I was still a little worried, our new people did a good job and I was very happy with them. I'm excited to meet new people. I do need to change my surroundings.