The first round of the 2024 LCK Spring regular season is coming to an end this week, and all major teams are starting to score points after the holidays. The biggest surprise of the week was KT ending GEN's unbeaten streak before they swept NS 2-0 on Feb. 16 and are currently fourth in the standings with a 6-2 record. KT's competitive form is getting better and better, especially in the game against NS, they directly took out 2 underdog heroes, Dragon Turtle Jungler and Zyra Support both won the victory.
After all, KT has three former DRX champions, and the down-lane combination of Deft and BeryL still has some gas. In an interview with the defeat to NS, Deft said that in both games, he chose a combination that could take the initiative, but did not successfully establish an advantage in the early stage, and he modestly said that he did not use the lineup to play a bigger bottom lead.
KT responded that KT had a different style of play this week, and Deft responded that the team used the time of the Chinese New Year holiday to summarize and sort out the parts they had previously overlooked, and tried different options in the training matches. Therefore, KT's game tactics and lineup BP are different from before, and they have taken out the role of an underdog this time, also because the team is trying a variety of possibilities.
Talking about the reason for choosing Zyra's support, Deft said that after they grabbed Ash, considering that both sides banned a lot of heroes in the bottom lane, they decided to let Ash play the AD position, and then choosing Zyra would make it easier to dominate the lane. This swing of the hand surprised NS, after all, BeryL's Ash support played well, and the hero Zyra hadn't been on the LCK stage for several years.
KT are currently on a four-game winning streak and have a chance to challenge for a top-three spot in the standings, and Deft believes that Hirai has played a big role in encouraging his players when the team is in a bad mood and calming them down when they are too excited. KT won GEN earlier in the week, but the head coach also controlled the players well and didn't let up too much with the win in the crucial game.
Regarding the current team rankings, Deft replied that he doesn't care about the regular season standings, and that their goal is to make decisions that the team thinks are the right thing to do, and to make the team's overall perspective more consistent. Deft will soon be celebrating the 11th anniversary of his debut, and his biggest impression is that there may not be many people who have been playing as a player in the esports field for 11 years, so he wants to say to himself that he has worked hard. But there are a lot of people outside the esports world who have been working in their positions for a long time, so he thinks it's a normal thing. He thanked his fans for their continued support and will continue to work hard to show a better look.
In this week's LCS arena, the new AD hero Smod has appeared and won, and Deft also believes that this hero has a strong mechanic, and if Smod does not encounter a very strong combination in the bottom lane, he will be able to develop smoothly, this is a character that needs to be targeted by BP, and once the game is going well, Smod has a lot of room to play.
In addition, Deft also responded to the statement of his old friend Keria, who mentioned in the post-game interview of this week's victory that he is very good at AD heroes, and if he transitions from support to AD, he can also play if he meets the right team. Deft said that he agrees with this statement, because Keria has joked before that he will transform into the AD position after winning the championship, and Deft also feels that Keria's talent is a bit of a pity in the support position, and believes that he will also play well in the transition to AD.
KT are no longer playing this week, but will face HLE on February 21, the result of which will determine whether they can move further in the standings and the final game of the first round of the regular season. Deft claims that HLE is in good form at the moment, that Viper has been playing very consistently regardless of whether he wins or loses, and that he needs to prepare and deal with it carefully. He believes that even if a team loses a game, if they prepare well in the process, they will be able to learn from it.