CFO Junjia: “I feel like when we have such a young player on our team, we also start acting quite like kids ourselves”

Q: What do you think went wrong for MKOI today?

Junjia: I think, simply, our team synergy and drafting were just better than MKOI today.

Q: FLY and CFO are the two non-LCK/LPL teams left at the tournament. What do you think of their level?

Junjia: Oh, I think FlyQuest is a very respectable team and incredibly strong, especially given their Worlds 2024 run against Gen.G where they also performed incredibly well. If we do end up facing each other at MSI, I think it’s going to be hard to say who is gonna come out on top, because they’re just such a strong opponent this time around.

Q: Thoughts on Guma+Doran saying the gap has closed? You’ve been on top LPL and top LCP teams now — what’s your read on that?

Junjia: So I think for the CFO team, we have been improving a lot over the last two years. As for what Gumayusi said, I believe that he’s incredibly humble for saying that because I personally still believe that the gap […] is quite big.

When it comes to my own experience, being able to play in both the LPL and the LCP, when I was in the LPL, I feel like the stress level was a lot higher because there were expectations to meet. While in the LCP, I feel a lot more comfortable and relaxed in this team.

Q: Do you think that comfort helped you reach your level of performance? You may think they’re being humble, but you did take T1 to 5 games.

Junjia: I think we were lucky to be able to face off against T1 in the first round, because T1 is a team that slowly gets used to the environment and will only eventually get stronger and stronger as they progress into the tournament. 

I do think that played a huge part into [our performance] against T1 in the first round of Bo5s.

Q: Any fun stories with the team in Vancouver?

Junjia: This happened with HongQ. He was meant to come to my room at the hotel, but he unfortunately mistook my room for a complete stranger’s room, and he kept knocking on the door. Luckily, the stranger didn’t open the door or respond.

I feel like that’s quite a funny story to tell. 

Q: Out of game, do you ever feel like you’re parenting HongQ a bit? He’s so young, and these young pros often don’t know how to do basic life things.

Junjia: I feel like because he’s an 18 year old boy — in my eyes […] he’s just a kid. When I was 18 years old, I was probably the same.

Out of game, we often review the matches, the scrims together, and it’s not one-sided feedback from me to him. I also learn a lot from HongQ and I’ve taken a lot of feedback for these scrims on his side.

Q: To clarify, I meant out of game like personality effects he has on the team, rather than in game review.

Junjia: Because he is very young, I feel like when we have such a young player on our team, we also start acting quite like kids ourselves, and we do fight around and play around quite often amongst the team — and that brings up the team spirit.