TL Yeon: “I had a high opinion of all three [new players]. I got pretty much everyone who I wanted.”

Q: Early in your career, you said you wanted to have the power to carry games off your own individual strength. Going into this year, a lot of people are hyping you up as the best ADC in the west.  Does it feel like you’re reaching your superstar aspirations, or are you waiting for a deep Worlds run to claim that title?

Yeon: It doesn’t feel that way, because we [haven’t] made it that far in international events, but I would say for sure it feels a lot more comfortable. I would say it’s less uneasy when I go into certain events. I’ll at least have the confidence to know I will be able to do my job and what I consistently am able to do in scrims.

Like, before I would not be able to translate what I do in scrims to stage, but now it’s at least somewhat consistent.

Q: Do you get that from yourself or from your teammates? 

Yeon: Personally, I wouldn’t really care what other people would say – mostly, because I can at least see if I’m playing well or not. I can feel when I’m playing poorly or if I’m playing well; I’ll be able to actually notice the small details that I’m doing better.

Obviously, if I’m not [being] a big difference maker [in] laning phase or in the middle of game, then I feel like I’m not doing as good as I should be doing.

Q: There’s a lot of questions around this TL roster. There’s a lot of high expectations for the team, but outside of KeSPA, you haven’t played much together. What are you feeling going into the new year? 

Yeon: I feel like we’ll do very well. Honestly, I actually feel pretty confident going into it. And as long as I play well, as long as I do my job and pull my weight, we’ll probably just win. That’s how I feel right now, at least.

Q: You’ll be facing Cloud9 week one, the other big frontrunner team. They retained most of their roster, and stole your mid laner. How do you feel about them? 

Yeon: I don’t think they’re bad, but… I know the public opinion has ups and downs about APA, but I think he’s actually a very solid player. He was a really big difference-maker in a lot of our wins. Maybe he had some differences in our losses as well, because he’s so important — [especially with] his champion pool and his playstyle.

As long as he plays well, maybe [C9] can do well. I think he’s a very star-like type of player.

Q: People would assume you’d be on bad terms after last year, but you two still seem friendly. How is that relationship?

Yeon: Being in a competitive environment, it’s easy to have bad environments as a team. But personally, I still enjoyed being with him. He’s very fun to play with. I enjoyed all the players I played with, for the most part.

Q: There were a lot of mental boomed teams last year. Community prediction is that LYON is due for the next big blowup. How do you see it from a player perspective? 

Yeon: I mean, I think that’s a fair thing to say. I think most people would say that. Even players probably think that. They’re [known as] highly emotional players.

Q: Do you think Spawn was taking that into consideration? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone on this roster mad.

Yeon: I do definitely get angry when things are not going that well. But, as Team Liquid, I think the people who put together a roster — Dodo, Spawn, Steve, I’m not sure who else, but I’m sure there’s a lot more, I’m actually not that into it — I think they think about a lot of things, especially how we would work together. In-game and out of game. I think that’s very important for them. So, yeah, I would say they care about it a lot.

Q: Team Liquid did openly say that this year’s roster was built with you in mind. You might call APA a star, but you are the star of this team. How much input did you have on the decisions that were made?

Yeon: Well, I was very happy with all three players we picked. I think I had very high […] regards. Is that the right word? Yeah, I had a high opinion of all three. I got pretty much everyone who I wanted — I even wanted Jose at the very start. I was like, “Jose seems pretty good, especially for a native player. Damn, you’d be a steal.”

Q: Did you ever get to play against Jose when he was here? A lot of people expected him to stick around.

Yeon: Not in NA, but I did play against him in Brazil. 

For the star part, to be honest, I don’t even know if I’m the best player on my team right now. I definitely think I’m good, but I have a pretty high opinion of my teammates at the moment. They’re all very good individually.

Q: How did Morgan end up on the team? It felt like a very out of left field move. Or rather, a classic Team Liquid move.

Yeon: Playing with Morgan in a scrim, he was actually a lot better than what I thought he would be. The LCK level is just so high. If you play in LCK for like four or five years, you’re [improving in] the system and you’re working so much.

That being said, there’s also a lot of things missing because they played there, in my opinion. I think their baseline skill level is extremely high — even if you play on a lower tier team for a consistent amount of time, just like UmTi. UmTi was on a bottom tier team for a very long time, right?

Q: What’s the missing piece? Is it communication, or is it in-game strategy?

Yeon: Um, it’s definitely a lot of communication. But I also think it’s how much they actually want to be there. I feel like some people aren’t [just playing] to have a nice time — some people are there to actually win.

Morgan, it’s been a while since he’s been to an international and won anything, I think he’s very hungry. He’s trying so hard to learn English. His English at the very start was actually pretty poor, but he’s studying every night for like two to three hours with different apps, and ChatGPT probably.

His English is getting a lot better. His day to day English is getting [there] insanely fast, but his in-game not so much because we haven’t been scrimming.

Q: Do you ever speak to him in Korean? How well have you and Morgan gotten to know each other?

Yeon: I’m very close with Morgan. I hung out with him a lot [during] the Korean bootcamp. We also had dinner with a couple of us before the boot camp, because we were all in Korea.

Q: What’s one fun quirk about each of your three new teammates? 

Yeon: Morgan [is more] on my spectrum; I’m closer to him. But it’s so funny watching how our mid-jungle [interact].

It’s just Jose just completely ragebaiting Quid, and Quid just falling for it the entire time. He’s fucking with him and then Quid is like, “I’m getting so triggered” — as a joke, you know? Very funny.

Q: Quid is a great personality. APA and Quid are friends, and then UmTi and Morgan are friends. It’s like you guys swapped them out. 

Yeon: Quid is very good. His strengths were a lot different from [how] I viewed them — he’s actually very smart about the game. He’s insanely mechanically talented, but I think the way he views his game is actually very, very good.

Q: How did you judge him on 100 Thieves? A lot of credit to their success was put on River.

Yeon: I honestly did think that all five players on 100 Thieves were very good and balanced, and they all did their job. Their Worlds iteration, I thought they were a very solid team.

Q: Outside of the perceived top teams – TL, C9, LYON – which teams do you think are on track to do well?

Yeon: I think that the other four teams that didn’t come to Korea. It was just Shopify and us three at the top, right? Shopify will do quite well, in my opinion. Judging by how they’re improving a lot and they always do decently well.

Q: What do you think about the Sentinels roster with Impact? They’re a very odd roster on paper.

Yeon: I mean, it’s an LCK team right, no? It’s just like TLCK, but it’s just SentineLCK, no? It’s just the same thing. 

Q: Is DARKWINGS Korean?

Yeon: I swear he’s Korean. I swear it’s the same [as the TL roster]. You better get some flak for that too. 

Q: DARKWINGS is Chinese.

Yeon: Oh, really? I didn’t know that. […]

But nah, I’m just kidding. Anyways, I did think that Rahel and Huhi were not that bad. I thought they carried their own weight very solidly. And I think Hambak was not bad in LCK as well. DARKWINGS seemed to get a lot better especially, as the time went by. 

To be honest, Sentinels is the one that I’m like… I think they could do well or they could do pretty bad. I’m actually very curious about Dignitas if anything. I think they have like the old NRG roster except top lane, right? I mean, it sounds fun. It sounds interesting.

Q: If you were to give your prediction for the C9 match score, what is it going to be?

Yeon: It’s a Bo3, right? I think we’ll throw one game because we’ll be rusty. It’ll be 2-1 — and it must be Game 1 [we lose], no?

But if we lose to Eain it’s just… block on every social media and on League, I’m serious.