Whenever Flash Wolves play a South Korean team, the Taiwanese champion becomes the best team in the world. Last year it defeated the Tigers both times in the group stages, and it did the same against SK Telecom T1 during this year's Mid-Season Invitational group stage. The winning streak continued against South Korea's best on Sunday night, the Wolves breaking out of a two loss slump to shock SKT, the only undefeated left in the tournament at the time. With the win, it kept its chance of making the quarterfinals for a second straight Worlds alive.
ESPN interviewed the team's star jungler Hung "Karsa" Hau-Hsuan after the victory.
Why is Flash Wolves so strong against South Korean teams? You are now 5-0 against the Tigers and SKT in the last year.
Karsa: I think the main reason is that when we play against them, we're always playing at our rhythm. And the Korean teams just can't keep up with [us]. That's why we always win against them.
One of the biggest concerns on the SKT roster is its decision between two junglers: veteran Bae "Bengi" Seong-woong and rookie Kang "Blank" Sun-gu. What do you think of the two SKT junglers?
Karsa: I've actually never played against Bengi before. But in terms of Blank, I think that [he] is a good player but he always makes little mistakes in-game. It seems like he's really nervous, that's how we're able to play well against them. If Bengi plays, though, we know he's kinda like Faker's personal bodyguard, so mid lane would be much harder to gank.
On the other spectrum of your success against Korean teams, you always struggle when pitted against North American squads. Why do you think that is?
Karsa: So with North American teams, once they get an advantage in the game, they're really good at snowballing atop of it and capitalizing on [chances]. And for us, we don't usually play against teams like that, that's why it is hard for us to adjust to them.
Is there any jungler at Worlds you want to play against?
Karsa: The jungler I really want to play against is probably Bengi. Even though we just played SKT, Bengi wasn't [starting]. [I want to play him] because he's been on a championship team twice.
Finally, how do you feel you will do next week, and do you believe that any team has the ability to win the Summoner's Cup this year after all the craziness this first week?
Karsa: I can't really say for sure [until later in the tournament]. But for next [upcoming] games, we're pretty confident we're going to win. And if we're going to face up against a Korean team again, we're really confident we're going to beat them.