Team BDS’ long-distance dealer Yushi “Crouchy” Marushichi is confident of qualifying for the Swiss stage of the LoL World Championship, citing the team’s improving performance.
BDS defeated CTBC Flying Oysters (CFO) of the Southeast Asia region 2-0 on Thursday in the second round of the losers’ bracket of the 2023 LoL World Championship Play-In Stage at LCK Arena in Jongno-gu, Seoul. With the win, the team advances to the final match of the Play-Ins on Friday, where they will face PSG Talon for a spot in the Swiss stage.
Coming into Worlds as the European Region 4 seed, BDS found themselves in immediate danger of elimination in their first match of the play-in stage, falling 1-2 to Vietnam Region 2 seed Team Wales. However, in the loser’s bracket, the team took down Japan’s Detonation Focus Mi (DFM), and later in the day, CFO, to keep their hopes of advancing to the Swiss stage alive.
“We didn’t play a clean game, but we gained confidence by winning 2-0. I feel good,” he said. “We played a lot of different picks than before. The team’s performance is improving with each tournament.” On the day, BDS brought out some new cards, including Callista-Tarik, Maokai, and Set, and it paid off.
“A lot of teams in the Play-In Stage favor aggressive picks and styles that allow them to push early,” said Crouch, “and we’ve been trying to figure out the best combination to counter that. Today’s pairing of Calista-Tarik and Azir was the result. We wanted to counteract their aggressive tendencies with a refined style.”
BDS is now one step closer to the Swiss stage, with two wins after one loss. ‘Crouchy’ believes that BDS will gradually improve as the tournament progresses. He said: “(The early slump) was a result of playing in an LCK arena for the first time. Most of the team was nervous because it was their first time playing Worlds,” he said.
He also expressed his disappointment that the team had relatively little time to prepare for the other teams in the Worlds Qualifying Series (WQS) against Golden Guardians. “We worked so hard to prepare for Golden Guardians. Afterward, against Wales, I just repeated the same picks, like picking Ezreal every time,” he said, “I needed time to adjust to the new stage.”
As for the meta interpretation, he’s confident, he said. “The meta isn’t that different from what we expected before we got on the plane to Korea,” Crowney said. “We saw a lot of Apellios-Jinx split lanes in the Spring, but towards the end of the Summer we started to see more aggressive champions like Kalista. There are differences in the details, but in the grand scheme of things, I think we’ve done a good job of analyzing.”
However, he also noted that there is a big difference in the style of play of the teams they are facing. “European teams tend to be more passive,” he said. On the other hand, play-in stage teams and Korean teams we’ve seen in scrimmages are very aggressive,” he said. “If you’re not careful, the game is over in the first three to 카지노사이트 five minutes. You have to be careful from the lineup,” he said. “Even solo ranked players in Korea are good at laning,” he added.
The PSG Talon match could be a defining moment for BDS’ year-long farming campaign. “PSG has aggressive tendencies like other play-in teams, but at the same time, they are a refined team. If we keep making mistakes in the early game, like in the last DFM game and today’s game, we will lose,” he said. “It is important to adapt to the changes in each game, and we will do our best to prepare.”