Despite being bruised by the behemoths that are Hanwha Life Esports at the League of Legends 2024 World Championship, the LEC's first seed, G2 Esports, is now preparing for another strong opponent in Weibo Gaming. Hopeful, the team now turns its sights toward its remaining matchups in the Worlds Swiss Stage, armed with valuable lessons learned. Here’s an exclusive interview with Mikyx, the team's support, to discuss the team's recent results, its newly adopted humility, a message of hope, and Mikyx's favorite anime of the season.

Today we're with Mikyx at Worlds 2024 in Berlin, following a close loss against Hanwha Life. You tweeted earlier "Next time we win those". What are your thoughts after that match?

Mihael "Mikyx" Mehle: It's quite sad we lost, especially since we had two Barons and a pretty decent lead. Early game wasn't great, but we found some good fights and made some solid plays. They were probably overreaching a bit too—kind of throwing by going too deep—which gave us a chance to come back.

But yeah, I think if we adjust our draft and how we play after we get a lead, especially with Baron, we can close out games like these. They're better than us right now, but I feel like in a few days we'll be much better. We're not at our peak yet, so I'm hopeful for next time.

It felt like you had the right game plan but just didn't execute it well due to some mechanical mistakes. Would you agree?

Mikyx: Yeah, I’d say so. A lot of the game comes down to mechanics—how you play out fights and use your spells. Like, for example, after we got Baron and Caps caught two in mid—Ashe and Jax—if I had flashed over the wall, we probably get two kills and end the game. I fucked that up. I shouldn't miss those opportunities.

After that, the fights became harder because Smolder kept scaling and clearing waves. We tried to make plays on the side lane, but those didn’t really work either. Still, it could have gone either way. If, for instance, we stopped Smolder’s TP or secured the dragon, we probably could’ve won the game. Just a lot of small mistakes adding up.

Pushing the LCK Champions this far, does that give you more confidence and hope for the rest of the tournament? Do you think this will make you stronger mentally moving forward?

Mikyx: Definitely. It gives us hope that we can actually beat any team since Hanwha Life is really strong. So yeah, I think our next match should go well too.

What’s the main thing you learned from this game that you’ll apply in future matches?

Mikyx: I think it’s mostly about how we play the early game. Our swap for Grubs wasn’t well-timed, and we struggled to get mid vision. We were also getting caught all over the place and not tracking where the enemies were. In scrims, you might gloss over that and say, "Yeah, we shouldn’t die here," but if it keeps happening, then there’s probably something wrong, right?

Do you think LCK and LPL teams should be worried about facing G2 in the future?

Mikyx: No, don’t prepare for us. Please just assume you'll have free wins against us.

Your team has been very vocally pushing for humility and taking each opponents seriously, despite your spicy game against paiN Gaming. Are you planning to keep this humble approach throughout the tournament?

Mikyx: Yeah, I think we’re quite humbled because we’re getting humbled almost daily. We learned the hard way last year—when we’re not humble, things can backfire. So, we’ll see where it takes us.

Are you hoping to be the Sung Jin-woo (Solo Leveling protagonist) of this tournament, leveling up with each game?

Mikyx: [laughs] Yeah, that would be nice. If we keep leveling up with every game, then I think we might just take it all, yeah.

We always hear about G2’s scrims. How have they been going this year, and do they give you more confidence? Are you aiming to be the "Scrim World Champions"?

Mikyx: Probably not. This year’s scrims have definitely been worse than last year’s. But at least we’re learning something from them... kinda. It was worse when we were scrimming from the office, but since moving to the hotel, things have improved. The atmosphere is a lot better, and we’re trying harder to fix our mistakes and talk about them. Before, it didn’t really feel like we were preparing for Worlds—it felt like just another LEC split. But now it’s different, and things are going better.

It’s hard to talk about the future since we don’t know your next matchup yet, but we can mention your long history with T1 though. How do you feel about facing T1 this year? Are you hoping to play against them again?

Mikyx: Yeah, I’d like to face them. I’d prefer it to be in a best-of-five, but any other matches would be fine too. It’d be really hype. I wouldn’t mind playing them early on, maybe even eliminating them from the tournament—that’d be pretty funny. But yeah, I think right now they’re not in the greatest form.

G2 hasn't really lane swapped in the games so far. What's your take on that? Do you think it's overrated, or have you just not found the right situation to execute it?

Mikyx: I think it mostly depends on the draft. If the draft allows for it, we might pull it out. But so far, we haven't felt like it was necessary.

What’s the mood like at G2 right now? You’re focused on the tournament, but I know you operate a bit like a family. How is the atmosphere among the team?

Mikyx: Yeah, it wasn’t quite like that a month ago when we were playing from our office. But as I said, when we moved to the hotel, things started to get way better. Before that, it wasn’t the greatest in terms of atmosphere. But now it seems fine.

Aside from moving to the hotel and facing all these teams, has anything specific helped you improve as a team? We know you had struggles, especially in summer and the season finals.

Mikyx: Losing a lot of games in a row. That kind of helps you sit down and think, “Something we’re doing is probably not good.” So, we needed to change what we were doing and how we were doing it. I think we just needed a bit of humbling—what I call "the humbling."

Given that G2 has been together for a while, do you feel this World Championship could be the last chance for this roster? Does that put extra pressure on you to perform?

Mikyx: I mean, it's possible for sure because if we don't make it out of Swiss again, I don't think we're going to run it back for the third time. But maybe. I don't really feel the pressure, I guess. It's kind of up in the air. If we do well this time around, we're probably going to try again next year. It just depends on how we do in this tournament.

Before we wrap up, I have to ask the usual anime question. It looks like you haven't updated your MyAnimeList since June. Have you had time to watch any anime lately? Any recommendations?

Mikyx: Not really. We've been watching Demon Slayer, we finished that recently. I didn't watch the last season of My Hero Academia, but it looks interesting. I watched Frieren, and that's one I could recommend. It's a bit of a slow start, but I've been watching that throughout the whole year. I watched like half an episode on an off day, so it took me the whole year to get to episode 25 now. I just watch when I eat something, and then when I'm done eating, I stop watching and go play. So, it took a little time, but it's good overall. Yeah, that's about it. Oh, and Solo Leveling.

Any words for the fans?

Mikyx: Well, thank you for supporting us and keep cheering us on. I think we can make you proud in this tournament. So, yeah, hang in there."