https://v.daum.net/v/GFiitrwzMK
The following is a translation of the interview that Yoon Min-sub (https://twitter.com/midnoflash) conducted with Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk, current ADC of Beijing JDG Intel Esports Club. Machine translation using DeepL was used for pre-translation.
All credits to Mr. Yoon Min-sub (https://twitter.com/midnoflash) and Kukmin Ilbo. All footnotes are added by the translator.
Title of the article: The ever-more shining “last Galaxy”… “Ruler” Park Jae-hyuk’s 2023
For Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk, 2023 was a new and significant year. He won three titles with his new team. He won a gold medal at the Asian Games. He finished in the quarterfinals of the LoL World Championships (Worlds), and while he didn’t complete the Grand Slam^(1), he says, “I don’t have any regrets about this year,” and smiles. “It was the happiest year I’ve had since my professional debut.” There was no regret in his eyes, just a profound sense of relief.
Our interview with Park Jae-hyuk took place over the course of an hour and a half at a cafe in Seoul on the 28th. We talked about his journey this year, starting with the recent Worlds and ending with potentially sensitive topics such as the ADC GOAT and the aging curve.
1 “Grand slam” is used to describe the Golden Road, namely winning both splits and both international tournaments, in Korean League circles.
Worlds Championship
-Your run in Worlds ended in semifinals.
“Every year I’ve thought, ‘I can win Worlds with this team,’ and then we reach the semis only to trip over. So this year, I was feeling a similar sense of impatience and concern, but then I realized that we’ve been on a solid path for the entirety of 2023. I thought we could really win it this time… It’s just disappointing that we didn’t make it past the semifinals again.”
-The fact that you were so close to achieving the first Grand Slam in the history of professional League must make that all the more disappointing.
“I personally do not think that it is possible to win the Grand Slam. Worlds is a tournament with so many variables. Rather than aiming for the title and the Grand Slam, I just focused on winning the matches in front of me and finding ways to improve my and my team’s performance.”
-At the end of the Swiss Stage, your team had a great momentum.
“Considering the expectations that our fans and our teammates have for JDG, we had to advance without any losses.”
-Your opponent for the quarterfinals was KT.
“To be honest, I didn’t think we were going to lose against KT. I was that confident. Even though we lost the first set, I was ironically convinced that we were going to win today. Bot laning was so favorable to us. When I gave feedback after the loss, the coach had similar thoughts. He thought that we should take a late value pick, even if it meant losing the lane matchup. I felt that KT’s bot lane was playing on the back foot, more than what it was called for in the matchup.”
-You advanced to the semifinals and lost against T1.
“In the scrims leading up to the semifinals and in the actual game, there were a lot of champions that prioritized the bot lane matchup. We figured that T1 probably used those champions in scrims and made them popular. When you get to the semifinals, you usually scrim against teams from the opposite bracket. BLG and WBG used those champions not only in scrims, but in the actual matches in the semifinals… I thought, “T1 will definitely use them, too,” so even though we hadn’t practiced the Varus-Ashe combination enough, we ended up using them in the match. We also got caught up too much about the Kallista-Renata pair, more than we should have. In short, we were shadowboxing too much.”
-Did you fall into the trap of scrims?
“We didn’t realize our error until it was too late, namely that we didn’t need to play a champion with strong bot laning. Similar to the quarterfinals, we could have had a different outcome if we had gone for a Xayah vs. Kai’sa matchup or went for late-game scaling. I think the bottom side matchup worked out better than we thought against T1, so I’m still disappointed that we could have done things differently.”
-Is this also the reason why you went for Zeri in the 4th game?
“Oh, there’s a story behind the picks and bans there too (laughs). I was actually going to pick Tristana, but my teammates wanted Zeri. We practiced a lot with Tristana in scrims. I thought she had a lot of scaling potential. But my teammates said Zeri was better. I followed their lead. I’m not trying to blame my teammates for that decision. I am merely disappointed in myself for not being able to put up a good performance with that pick.”
-You didn’t get the Worlds trophy in the end, but you won all the other competitions in 2023.
“That’s why this year felt so long. I competed in every event a player could, and I worked so hard. I don’t have any regrets, just relief. Last year, I went into Worlds with the idea of not having any regrets and doing my best, but I ended up losing, so I had some regrets. But this year I really don’t have any regrets."
-In particular, your game-changing play in the fourth game against KT on Kai’sa will be talked about for a long time.
“I actually think that other ADCs might have seen the same angle in that situation. But I don’t think they would have done as well as I did. I executed the best possible moving, the best possible skill shot, in the best possible order. I’m confident that it was a play that only I could have made.”
-On the other hand, the Shurima Shuffle that Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok executed in the third game against T1 must also be a disappointing moment for you.
“We pushed their mid tier 2 turret. Now we had to push the bottom tier 2 turret. All of a sudden, the call to go after Aatrox was made, so I turned my screen and my gaze to Aatrox. At that moment, Azir pushed in. I thought I could dodge the toss with flash, but I went airborne.”
-Did you revisit that scene?
“I never watched it again. I find that I usually don’t rewatch the game that ended the season for me. But I ran a lot of simulation in my head. Blocking Azir with my ultimate as he flew in was impossible because my screen was on Aatrox at that moment. It was also tricky to use flash the other way around. I probably would have gotten cornered by Rell or Aatrox no matter what. It was basically a macro mistake that cost us the game. I wonder if I had not been so greedy and simply pushed the bot tier 2 turret, things might have been different.”
-Your former team, Gen. G, lost in an upset by BLG. What did you think about that?
“I honestly was quite shocked because I didn’t expect Gen. G to lose against BLG. Gen. G was playing so well this year, after all. I felt sad and disappointed at seeing my former team losing in an upset. But I also had this cheeky idea for a moment, that they were not doing so well because I wasn’t there. (laughs)”
Hangzhou Asian Games
-You won a gold medal in Hangzhou, too.
“I feel as if I was able to face my traumatic loss in Jakarta back in 2018 and was able to overcome that. I also felt a sense of achievement at me overcoming my previous limits. When I saw Zhao “Elk” Jia-Hao crying, I saw in him my younger self back in 2018. It was a really memorable tournament, in any way.
I also feel that I was quite lucky. After all, I had to go back home five years ago with a silver medal, but this time I won the gold medal. Last year, I was thinking of giving up on making the national team and focusing on the summer split. But COVID-19 delayed the tournament for a year. I felt that I was at a disadvantage in being called to the national team because I went to JDG this year, but our achievements as a team allowed me to be invited by coach Kim “Kkoma” Jung-gyun to the team. I think I had both the skills and luck at my side.”
-You now have the most appearances among all players who have played for the national team. What is the difference between League professional teams and the national team?
“In a professional team, players stay together for at least a year, but the national team is different. We practice for about a month, play in the competition, and then break up. To be honest, it’s harder to give and receive feedback in the national team than in a professional team. Maybe it’s because I’m so confident in my abilities, but I was honest with my teammates and told them everything I know - my champ preferences and know-how, even though we’re going to be competitors at Worlds.
In fact, in 2018, I don’t think we talked about everything among the national team players. I thought that if one of us took the initiative to open up, the others would be completely open. I talked about my preferred picks and bans setups, my know-how, and my laning data from start to finish."
-You were reportedly the last to leave the practice room in Hangzhou.
“Every single day, I was the last one to leave, and I stayed in the practice room longer not because I wanted more practice, but because I was so hungry for success. I also wanted to stroke my teammates’ competitive spirit and their desire to improve.”
LPL
-You’ve been a franchise star player in Gen. G. How did you feel when you decided to leave?
“I was at a loss. I had a lot of anxiety and fear about going abroad for the first time after my debut and whether I would do well there. I still have those worries today. It’s not like I’ve completely solved the problem of adjusting to a completely different language and culture. I’m just moving forward with confidence in my abilities.”
-But you won the title immediately thereafter in LPL.
"First of all, it was quite surprising. I’ve been playing for a long time, but I didn’t have success in domestic league titles until last year’s summer season. First, I felt happy that I was able to win the domestic league, and then I felt a lot of pressure and anxiety about MSI, because I was going there for the first time.
Since 2017, I haven’t had a satisfactory performance in international competitions. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that we reached the quarterfinals and semifinals. But if you’re a fan, you can’t help but be disappointed in those results. Fans are the ones who support us with the hopes of seeing us win, after all. At some point, I started to see those results as failures. I felt more pressure in MSI because there were only two teams representing each league. Once we won MSI, I realized, ‘I’m not done with this game yet’, and gained confidence and conviction.”
-Did you have a sense of conviction in that you would be winning the summer season as well?
“To be honest, at the beginning of the season, I wasn’t sure we were going to win. When we lost our first game of the season against WBG, I wasn’t particularly shocked. Rather, during the subsequent winning streak, I was uneasy because I didn’t feel like the team was playing well, regardless of the results. However, as we reached the midway point of the season, we felt confident about our grasp of the meta and our teammates recovered their skills, so we knew we were going to win.
We won the first set of the finals relatively easily, so I felt comfortable, but then we lost the next two sets. We weren’t focused and didn’t show our strengths. Picks and bans weren’t satisfactory, either. We made the bold decision to change our strategy from top to bottom and won the fourth set. It came down to the last set and we were able to win it."
-I was surprised that LNG went for Ziggs in the last game of the finals.
“Ziggs is a pick that makes sense, but I don’t think you should take Ziggs out in Game 5. The more important the game, the more you should be playing late scaling picks. No matter how much of an advantage you have, when you get to the fifth game of an important series like the playoffs or the finals, it’s going to be a long game. This game is played by humans, and no matter how much of an advantage you have, you cannot help but tend toward playing things safe. Opportunities will inevitably come to the disadvantaged team. You’ll have one more minute to farm and one more core item than usual. So you shouldn’t opt for Ziggs (which requires you to snowball the lead) in the last game of the series.
The same thing happened in the spring split playoffs against Damwon KIA last year. It was a more unfavorable game for our team than the matchup against LNG, but in the end, it laid the foundation for me to scale. Since last year, I’ve developed a theory that ‘late scaling picks are the way to go in the last game.’”
-JDG was always in the way of BLG and LNG this year.
“When we first faced off against BLG, they were full of confidence in their plays. But as they accumulated losses against our side, it seemed to me that they were losing their confidence. LNG was a really strong and good team. But I did get the impression that they were lacking in closing out the game.”
-People also say that you are especially strong against Elk.
“I do not think that Elk as a player becomes weaker when he faces me in the game. I simply think that BLG is a great team, which often brings them up to higher places against us, and JDG was simply stronger than them when we met. I believe that even if there was someone else in the ADC position, the results would have been the same.”
-What is your impression of LPL ADCs after a year in the league?
"There’s definitely a difference between the two leagues. The LCK favors going even in bot lane. LPL players are more aggressive. If you look at the league as a whole, the LCK sticks to the fundamentals. What the LPL lacks in fundamentals, it makes up for in teamfight angles. And this seems to be the difference between the two leagues in international competition.
LCK teams’ solid fundamentals lead to a wide champion pool and high skill level. Worlds is long enough that the meta can change multiple times, despite the tourney being held in a single patch version. This year alone, the meta changed drastically, with the Swiss stage being dominated by the Xayah vs Kai’sa matchup only for Senna-Tahm and others to show up in knockout stages. Teams tend to adopt other teams’ interpretations of the meta by watching them play and saying, “that looks good, let’s try that for ourselves,” and the LCK is really strong at doing that.
MSI, on the other hand, is a shorter tournament. This year, we had a meta that had initially dominant champions like Jinx, Aphelios, Jayce-Maokai, and Annie staying in priority until the very end. It’s a tournament where the teams that have good skills with champions that are recognized as dominant in the meta at its beginning can have the last laugh."
Crown clutch, aging curve, ADC GOAT
-Do you think that there is credence to what people call the “crown clutch**^(2)****?”**
“Honestly? I don’t know. There are some cases when you know that the decision is not a sound one, but you get good results because you trust in yourself with confidence and press the buttons. I sometimes go for plays thinking ‘I know that this is the wrong move, but if I don’t do this, we lose’. I wonder if that is what could be called the ‘crown clutch’. If that attempt doesn’t work, the chance of victory, no matter how miniscule, might disappear for good. Perhaps that audacity is what the ‘crown clutch’ is.
-I think back to that infamous Youmuu Jihn play**^(3)** in 2016 Worlds.
“I got derided a lot because of that play, but I still believe that that was a necessary play. If the game went on, we would have lost no matter what. Viktor on the opposing side just had too much capacity to carry the game later. It was a play that made sense, and failing that simply brought the loss earlier in time. That play was my attempt to raise the chance of winning, only if by 1%.”
-But your flash forward and ult in game 3 of 2017 Worlds finals led to your crown.
“Yes, that is on the same line as that Youmuu play in 2016.”
-Do you have any goals for your future?
“I’m not particularly aiming for any results. I will continue to work hard, and I believe that fate will decide my results. But I hope to play so that people who supported me, whether it’s for one year, two years, or a lifetime, can look back and say, 'I had fun and was happy while cheering for Ruler.’ To do that, I’m going to make plays that are fun to watch, plays that are fun to cheer for.”
-Have you ever thought about the end of your career?
“My first and initial goal is to play until I’m 30. I’m too good to retire at the moment.”
-Do you think that aging curves exist?
“I think it’s a myth. The hypothesis is that there’s an age where everyone’s performance begins to decline. I think if you graphed every esports athlete’s peak and decline, the variation would be huge. I think the aging curve is kind of a consolation that says, to put it bluntly, ‘past this age, it’s acceptable if you play badly’. There are a lot of athletes who lost their performance at a young age. We simply don’t talk about them. My performance is improving every year, and there are many players like me.”
-While we are at it, may I ask more sensitive questions? Do you think that you are the GOAT of ADC?
“Ha… (laughs) I honestly don’t know if I’m the ADC GOAT yet. But I believe that I will be the best for the next few years. If I maintain that level of performance as I move forward, many will recognize me as the best by the time I retire, right?”
-In an earlier interview, you chose Um “Bang” Jun-sik as the strongest player you have ever faced. Has that changed?
“If I look back, even now, Bang was the best at that time. There was a period when I simply had no idea how one could win against SKT. Faker and Bang were the center of that idea. I indeed think that Bang was the best in that period.”
-Who was the second most difficult player for you to play against?
“Next is Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao.”
-People may have different ideas, but I personally do not think that you were as weak against Uzi as people say you were.
“I do agree to a certain extent. But apart from that, Uzi was a really good player. I still think about his plays. Uzi from 2017 to 2018 would have smashed all opposition. He was a player that nobody could stop at that time.”
-You’ve faced Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok in many important matches. Do you have a specific way you prepare against T1?
“This Worlds cemented this idea for me: Against T1, you must play picks that scale in late game. T1 is a team that excels in and emphasizes laning. Most champs that are strong in lane are weak in late game scaling. I have this confidence that I am the best in late game. I think that the best way to face T1 is to hedge your bets behind late game scaling picks.”
-Should I leave this part out in the article?
“It’s fine. This is a tip that only I can make use of, because if you can’t play as well as I do in late game, you can’t replicate it.”
-Last question: Do you have anything you would like to say through this interview?
"I want to push back against this claim that ‘Ruler has a big ego and can’t figure out the champion tiers in the meta’. This is actually a source of stress for me. I work really hard on researching champion tiers and I discuss picks and bans a lot. I feel like my hard work is not being recognized.
The sacrifices I’ve made for my team in the picks and bans stage have been turned into me saying ‘I will win no matter the pick you give me’. For example, at Worlds, everyone knew Xayah had the advantage in the Xayah vs Kai’sa matchup. I suggested to the team, ‘I’ll hold my own in lane, so if you need to get a good pick in a different position, go for it’. I am not very happy that my intention to use my experience and skills to overcome an unfavorable matchup was framed in such a way.
I’m grateful and amazed that Korean fans continue to show interest in me even after I moved to the LPL. I will continue to work hard. I will always cheer for you, just like you cheer for me. I hope you have a happy holiday season and that everything you want to do goes well."
2 Original 유관행동, clutch or daring plays that only the winners are said to make. I translated this term as “DNA of the crowned” in one of my earlier translations.
3 This play is sometimes known as the 2 billion Youmuu in Korea, after the prize pool of 2016 tourney ($2,028,000 from lol.fandom.com, equivalent to roughly 2 billion Korean Won)
Two of the most interesting things I got from this interview: