JD Gaming is bolting down the Golden Road. They’ve got perhaps the best chance of any team in history of completing it; entering Worlds as the outright favorite after winning everything possible so far this season.
They’ve completed the latest step – getting through the Worlds 2023 Swiss stage with relative ease and booking their place in knockouts. Despite one slip-up against LNG in game two of their qualification series, they’ve otherwise looked a level above their competition so far.
Credit: LoL Esports
After they claimed their spot in the knockouts by beating LNG 2-1, we had the honor of speaking to mid laner Zhuo “knight” Ding. He’s not only aiming to be the first mid laner to complete the Golden Road, but is also looking to make history by becoming the first Chinese mid laner to win a World Championship.
The former-TOP player understands how important it could prove if he is to become the first mid laner from his nation to hoist the Summoner’s Cup, saying that it would “prove that we do have a lot of standout Chinese mid laners and it would be very meaningful for me”
“I really wanted this trophy for a long time, I’ve longed for this.”
If he does complete the Golden Road, then he will have completed a perfect season that cannot be topped in the future.
“Personally, if we really lift the World Championship this year then I’m going to rethink my personal plan for next year. I’ve never won so many titles within a season. I’ll need to settle down and rethink how I’m going to evolve into next year.”
LNG did their best to play the villain and upset JDG’s historic run. In game one, they grabbed Akali for Scout in what was his first performance on the champion all year.
Credit: LoL Esports
Knight wasn’t so surprised though:
“We actually expected that he would go with Akali but I didn’t know that he would really lock it in. I had to be extra careful because I saw Chovy using Akali yesterday and he picked up a win. So especially [whilst playing] Orianna I had to be more wary of that.”
After JDG won the first match, LNG fought back to claim game two. Knight owed the defeat to a team comp that was “too passive,” adding that that was “basically what our adjustment was around” to get things back on track in game three. He was also critical of his personal performance during their game two loss:
“In the very crucial teamfights I didn’t manage to maintain my focus and I was in too much of a rush. I threw the opportunity and that was a bummer.”
Winning the series and qualifying for the knockouts so early grants JDG a significant break before their next series, a stark contrast to the quick turnaround between games at MSI earlier this year.
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Knight explained how he prefers to play more, allowing him and his team to “keep our momentum because it can keep up our form.”
That said, he is a fan of the Swiss format on the whole:
“I think it’s really fun to play in the Swiss stage because every time you have to know [prepare for] your opponent only after the draw, so I think it’s pretty fun to play the games like this.”
Finally, we asked knight for his thoughts on the discourse around scrim results, something that often piques the interest of Westen audiences when they hear that their teams are doing well against the East during international tournaments.
“I don’t pay too much attention to scrim results. I only care about the performance that we or other teams have shown in the scrims, as well as if we practiced the things that we wanted to in the scrims.”
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