Samsung Galaxy ended its long losing streak to KT Rolster and qualified for the League of Legends World Championship in the process with Saturday’s shocking 3-2 win.
The MVP for Samsung was Kang “Ambition” Chan-Yong by pulling unexpected picks in the jungle with massive success. Despite his strong showing, Ambition said that he didn’t expect Samsung to be part of the world championships this soon, writes Inven’s Shim Young-Bo.
“I didn’t expect us to make it to worlds,” he said. “I thought at the fastest we’d make it in two years. I am very happy to make it to worlds this quickly.”
One of highlights of the win was of course Ambition’s surprise Skarner pick in the jungle, which went on a tear across the entire rift. This off-meta jungle pick was something that Ambition had prepared the day prior to his match.
“I went into the match expecting two jungle bans,” he said. “The problem was that the difference between tier 1 and tier 2 jungle champions was too wide, so I felt like I had to bring something unexpected. So I played a couple of games as Skarner and he was better than I thought. I thought that if we were going to lose, I should pull everything out.”
Ambition talked more in detail about his team’s world championship opportunity, focusing more on his inability to qualify over his career. According to him, he almost let his comfort set in.
“I almost gave up going to worlds entirely because I had missed my chance so many times before,” he said. “I started to feel like my current life was fine so I stopped thinking about it. But then I thought to myself that since I worked so hard as a pro, I should go to worlds at least once.”
Ambition also lived up to his name, expecting very high place finishes for his team; as long as they don’t meet one team.
“As long as we don’t face EDG I think our journey in worlds will be pretty easy,” he said. “Our goal right now is making it to semis. It’d be great to also not meet any Korean teams as well.”