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With the third week of VCT 2023: Pacific League wrapped up, viewers have a good idea as to where the participating teams stand in the competition. As expected, DRX is on top of the table, having won all three of their matches so far without dropping a map. The Korean giants were one of the favorites to make it into the playoffs and subsequently to the only Valorant Masters event of the year to be held in Tokyo, Japan.
So far, they have looked absolutely dominant, especially with the addition of Jung "Foxy9" Jae-sung to their playing roster.
DRX's MaKo talks about the third consecutive win in VCT 2023: Pacific League and more
Abhipsito Das of Sportskeeda Esports spoke to Kim "MaKo" Myeong-kwan, the Controller player for DRX and arguably one of the best in the role worldwide. It is a rare sight to see him smile or give away any signs of emotion as he struts around the map, often putting up huge numbers and saving his team from doom at many crucial moments in the VCT or otherwise.
During the interview, however, he couldn't stop smiling as he spoke about the pressures that come with being considered the best, the Controller role, and his opponents in the VCT Pacific League.
Disclaimer: The quotes in this interview have been translated from Korean.
Q. How does it feel to be undefeated on any map so far in VCT Pacific League 2023?
MaKo: As of now, things are going along as planned. Even if we lose the next couple of games we will be fine because of our map difference. Yeah, so I think we are in a good spot right now.
Q. Of the three teams that you have played so far, who would you say was the toughest, and who was the weakest?
MaKo: The toughest match was definitely Global Esports. that was a really close game.
I don’t want to say they were easy, but simply looking at the numbers, the easiest game so far would have to be ZETA DIVISION.
[Side note: It’s nice to see you smile so much, you are always so serious during the matches.]
MaKo: [Laughs] I do laugh quite a lot. I am not always this stoic.
Q. DRX is definitely one of the strongest teams in the VCT Pacific League. What do you think has led to this consistency, while we have seen other teams face many ups and downs?
MaKo: I think coming into VCT Pacific League, the reason we are able to be on top is that we rarely had any roster changes even through franchising. While other teams have to get used to new players and new team compositions, we haven’t had to go through those as often.
Q. Does that add an additional layer of expectation and possibly pressure to come out on top all the time?
MaKo: [smiles cheekily] I don’t think we are the strongest team out there, honestly. We just have this advantage that teams kind of fear us for some reason, although I think it's an irrational fear, [smiles, again] but that gives us an upper hand.
Q. DRX is known to shift around roles between players for different maps, but you are always on the Controller role. What is the reason behind that?
MaKo: I am not sure exactly what it is about this role, but I feel like across all the teams, Controller players don’t really have the option to change as much as others. If given the chance, I would love to play other Agents.
Controller is a role you have to play on every single map, it is kind of a sensitive role, I guess.
Q. What did you think of your performance both individually and as a team at VCT 2023: Pacific League?
MaKo: I personally don’t think I have been as consistent as before, and there have been ups and downs.
In terms of team performance, I think some of the briefings (callouts) were a little bit too abrupt and invasive. I feel like we could have held sites a little bit better. And to be honest, I don't think we were winning all that much, but some of the round scores (results) were completely different from what I expected. So I don't know what happened, but we won.
Q. What did you think about Talon’s triple Duelist composition on Split and then the Reyna pick on Pearl?
MaKo: I will go backwards. On Pearl, where they played Reyna, we had scrimmed against teams that played the Agent on the map, so we were able to handle it quite nicely.
The triple Duelists on Split left us a little flabbergasted. Theoretically, the only thing they could do was fast plays. To counter that, I played with the Judge a lot.
Q. You play against Paper Rex in your next VCT Pacific League match, in what looks like a fight for the top spot. What are your expectations from the match?
MaKo: I saw Paper Rex’s match from yesterday, and I saw something’s (Ilya Petrov) performance. As long as we don’t get sucked into his pace, we have a really good chance of winning.
