Fresh off that best-of-three series triumph, the team’s head coach Jeong “Jaemin” Jae-min met with the media in a press conference to speak about his team’s result and what specifically happened that led to their riveting victory.
NUTURN Gaming of Korea opened their run in the VCT Stage 2 Masters: Reykjavik tournament with a resounding 2-1 victory over Sharks Esports in the first round of the upper bracket, advancing them to the second round of the upper bracket as a result.
Helped by a crucial 19/7/5 performance from Kang “solo” Keun-chul with Killjoy on Ascent and a calculated adaptation to Sharks’ initial counteracting strategy, NUTURN overcame their first obstacle in Reykjavik to secure at least a Top 6 finish among the world’s best teams.
NUTURN will continue their journey in Iceland on May 26th when they play the winner of the Team Liquid/Version1 series in the upper bracket second round .
Written below is the full transcript of the press conference. The media’s questions are printed in bold whereas Jaemin’s answers are written in standard font.
Many teams have adopted your team compositions and utility combos on Ascent and Bind in North America. Have you adopted any strategies or plays from other regions the way have taken from yours?
Jaemin: We’ve been watching a lot of Europe and NA tournaments and we have actually taken insights from them and we do indeed apply those tactics into our gameplay.
Did you expect this match against Sharks Esports to have been this hard even though most of the international analysts and media saw them as underdogs?
Jaemin: We really didn’t know what to expect because we had never played any teams from the South American region. Having lost the first map, we had a lot of strategic discussions and we made sure that we could win Map 2 and 3.
Sharks came out with a calculated form of aggression, a trait that diverged from their usual fast-paced style of early confrontations, to harass your team in the series. How did your team adapt to this strategy which inevitably paid off?
Jaemin: We really weren’t expecting the type of strategy that Sharks brought to the game in Map 1. They were trying to go to A and then they would turn to C, turn to B. This was a tactic that we weren’t prepared for and so once we got a grasp of that in Map 2 and 3, it was a little bit easier to deal with.
After the loss in Game 1, is NUTURN still confident going into the next round of Masters: Reykjavik?
Jaemin: We’re really confident going into the next round. Between me and the team, we’re thinking we might be able to take home the trophy. (laughs)
The lack of international experience has been highlighted for this team. How do you think your team will grow every match with this international experience?
Jaemin: As you said, we actually really don’t have a lot of international experience as a team, but we do have a chance to play scrims with Asian teams when we’re in Korea. The only way we can prepare for the next team is through VODs and videos of gameplay from NA and EU, so that’s how we plan to take the next match onwards.
How do you and the team feel about the global narrative around Korea being just about Vision Strikers even as you guys qualified for Masters 2? A lot of the narrative was that VS didn’t qualify, not that NUTURN did qualify.
Jaemin: It was actually quite upsetting and sometimes frustrating to see replies on YouTube or comments online about how VS should’ve been the team that qualified to M2 rather than NUTURN. But then again, there were those comments that supported the team and fans who were cheering for NUTURN, and so, we are willing to play for them.
