Ahq e-Sports Club took on EDG during Day 2 of the group stages, but with a twist. Rather than using Liu "Westdoor" Shu-Wei, it brought on Wong “Chawy” Xing Lei, its substitute mid laner that has not seen action since the LMS spring final. Unfortunately, Chawy’s return was marred with a bad level one catch in the bot lane, but ahq managed to keep things even through the mid game. Colin “CD Mangaka” Nimer had the chance to speak with Chawy after the game to talk about Chawy’s return, the difference between him and Westdoor, what really screwed ahq over, and his hopes for the world championship.

Colin Nimer: I’m here with Wong “Chawy” Xing Lei, ahq e-Sports Club’s mid laner who made an appearance today. I want to go into your game against EDG today, and they looked much better than they did in their loss to ITZ yesterday, and you lost. What do you think happened to cause it to slip away from you?

Wong "Chawy" Xing Lei: I think we made some huge mistakes early game, like getting caught at level 1 in the bot lane, and me getting caught at level 3, and bot getting caught out again at level 3. So we made a lot of mistakes early game, and I think in the mid game we came back with an advantage due to our composition, but we didn’t control the game very well. We should have controlled it, and not let them control it.

CN: Looking at you personally, Chawy, this is your first competitive game with ahq since April in the spring LMS finals. When people look at Westdoor, they say he’s a very good player, but he has a very small champion pool. There’s a hope from some people that you could allow ahq to diversify your strategy. What exactly does ahq look to gain from playing you instead of Westdoor?

WXL: Basically, the difference between me and Westdoor is that I play control mages and carry mages better than he does, because he’s an assassin player. So, when I’m playing with the team, we can do more compositions and we can do more strategies.

CN: There’s been a lot of new picks coming out at the World Championship. We saw you guys play Jinx with AN yesterday and he did very well on that against H2K. Are teams just experimenting in the group stage or do you think the game is very balanced right now?

WXL: I feel that for every world championship, the first week most teams will be trying different compositions. They will try what they are good at, and during the second week they look at the first week and figure out which team comps are working the best, and everyone will change to the same meta. So the first week we will see a lot of different playstyles and champions, but second week we will see much more similar playstyles and champion pools.

CN: One thing that has been consistent is the Nidalee bans. Red side has been banning it every game. What is it about Nidalee that makes her so dangerous right now?

WXL: In the patch before, there was Gragas and Rek’Sai who weren’t nerfed and could pick a fight with Nidalee. But having nearly every jungler nerfed (while) Nidalee is almost untouched… she is always OP over the others. And having Nidalee, you can have a very good team competition. The thing is on blue side, you have to pick champions first, and purple side will counter you. Having Nidalee means you can choose a strong mid and top champion and not worried about being countered because you have a very strong jungle to cover you, so it makes blue side very easy.

CN: When you guys looked at your preparation for EDG, you guys obviously decided to play you over Westdoor. Was that something you came up with after seeing EDG lose to ITZ? And what did you guys think of EDG before the tournament and did that change after you saw them lose?

WXL: Actually, we already had the roster confirmed a few weeks before. We were trying to Westdoor on purple side and me on blue side, but we thought for weeks that we were playing blue side today and we only learned today that we were playing purple side for the match (laughs). We were quite screwed, actually. When we reached the stage were like, “oh shit, we’re playing purple side?” I didn’t train for playing on the purple side with my whole team, so it was quite shocking for us. We made a mistake.

Actually, we felt like EDG was still very strong. They might have underestimated the wildcard team. So yeah, we didn’t change our opinion on EDG, they are still very strong.

CN: So now the only team you have to play is INTZ, and we just saw them lose decisively to H2K. Is there anything in particular you’re looking out for from them? Like Revolta, or Yang, or is there something else that makes you guys say “we need to take this seriously in order to not lose?”

WXL: We were actually watching the ITZ and EDG games, and we were watching both of them since they were in our group. ITZ actually have very strong lanes, all three of them, and their jungler is very good mechanically. And from the win they had over EDG, they showed that they know how to play this game, they know how to end this game. All the other years, the wildcards all had very good individual players, but they do not know how to end the game. But seeing ITZ beat EDG, it was quite a convincing win, and it shows that the Brazilian team has improved a lot and we should watch out for them.

CN: Having not played for ahq in so long, and then finally having a chance to play on the world stage, what does that mean for you personally, and what does it mean for the future of your career? Where do you want to see yourself and ahq go in the tournament and in the future?

WXL: Having not played with ahq for so long, actually, it was quite saddening for me. They chose Westdoor over me because Westdoor had… he worked better with the team. After April when we lost to Flash Wolves, we had to choose one mid laner, and then by then I had to fly overseas for one to two months for stuff, so they settled with Westdoor. For me, I hope to go far with ahq in this worlds, at least to top 4. That’s our minimum aim. And I hope to perform my best, since this is my first championship and my first game here. I hope to not do so badly.

(Image courtesy of LoL Esports Flickr)