ROX Peanut talks EDG win, the jungle meta and the upcoming SKT series

The ROX Tigers came out swinging Sunday night, putting the final Chinese team, EDG, to bed in a quick 3-1 series. While they found victory tonight, the LCK Summer Champions now have to go up against two-time former World Champions, SK Telecom.

The ROX Tigers jungler, Wangho “Peanut” Han, who had a dominating performance in this series, took a few minutes to sit down with The Rift Herald and talk about winning player of the series and his hopes for ROX’s semis run-in with SKT.

Ryan Gilliam: Peanut I wanted to ask you, in this game, you seemed to focus quite a bit top lane, in the first two games especially. Can you talk about that? Was that at all affected by EDG having to sub in Koro1?

Wangho “Peanut” Han: It had nothing to do with Koro1. The top champ we selected, or the match-up in top, was basically either you kill or you die. It wasn’t tank vs. tank, so that is why we had focus on top this game.

Ryan: Was the Lee Sin pick a part of that? Did that really help you with that aspect of Lee Sin being so strong and being able to dive in?

Peanut: I don’t think I picked Lee Sin just to get top through the early game, I just like to play Lee Sin so I picked Lee Sin.

Ryan: How did not having Aurelion Sol on your team in that third game affect your jungle path and your ability to kind of stay top?

Peanut: We used to push early, at level 1, really early, and try to ward up in their jungle. We lost the third game not because we didn’t have Sol, we just had a lot of miscommunication and misplays. So it didn’t really affect my jungle.

Riot Games

Ryan: When you had Olaf in the fourth game, what is it about that Champion pick that allowed you to do so well in the early game?

Peanut: Olaf is really strong in the early game, especially his jungle clear is really fast as well. Olaf just doesn’t die in the early game and he is really strong in the early game, so we just tried to snowball that.

Ryan: And obviously you feel that was successful?

Peanut: Yeah.

Ryan: I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the jungle meta here at Worlds and your opinion on it. Is there anything you hope to see change in the pre-season?

Peanut: Right now there is not much of a meta for jungle, it is the laner’s meta. It’s whoever does better in lane makes the jungler easier. So if you are in the losing team of the laners, then the jungler really can’t do much, but there are a lot more options if you are on the winning side of the lane for junglers. For next pre-season, I hope that the jungle carry meta comes back.

Ryan: Is there any specific Champion you wish you could play at Worlds this year, but you just don’t feel like they’re viable?

Peanut: So I don’t think that there are any champs that are not viable in this meta, I just want to play Nidalee and Elise, but it just keeps getting banned so I can’t play them.

Ryan: How does it feel to be named “Player of the Series,” tonight? How do you think that is going to affect your confidence going into next week?

Peanut: I am confident that I am going to do well in the semis, everyone has to do well to beat the SKT. I wish that everyone in our team does well in the semis. SKT has really strong lanes, so I think everybody in our team has to well against their laners. And Bengi and Blank has done pretty well in this World Series and I think their form and their condition is optimal for the game thats ahead. So I think everyone in our team has to preform well for us to beat them.

Ryan: Between Bengi and Blank next week, is there one jungler that you prefer to face over the other? One that works better for your style?

[laughs]

Peanut: I believe they are both really good so I don’t want to face either of them. But, whoever comes out is probably what SKT thinks is the best pick for that match. I just want to beat them, whoever comes out.

Ryan: If the ROX Tigers go out and you win this year at Worlds, who would you like your Champion skin to be for and can you describe that for me a little bit?

Peanut: So I want to say Elise, but there is already an Elise SKT skin, so I would say Nidalee. Also our mascot is the tigers so it kind of resembles Nidalee, so I would like to have Nidalee as our Championship skin.