DK Moham on being one win away from Worlds 2024 Quarterfinals: "I had not expected that I would be here today"

League of Legends

6 Oct

Martin Arévalo-Östberg

After putting up consistently great performances in the LCK Challengers, Jae-hun "Moham" Jung was officially promoted to the main roster on Dplus KIA. Just two months later, Moham competing against some of the biggest names in the game at Worlds 2024.

Despite Moham's relative lack of experience, the support player has been a big part of his team's great form in the Swiss Stage at Worlds, where they currently hold a 2-1 record and only need one series win in order to qualify for the quarterfinals of the biggest tournament of the year.

Today, Strafe Esports had the chance to talk to Moham following his team's loss to LNG Esports during their first attempt at making it to the quarterfinals. During the exclusive interview, Moham discussed what it means to him to be playing on such a big stage, the difference between LCK Challengers and Worlds, and what he believes allowed LNG to walk away with the win.

Despite the relative lack of practice with Moham on the type, DK qualified for Worlds 2024 by defeating none other than reigning World Champions of T1. (Credit: LCK)

It was a hard-fought match against LNG Esports. What do you think went wrong today, and what lessons can the team takeaway from today’s match that you think will be helpful for the rest of the tournament?

Dplus KIA as a team tends to be very strong in the early game to take a lot of lead in the early sieges to actually finish out and close out the games oftentimes. And I feel like we did pretty well in the early game today as well but I think it’s just that we slipped and started making more mistakes in the middle of the game. We ended up realizing that LNG had prepared a lot more than we had expected in terms of composition and everything, so I think that in the end the key takeaway and the key learning point today was just how to play.

This is your first loss at Worlds so far. During your games, did you feel like LNG were on a different caliber compared to the other teams you’ve faced at Worlds so far?

So far, as we were able to secure our first two wins, I felt like the opponents that we had faced were quite similar to what we already prepared in terms of composition and the champions that we play. So, it didn’t really show a big difference from what we were doing, and I feel like the Camille and the Kai’Sa, those sort of picks from the LPL definitely felt a lot more different from the previous patches.

You've had less than 2 months with this roster and already you've made your first Worlds event and so close to making it to the quarterfinals. When you were called up by the main team in August, did you expect anything like this could happen so quickly for you and DK?

Yeah, honestly I had no idea and I had not expected that I would be here today. I had joined back and played back between professional play and Challengers after half a year and I think I really had a lot of ambition to join the main roster but I did not expect that I was going to be with the main roster and be at Worlds in less than two months.

Since joining the team so recently, how has the synergy been developing between you and your teammates, especially Aiming? Was there anything specific you focused on in terms of building that synergy?

So, in terms of in-game wise and also externally outside of the game I feel like I’m actually… we click very. Me and Aiming tend to click very well. So, because of that I think we’re able to communicate really clearly and transparently. If we’re wrong then we’re able to really communicate that and if there’s something that we’re right on then we’re able to communicate that as well. And, because there are so many older brother figures in the team, my teammates who had actually gone to Worlds before, because of their experience, I think I’m able to learn from that quite often.

As someone new to the Dplus KIA main roster, how important was it for you to prove yourself on the Worlds stage, and do you feel like this run so far solidifies your place as a core part of the team?

Before I made it to Worlds, even specially during the qualifiers, because I was so new to being called up to the main roster, I thought I was just so busy trying to fit in with the team rather than feel like I’m a part of the team. So, throughout my Worlds run so far everyone actually is sort of, like, proving myself with all the experience that I am actually stacking up. I feel like I am actually feeling more at home and just like feeling like I’m a part of the team currently.

Could you talk to me about some of the biggest differences you personally feel from playing in LCK Challengers to playing at Worlds?

So, Challengers is composed of a lot of tier 2 and sometimes maybe so of the tier 1 players have gone down there, so I think in Challengers I guess the quality of the matches and games, when you make a mistake, there oftentimes you are able to sort of retake the game by catching the opponents’ mistakes and just get another angle to sort of get your pace back. But at Worlds and all the other tier 1 players being here, I think the moment you make a mistake you get punished so hard that it flips the game around.

Your next rivals at Worlds could be Top Esports, Fnatic, BLG, T1, PSG, FlyQuest, Weibo Gaming or G2. Do you have a preference on who you would like to face next?

Since we have faced our region (LCK) so many times, I would prefer meeting someone in the LPL like TES, or anyone who has secured two wins so far.

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Image source: LCK

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