R7 Mireu on MSI format: “Learning from the major region teams is important for us to improve”

R7 secured their first-ever win at a BO on the international stage. They beat the VCS representatives, GAM esports who were the favorites and predicted winners. R7 Jeong 'Mireu' Jo-bin spoke to esports.gg on this achievement and being on the international stage. He also revealed the story behind his name - Mireu.

For the LLA fans who always supported this region, this was a history-making moment and the beginning of the legacy for R7 and the region.

The desk was saying about you competing with the VCS and showing you could fight them would show the strength of the LLA – where would you rank the LLA amongst the minor regions?

Mireu: As we have been having good control in most of our scrims I think we are pretty competitive compared to the other regions, I would rank the minor regions as follows: LOUD they are the strongest among us all, and then us second, and then the remainders are pretty much even and on the same level

In game one specifically, it was very scrappy, were you expecting their playstyle to pivot the game in this direction?

Mireu: When we were analyzing GAM Esports, we realized that they prefer to take 5v5 fights rather than anything else, and because of this we could see a pattern and knew that we could challenge them on it and so were fully prepared for their playstyle heading into the matches.

Unfortunately in your group, you had two major region sides, do you think the format needs to be adjusted because playing best-of-threes against significantly stronger opponents makes it harder for minor region squads to get out?

Mireu: If you want the minor regions to secure a spot, then a format change would be needed. But from my perspective at least, I think minor regions have to learn through participation in these global tournaments, and learning from the major region teams is important for us to improve and be able to compete. So I wouldn’t change the format.

I wanted to ask for your top three jungle champions in the meta right now, and what do each of them bring that puts them in the top three?

Mireu: I think right now Nidalee, Kindred, and Wookong, because when players who are good at those champs and take those champs into the game, it becomes really hard to stop them from scaling and there’s no way to shut them down early on. In addition, mid-picks right now are mainly utility to support the jungle which makes it hard to ensure the other jungler doesn’t get super fed super early.

What does it mean to you to have been able to progress the LLA for the first time for the region?

R7 Mireu: Right now I think there are so many talented players moving into LLA, and the players who are already here and improving so much and so I think the region is going to become even stronger and this kind of performance will become more frequent. They’re going to keep stepping up and I'm happy we started that.

What's the story behind your in-game name?

R7 Mireu: Before I decided on my in-game ID, I went to a few Korean fortune tellers as fortune telling is a huge thing in Korea and they all suggested something to do with dragons. And when you translate Mireu it is a Korean word for dragon, and it sounded nice, the fortune tellers told me it had good energy for me and so they said anything related to dragons. When I looked up some dragon options, Mireu was one of them, which is a pure Korean word for dragon so I took that one.

What led to you playing Latin America rather than staying in the LCK challengers – as you played on two big team’s academy teams?

Mireu: So there was a period of time (half a year) where I didn’t get any offers in Korea, but then this team [R7] and some other teams started giving me offers in LatAm so I realized it could be a chance for me to learn English and show my performance on stage once again so I wanted to take the chance and it paid off.

Brits always talk about the weather, are you enjoying the rain compared to the heat of Latin America?

Mireu: It's so cold here, I'm fully adapted to Mexican weather, and then coming here, so cold!!!

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