Team Liquid Honda CoreJJ: “I think by the end of the year, we’ll be the best team in the LCS”

ByFeisal Merali Hours
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CoreJJ during the "LCS Heroes" photo shoot

During the first day of the 2023 LCS Spring Split, I sat down with CoreJJ, the Team Liquid Honda support player, and former World Champion. He’s become the face of the team and the face of North American player development, being one of the people to organize games for professional players during the offseason before Champions Queue was a thing.

Despite losing his first game, he agreed to sit with me afterward. I asked him about the new faces in the LCS, how he feels seeing them on the big stage, playing with Pyosik, and more. He gave some smart answers and gave insights into what’s going on behind closed doors.

Thank you again to Team Liquid Honda and CoreJJ for letting me talk to him on Thursday last week. Below is the transcript of the conversation that I had with him.

READ MORE: 2023 LCS Spring Split day two recap

CoreJJ interview transcript.

CoreJJ During the 2023 LCS spring split day two
(Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

The questions asked will be in bold lettering while his answers will be in a normal font.

Coming off of your first game with a brand new roster, how are you feeling?

I wish we could have won this game, but unfortunately but it wasn’t our result, so I’m a bit sad.

You were against FlyQuest today, who are supposed to have Eyla, and you are playing with Yeon. Do you wish Eyla was playing so they could go against each other?

Well, I don’t really mind. The most exciting part of playing against FlyQuest is VicLa and Prince, right? For now, I don’t mind.

Now talking about your team, you’re playing with a new lane partner, but you also have Pyosik in the jungle, a brand new toplaner, what’s it like playing with your new team compared to your roster last year?

I think we’re having fun. We have no experience yet, but we have tons of potential.

I want to ask you about the support meta because it’s kind of all over the place right now. The other night we saw Keria play Caitlyn support in the LCK, we have Ashe support, and we even saw Azir support as a counter to Heimerdinger today. There’s been a lot of variations to the support champion pool, what has your reaction been to it as someone who’s been playing in the bot lane for so long?

I think that people got bored of playing the meta champions over and over, and then someone invented a niche counter pick to the meta champions. One of these days I’m going to show a unique champion too.

Does that mean that we’re not going to see Huhi play the Aurelion Sol support, but you play it instead?

Ha ha, no, probably not.

You’re playing with Pyosik this year, coming off of the World Championship victory last year. He’s a world champion, you’re a world champion. What kind of mentality has he brought to the team that you didn’t realize that you were missing or something that was refreshing for you to see that you haven’t seen in a while from a world champion?

He’s been showing a lot of confidence. I think that it helps us to play better. I that even though we lost today, it probably didn’t hurt us that much, so I’m excited to play with him more.

There’s a lot of new talent right now in the LCS. You have been a proponent of developing North American talents, mostly with you organizing in-houses during the offseason. Now we’re seeing some of the results from your efforts, with Tenacity, Buiso, Eyla, Yeon, and more. When you see them playing on stage, do you get excited seeing the fruits of your labor?

Yeah, it’s always exciting to see good, new rookie players so they can give us fresh air, it’s refreshing. Something I would like to see. I hope that those rookies become super rookies, so they are fun to watch.

My last question for you is about your team. There are a lot of expectations for your team, with lots of big names on the roster. What are your own goals or expectations for this split?

I think by the end of the year, we’ll be the best team in the LCS, that’s what I’m looking for.

READ MORE: 2023 LCS Spring Split day two recap

Thank you again to CoreJJ and Team Liquid Honda for having this conversation with me. If you’d like to follow CoreJJ on Twitter, you can find his account here. If you would like to find out more about Team Liquid Honda, you can find their team page here.

CoreJJ and the rest of Team Liquid Honda return on Thursday, February 2nd with a game against Immortals Progressive.