What’s Superman to Kryptonite? Flash Wolves keep their hot streak against Korean teams live and well with a healthy 5-0 in the past two years after winning their first game at the world championship against non other than SK Telecom T1. Punishing Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok’s overextensions in mid, Flash Wolves stormed the map, forcing down the towers. Though they stalled in the mid game, unable to use their wealth of engage to force fights, Flash Wolves eventually caught out overextended SKT members and closed the game. Colin “CD Mangaka” Nimer spoke with Huang “Maple” Yi-Tang about Aurelion Sol, Flash Wolves’ mid game woes, and his synergy with jungler Hung “Karsa” Hu-Hsuan.

Colin Nimer: You played Aurelion Sol for the first time in your career, and you pulled it out against Faker’s Cassiopeia. When did practice this pick?

Huang Yi-Tang: I started practice Aurelion Sol since our bootcamp in Korea, before worlds. When I’m playing against Cassiopeia, there’s no problem for me.

CN: We also saw CounterLogic Gaming play Aurelion Sol after it was re-enabled. Do you think that Aurelion Sol is going to become a big pick in the mid lane?

HY: Maybe. If you want to counter Aurelion Sol in the midlane you need to be aggressive and push the lane, because if Aurelion Sol can’t roam, he’s not that strong.

CN: And what champions are really good at preventing Aurelion Sol from roaming?

HY: Actually, Cassiopeia is a pretty good counter for Aurelion Sol, but she can be at a disadvantage because she’s too afraid of being ganked. If the jungler is helping Aurelion Sol a lot in the laning phase, then Aurelion Sol can be stronger than Cassiopeia.

CN: Flash Wolves has had problems closing games where they have huge leads, like the Cloud9 and I May games this week, and here you were also slow to get the win against SKT. What happens in the mid game communication that causes that problem?

HY: The thing is, it’s about whether or not we can make a judgement call, and I think we are not so sure when to say “go.” There was a game when we are at an advantage of over 7 or 8 thousand gold, but we were unsure whether or not we could start a baron or not.

CN: Coming back to that, you were actually able to beat SKT, which the analyst desk was saying looked very clean, yet you beat them. This adds to your historic record against Korean teams in international play. You’re currently 5-0 against ROX and SKT. What makes you so good against Korean teams?

HY: I think like, that the most important thing is to have an important mindset and don’t be too worried about losing. Don’t be afraid, because everyone will be afraid against Korean teams, but we can play at our best.

CN: People will point to you and Karsa as a really effective combo, and the stars of Flash Wolves. How did you guys get so good as a combination?

HY: Karsa and I have been playing together for a long time, and also Karsa is very good at playing an attacking, damage focused style of jungling. With this kind of jungler and myself, we can play really good together.

CN: Building off of that, what is it that Faker and Kang “Blank” Sun-gu lack as a combination?

HY: I think it’s because of the draft. Olaf isn’t a good combination with Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia is usually played without help. In this game, Olaf didn’t make a lot of early game advantages and became useless in the late game. I think it has to do more with champ select than Faker and Blank.

CN: It’s the end of week 1, and now you’ll be going into week 2. What is it that you’ll be looking to improve on to get out of groups?

HY: I think the most important thing is to find all of the problems we’re having to in games. We always at an advantage in the early game, which means we are not losing early because we are not good, it’s more because we are not performing well in the middle of the game. To find this problem and solve it will be the first step.

(Image courtesy of LoL Esports Flickr)