We spoke with G2’s bot laner Steven “Hans Sama” Liv after beating MAD Lions in the MSI 2023 Lower Bracket to get his thoughts on the win, his expectations for the rest of the tournament and how he rates himself against the stacked bot lane talent.

Credit: Esports.Net / G2 Esports

Were you surprised it was so one-sided against MAD Lions?

I’m happy that it was a 3-0 today, game two wasn’t according to plan but we still won it. I think we are getting stronger as a team, actually, through MSI, because we get to scrim against the strong teams, we are actually learning more about ourselves and I think that we’re playing so much better. We’re having decent results in practice as well and we’ve shown a stronger G2 today against MAD.

Are you confident you’ll be able to do as well against Eastern sides?

I think there’s a chance for us to beat them. At least for me personally. I think I’ve been stronger throughout MSI.

I’m very confident to take on the Eastern AD carries and I think that my team is very, very excited to play against them.

We have every chance to beat them because we’re already doing decent in practice against top teams, it’s not like they’re stomping everyone – they are not stomping us at all. I think that we’re confident in showing better than we did in the best-of-five against Gen.G.

How do you rate yourself against the other bot laners at the tournament, such as Ruler, Peyz and Gumayusi?

I think I rate them at the top, that’s for sure. I’ve learned a lot from playing against them already and it feels like I can play against them and win against them. I don’t know an actual rank – who’s better and who’s worse – it feels like they can all win against each other. Maybe it’s a bit because of the meta right now, there are just a few champions who can be played and are just stronger than the other champions – in bot lane at least. But anyway I’m excited to be playing against those AD carries again.

I felt like I had a nice best-of-five against Peyz, but in game two I guess there was a bit of a blunder. You do one blunder and the whole game just collapses. I think that’s how snowbally those champs can be. For example, Apehlios, Jinx, they get just a few kills in the early game and they might just take off.

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