“We didn’t expect it”: KRX HYUNMIN talks about tough kickoff and Valorant Pacific
Follow Us
After KRX’s opening Stage 1 win over Team Secret, we caught up with one of Pacific’s and arguably the world’s most exciting duelists. If you’ve ever looked at any VCT tournament, you already know about HYUNMIN. The KRX duelist has made a habit of pulling off Waylay movement that makes you rewind the clip three times just to figure out what happened.
SurveyAlso read: Original Resident Evil Trilogy comes to Steam: Everything you need to know
The game against TS itself was a mixed bag. Pearl was comfortable, controlled, the kind of map a well-drilled team closes out with confidence. Fracture, on the other hand, was messier. Team Secret, with new duelist Rimuru making his debut, pushed KRX all the way to overtime before they closed out the game. He wasn’t about to sugarcoat it.
“We made a lot of mistakes. We knew that if we had made less mistakes, we could have won easier.”
New Faces, Same Game Plan
Rimuru wasn’t the only fresh face in that match-up. KRX brought their own new addition to Stage 1 in the form of Yong, making his debut alongside the established core. HYUNMIN seemed quietly excited about what’s to come.
“The debut match for a new player went pretty well. I think you guys can look forward to it.”
On the Secret side, Rimuru stepped in as their fresh duelist. DRX didn’t overcomplicate their prep. They’ve played Secret across enough different rosters to know not to treat them as the same team twice.
“We didn’t think of them as the same team. We just focused on our own game plan and I think we executed it pretty well today.”
The Waylay wizard
Ask anyone who watches VCT what makes HYUNMIN special, and movement tech comes up immediately. The dashes, the fakes, the repositions that look physically impossible – how does he actually get there?
Also read: How well does NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 actually perform?
“When I first played Waylay, I was not pretty good with my movement. Playing a lot helped.”
No secret formula. Just simple, old-school practice. When asked who he loves playing with most, the answer came without much hesitation, BeYN. “Playing with BeYN recently is pretty fun. I think our chemistry is getting better.” If that chemistry keeps developing, opposing teams in Pacific are going to have a serious problem on their hands. He also credited team-specific practice over solo queue, which makes sense when you watch how coordinated KRX’s executes actually look in-game. However, those executes didn’t really do much for KRX during Kickoff. They finished 6th place, losses that felt uncharacteristic for a Champions Paris lower bracket finalist. HYUNMIN didn’t dodge the question. “We had unexpected roster changes. I think that made things more difficult than it should have been.”
For Stage 1, the fix was simple: time. More practice, more chemistry, more scrims with the new lineup. “I think that practice time was what helped us a lot.” Next up for them is Nongshim RedForce Masters Santiago winners and the hottest team in the Pacific. Should be a good test of just how much that practice time paid off.
Valorant Mobile
I couldn’t let him leave without asking about Valorant Mobile – the game that has been rumoured, teased, and shelved more times than I can count. With a beta that came and went without much fanfare, fans have been wondering for years whether it’ll ever actually see the light of day. HYUNMIN’s answer was more or less what you’d expect: “I’ll try to play it one or two times. It’ll be pretty fun but I think it’ll be very different from PC, and I’ll be pretty bad at Valorant Mobile.” If one of the best dueslists in the world can admit he might not be good at some version of the game, you aren’t doing too bad either hard-stuck in silver.
Also read: PS5 or gaming laptop? Which one should you actually buy in 2026
