SK Telecom T1 head coach Choi “cCarter” Byung-hoon had some high praise for the Gigabyte Marines, the Southeast Asian representatives for the Mid-Season Invitational. The coach spoke with Daily eSports’ Nam Yoon-sung halfway through the group stages of MSI about SKT’s outlook after playing the other five teams once. When asked which team was the trickiest to deal with, cCarter pointed out Vietnam’s Gigabyte Marines. “I felt like what we prepared wouldn’t work against them because they are a team that goes for constant aggression regardless of the situation,” he said. “It was pressuring because we had to reply with more aggression than we had prepared. As you could see in both of our games, there were over 30 kills, which proves the kind of aggression.” SKT still managed to handily dismantle the Gigabyte Marines both times they played. Han “Peanut” Wang-ho score 14 kills by the 14-minute mark of one game, mostly off of the “mistakes by GAM by being overly aggressive,” which opened opportunities for Peanut to shine. In a Daily eSports story after the group stage ended, cCarter gave further praise to GAM, setting them aside from the other wild card regions. “It was impressive to see them try to play the game out with consistent aggression whether or not they were ahead, and because they have proper game management and a strong grasp of the basics, they are different from the wild card teams from before,” he said. Although Gigabyte Marines finished 3-6 in the group stage and in last place, failing to qualify for the semifinals, they are regarded as one of the unexpectedly impressive teams in MSI and have garnered a large fan base both in and out of their native region.