중요한 것은 꺾이지 않는 마음

Origin

The phrase comes from an interview with Deft (Kim Hyuk-kyu) of DRX at the 2022 League of Legends World Championship. It is not, however, a line he spoke in those words.

The circumstances: DRX lost their opening group stage match to Rogue, and in an interview published on October 9th, 2022, asked how they would prepare for the next match, Deft answered to the effect that "as long as we don't collapse among ourselves, we can absolutely win." The headline placed on that interview video was "What matters is a heart that doesn't break" — and it is the headline, not the quote, that became the catchphrase.

An editor's hand therefore sits between the original remark and the slogan. It is a case of a summarizing headline travelling further than the words it summarized, which caused lasting confusion about who said it — including a widespread mix-up with the entertainer Defconn. That is why Korean outlets ran pieces in December 2022 re-identifying the source.

Spread

What turned the phrase into a maxim was the result. DRX kept winning and took the title, and in his post-victory interview Deft himself said that "a heart that doesn't break is what matters most" — so the words a headline writer had put in his mouth became his own.

Its decisive spread happened outside gaming. When the South Korean squad reached the round of 16 at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the players held up a national flag with this phrase written on it. Broadcast and press images carried it far beyond esports fandom, making it one of the defining expressions of that half-year, widely shortened in Korean to "jung-kkeok-ma."