Gen.G’s loss to Top Esports didn’t have many talking points. However, the defeat of the reigning MSI 2024 champions was something that was considered unlikely, and the match score was even harder to believe as Gen.G lost 0-2. But if we look at the performance of the LCK players, this result makes perfect sense. Even Chovy, who is famous for being a talented player, understanding the meta, and mastering various champions, was confused by TES at times and built items in a very puzzling way.
Specifically, in game 1 of the match, to deal with many hard counters from TES, Chovy built Quicksilver. However, in reality, this item can no longer counter Mordekaiser’s Death Realm. Moreover, considering the opponent also has Ivern with crowd control and Leona, that’s at least two more hard CC targeting him. Therefore, Chovy’s choice to build Quicksilver had little effect in this situation.
According to the audience and experts, Chovy might have wanted to negate some crowd control, but the reality showed that Mordekaiser’s targets are easy to take down quickly, such as Karthus, Aphelios, or even Nautilus from Lehends. Meanwhile, Chovy’s Corki would be the target for the others. Thus, building a nearly useless item not only wasted Chovy’s resources but also slowed down his item progression. Even the commentator LS questioned whether Chovy had forgotten recent updates.
In reality, it could be that Gen.G’s mid-laner built items out of habit in emergency situations. This is not too surprising in professional play. Even if players thoroughly study updates, sometimes mistakes are normal, especially when they only have a few seconds to think and choose the right item based on the current state of the game.