Ahead of the 2021 World Championship, there were numerous reports of players competing to climb the EUW ranks, with several setting records such as Chovy achieving an almost perfect win rate (95%) after 19 games and being the fastest LCK player to reach the Master rank. Other names also showcased their ranking skills, like Oner reaching Challenger in the EU server with 1094 LP, surpassing Junjia and Canyon. Notably, T1’s jungler made this leap in just one night.
As for the players of DWG KIA – the reigning champions of the 2020 World Championship, names like ShowMaker, Canyon, and Ghost are grinding the ranks, while BeryL – DK’s Support seems indifferent to the situation. Recently, a netizen discovered that this player has only played 14 ranked games, losing 9 of them and is currently at Platinum 1 rank. BeryL’s last match was three days ago. Notably, it appears that BeryL doesn’t even care about which champion he uses or what position he plays. For instance, he even used Akshan – a champion banned at the 2021 World Championship in the top lane.
To explain this, we need to revisit BeryL’s past statements. DK’s Support once shared: “I have played League of Legends for almost my entire life, how can I still enjoy it?” In other words, BeryL just wants to play League of Legends when he needs to practice with the team or compete; during other times, he wants to focus his attention away from League of Legends to relax and unwind. Therefore, hardcore fans of DK might not be too surprised that BeryL is the only player on this team (and perhaps the only one at this year’s Worlds) who doesn’t bother to climb the EUW ranks. Another reason could be that BeryL is already aware of the EUW ranked environment, and with teammate ShowMaker often sharing experiences of struggling, it seems the DK Support is not too keen on ranking anymore.
For professional players, ranked climbing often serves merely as a form of entertainment, testing champions and the meta… Except for some players who always try hard like Doinb, players like Faker and ShowMaker also spend quite a bit of time interacting with fans, participating in side activities, resting, or experiencing other games rather than continuing to push themselves in ranked after intense matches in the professional arena.