The story of SofM moving to play support is currently a hot topic in China. Just within two days, July 3rd and 4th, over 200 new topics were created on the Hupu forum to discuss this subject.
KRYST4L – SofM’s former teammate at Snake Esports, and also a veteran AD carry who has been “supported” by SofM numerous times in solo queue, reminisced about memories after his close friend’s performance in the match against RNG.
On his personal stream, KRYST4L asserted that SofM should not have been pushed to the support position. He said: “You can’t duo with this SofM guy. I remember those times I played with him in the bot lane, SofM directed me to farm every single minion. Like, push the lane, push the lane, and then count how many minions are enough to go back and buy items. When you have enough money, remember to B back, blah blah…”
This former AD carry shared that SofM operates the game like a machine, with an extremely detailed information counter. But because it’s so detailed, it makes it very easy for the player paired with him to get confused. If playing jungle, the jungle resources would be SofM’s “own territory,” but when playing AD – Support, even experienced players like KRYST4L would feel “depressed” by the enormous amount of information SofM provides.
This has even been confirmed by members of Suning through a conversation with SofM’s girlfriend, when Huanfeng compared SofM to ON, stating that even SN’s AD carry felt overwhelmed because their captain was analyzing information even while preparing for team fights.
With the exhilarating atmosphere after winning against RNG, the Suning players also had a rather “chaotic” interview session after the match. The team’s representative stepped onto the stage, and SofM confidently introduced himself: “Hello everyone! I am the support and jungle player for team Suning.” This was a way to mark this memorable “milestone.”
Meanwhile, in the post-match press room, both Huanfeng and ON did not hesitate to tease their senior’s performance. Huanfeng responded to the media that choosing SofM as support was indeed a way of “filling the roster,” while ON did not spare his captain, commenting: “I think SofM’s Thresh skills aren’t that great.”
To be fair, in terms of being a support player, SofM’s performance in game one was perhaps only average, if not filled with quite a few mistakes. Fortunately, the SN management rectified the situation in time and brought him back to the jungle. If SN had not won against RNG, SofM’s Thresh would certainly not have been a topic of fun anymore but would have become a focal point for criticism from some overly enthusiastic fans.
On Weibo, a viewer left a rather interesting comment that received a lot of love from the community: “Sometimes we also have to change to realize that the change was indeed way off base.”