On September 9th, the grand final of the VCS Hoàng Hôn 2023 took place featuring GAM Esports and Team Whales. Besides being a final, the match was also notable as members of the Vietnamese League of Legends (LoL) team participating in the ASIAD faced off against each other. Naturally, being allowed to co-stream VCS, SofM was particularly interested in this match, especially since all his students from the Vietnamese LoL team were present, except for Bie.
With the perspective of a professional player and extensive expertise, VCS viewers particularly enjoy SofM’s co-streams. In this grand final, he did not hesitate to offer candid comments on players from both teams. However, SofM rarely “grills” players unless it’s a clearly obvious mistake or a major “throw” from either team.
However, throughout the four matches, there were two occasions when SofM found himself puzzled and surprised by unexpected outcomes. The first was during a team fight in the Mid Lane at the end of game 1. At that moment, GAM was ahead by about 4 to 5k gold. Yet, despite having taken down BeanJ early, GAM’s players could not finish off the Aphelios in Artemis’s hands. This allowed him to unleash damage and secure a “comeback” for TW. Witnessing this situation, even SofM was taken aback, admitting that Aphelios was both strong and had a beautiful gun, which led to TW’s victory.
But SofM was also “at a loss” during the situation at the 6th Dragon buff in game 4. At that point, GAM was over 10k gold ahead, yet TW won the team fight with a clean sweep. It was only after reviewing the replay of that situation that SofM discovered it was due to Slayder’s misplay while BeanJ executed a beautiful engage. The loss of crucial damage output too early caused GAM to lose that team fight.
However, SofM also acknowledged that GAM won deservedly as they completely dominated the matches. Nonetheless, he admitted that both teams had their share of “throws” and “chokes” in this crucial game.