After moving to Iceland to prepare for the 2021 World Championship, most players will spend the time leading up to the biggest tournament in the League of Legends scene climbing ranks and understanding the meta, practicing before entering official matches. Many experiences in ranked games with a range of emotions have been shared by the players. But in terms of performance, few can match Chovy – the “golden spine” of Hanwha Life Esports and the LCK.
Specifically, Chovy climbed straight to the Master rank on the EUW League of Legends server after just 19 matches. Notably, Chovy lost only 1 match during this period, achieving a staggering win rate of 95%, making him one of the most impressive ranked players. Previously, those who held this record were all from North America (CoreJJ, Tactical). Chovy is also the first player from Asia to achieve this milestone.
In his ranked matches, it is clear that Chovy is trying to expand his champion pool as much as possible, even while playing in just two lanes: top and mid. Champions like Tryndamere, Sylas, and Yone are the ones he uses most frequently. Among these, Tryndamere has a 100% win rate (4/4 matches) while Sylas has an 80% win rate. As for Yone, Chovy only has a 50% win rate after 4 matches.
Currently, Chovy is still climbing ranks steadily, but the number of matches isn’t too high (only 25 matches played, winning 21 and losing 4). Perhaps as the World Championship approaches (HLE will play their first match in the play-in stage on October 5), Chovy also wants to maintain maximum focus for the important matches ahead.
In the previous season, Chovy’s HLE did not perform very well, and they could only qualify for the World Championship due to an incredible run in the regional qualifiers. However, it is also important to recognize that even though HLE had a poor performance in the group stage, Chovy was still the biggest highlight (and perhaps the only light) of HLE during that period. But the moment of “carrying the team” by the 2001-born player was the foundation for HLE to nurture hope and eventually secure a spot at the World Championship in the regional qualifiers.
Chovy himself, since coming to Iceland, has often had moments of “carrying the team as a habit” in ranked. Sometimes, his teammates seem to “intentionally” feed while climbing ranks to test the skills of someone once dubbed the “prodigy” of the LCK.
However, many fans are also looking forward to HLE making it far in the tournament held in Iceland this time, despite the tough opponents in the play-in stage such as LNG Esports and Cloud9.