You may have heard that on Faker’s recent 25th birthday, Jankos once again expressed his admiration for his idol by streaming to wish him a happy birthday and calling Faker “Daddy.” Naturally, the ‘worship’ attitude of the Western jungle god towards Faker became a topic of teasing among the stream viewers.
On this occasion, he also recalled a very funny story about how players idolize their colleagues. Specifically, Jankos was once revealed by a fan – who was also a player participating in Worlds 2016 (at that time Jankos was still with H2K) – who accidentally disclosed all of his team’s strategic information just before the quarter-finals:
“Back then, we had just passed the group stage, and we didn’t know who our quarter-final opponent was. There was a jungler from another team who came to meet me, expressing that he was a huge fan of mine, and I don’t know why he just kept talking, ‘spilling’ all the strategies of his team, telling me everything, from why they chose that playstyle to their plans to counter certain champions…”
“You know, that guy was really excited to talk, even saying he was very happy to chat with me, so he just ‘spilled’ everything he wanted to say, including the strategies and all, and I was just friendly and chatted back.”
“After the draw, my team faced his team, and so they were completely outplayed.”
Although he didn’t name the clumsy fan directly, mentioning Worlds 2016 makes it easy to trace the identity of the guy who “betrayed his team for his idol” – none other than PvPStejos, the jungler of Albus NoX Luna – the team from the wildcard that made it to the quarter-finals of Worlds 2016 before being swept by Jankos’ H2K with a score of 3-0.
Currently, the legendary lineup of ANX has disbanded, and PvPStejos is now playing for Gambit Esports, no longer associated with his former teammates. The glorious achievements of the Eastern European team have faded into the past, but one wonders if, after hearing Jankos’ story, Lira or Likkrit from back then would seek out this guy to “give him a lesson” for the crime of “betraying the team.”
That season, ANX continuously created a series of shocks by defeating both ROX Tigers and two Western titans, Counter Logic Gaming and G2 Esports, proudly surpassing the group stage with a record of 4-2, sending both CLG and G2 home to watch the tournament on TV, yet found themselves easily defeated by H2K in the quarter-finals.
While making it to the knockout stage of Worlds was already a miracle for the wildcard representative, who knows if without PvPStejos’s “I’m hiding here” moment, ANX could have delivered another spectacular Bo5 match for the gaming community?
Nevertheless, everything is now in the past, and it’s likely that PvPStejos will think twice for the rest of his life about stirring up trouble with his idol. Moreover, even if ANX hadn’t leaked their strategies, there would be no guarantee they would have beaten H2K anyway.