It will be a day Counter Logic Gaming’s ADC Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes will not forget so easily. With his team on the brink of having their final hope to reach the 2018 NA LCS Spring Split destroyed, the marksman delivery a truly legendary and record-breaking performance in an extremely hard-fought game against FlyQuest as Caitlyn.

1,774 damage per minute, 91,000 total damage done to Champions. Only 7 DPM away from breaking the all-time record established at last year’s World Championship by Cloud9’s Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi in game 1 of the Quarter-Finals against Team WE – coincidentally (or not) also on Caitlyn.

Not enough the break the world record, but enough to break the North American LCS best mark by a good margin – which was held by, another coincidence, teammate Choi "Huhi" Jae-hyun with 1661 as Vel’Koz against Immortals at last year’s NA LCS Summer Split semi-finals. However, numbers alone don’t always tell the tale of a game, and today is surely an example for it.

Despite a decent start to the game – Stixxay was even the one taking down the first turret – FlyQuest quickly normalized things, until disaster struck for CLG at the Baron pit, resulting in the all-important neutral objective going over to their opponents alongside three extra kills, putting them in a very precarious situation.

With FlyQuest pushing CLG even further back to their own half of the map, the situation seemed hopeless starting from the 30th minute mark: a big gold lead for FLY, CLG’s base in shambles, with all inhibitors down. A normally irreversible situation for most teams – even if you have a late game Caitlyn. But CLG, led by Stixxay, fought back, pushed FlyQuest away from their base, and at the 50th minute mark, found themselves the final and decisive fight of the game to claim a victory that seemed extremely unlikely just 20 minutes earlier.

It is true that the season has not been easy for Stixxay so far. With his team failing to keep up with expectations from both fans and analysts, the ADC has become the target of criticism for simply not being able to keep on with his past performances since the departure of star support Zacheri “aphromoo” Black. Having to play with a different support for the first time in his LCS career, Stixxay showed many signs of struggle with Vincent "Biofrost" Wang, with whom he looked, perhaps until Week 7, as if they simple were not in the same page. I myself was one of those who recently questioned him, claiming that he was “simply getting outmatched by his counterparts,” which was true in handful games throughout the Spring Split.

But while there are times to criticize one’s performance or form, strong showings should (and have to) be on the spotlight as well. And Stixxay’s immense game today against FlyQuest on the champion he is most known for – who will ever forget his performance at the 2016 Mid-Season International – is enough prove that, even if CLG end up failing to go to the playoffs, he has all conditions (and talent) to fight next split on equal terms against the best marksmen North America has to offer.

(Pictures courtesy of Riot Games and twitter)

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