There comes a time in every person’s life where they find themselves in an easy position to cheat. Maybe it’s a test in high school with that one substitute teacher that’s more interested in their Candy Crush than their students. Maybe it’s that one time you’re on stage during the Season 2 World Championships and you think it would be nice to look at the jumbotron behind you. Watching DWG in the Play-Ins knowing that I choose an MVP is my big potential cheater moment. I could pick any of Jang "Nuguri" Ha-gwon, Kim "Canyon" Geon-bu, or Heo "Showmaker" Su and would have smurfed the selection. But I just can’t do it, it isn’t fair to all the emerging regions who already have to play against these guys to be robbed of their potential spotlight in an InvenGlobal article.
With that said, the great honor will go to İrfan "Armut" Berk Tükek, who, much like Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon in his victories before, really stepped it up when their backs were against a wall. After
RYL went down 0-3, Armut locked in Fiora and absolutely smashed the FLA top laner, Leonardo "Robo" Souza. Time after time, Armut marched down a side lane without a care, as no single FLA player could answer him. Either he drew two to three FLA members, giving RYL the cross map advantage, or he shredded turrets. Eventually, when FLA got tired of their objectives falling, they sent four to kill him. But he would always survive long enough that RYL got way more on the other side of the map on the play. Though his KDA at the end of the game wasn’t the most impressive, the pressure he exerted kept RYL in the driver’s seat the whole game, netting them their first win and a shot at a tiebreaker.
In that tiebreaker match, Armut was forced to blind pick in draft phase. Not willing to choose Fiora blind, he locked the trusted Gangplank, giving Robo an opportunity to counter. Despite that, Armut still continued to win his lane and drew constant jungle pressure from Lee "Shrimp" Byeong-hoon's Nocturne pick. Every time Shrimp ulted, however, RYL was in a position to counter, and always ended up going positive on the play.
Not only were all of the Nocturne ults spent topside because of Armut’s pressure, RYL was the one gaining the advantage on the plays anyway. Eventually, he got far enough ahead that he was able to use his ults cross map, and impacted the other lanes as well. None of that would have been possible without the incredible back up from both Can "Closer" Çelik and Yu "cyeol" Chung-yeol, but his ability to draw constant attention from multiple FLA members (and keep brTT at 0/0/0 till the final seconds of the game) can’t be understated.
In the end, it was an incredible comeback from RYL to go from 0-3 to qualifying for the knockout stage, and Armut has to be proud for the performance he put in to help get them there. His next test will be facing Clutch Gaming and Huni. While Armut showed dominance against the Brazilian top laner, he will have to show up big to take down the Korean/European/North American star.
- Parkes Ousley
- Email : parkes@invenglobal.com
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