It’s difficult to say that the current Lee “Rich” Jae-won is one of the best LCK top laners. His roller-coaster consistency in the laning phase prevents that. There are times that he dominates his counterpart, but more often than that, he gives up solo kills and falls behind in CS. Even so, Rich doesn’t drag his teammates down because he’s better than most in big teamfights.

The reason Rich is good at teamfights is very simple and obvious. As Rich has an unparalleled career in Heroes of the Storm, he fought in thousands of fierce teamfights. “If League of Legends is 20 minutes laning and 20 minutes teamfighting, Heroes of the Storm was packed full of teamfights for 30 minutes,” explained Rich. “I’m still much more used to big teamfights than laning. I can decide quickly who I have to mark, how I can make my teammates deal damage more conveniently.”

Nongshim RedForce has been playing much better in this Summer Split compared to the previous season. For reasons they improved so much, Rich picked Lim “Comet” Hye-seong and Kim “Gori” Tae-woo joining the team. Thanks to them, the team’s macro improved, and playmaker Han “Peanut” Wang-ho was unleashed.

The second reason Rich brought up was the role of Peanut. “Except for Peanut, most players are rather rookies, so even out of the game, Peanut usually leads the team,” he said. “Peanut is the key to making the team a team, and the team synergy starts there. If Peanut isn’t here, we’ll probably crumble.”

When Rich first joined the League of Legends scene after Heroes of the Storm esports was discontinued, his goal was to wear the crown in both games. To reach that goal, Rich would have to get to the World Championship. “I’m still anxious about that. It’s likely that we wouldn’t be able to reach Worlds through championship points, and I’m not fully convinced that we’d make it through the Regional Qualifiers either,” he said. “Frankly, I want to head straight to Worlds by winning the summer championship.”