“Do your best” is such an ambiguous cliché. Even if you were told to do your best, you haven’t the slightest idea what to do. If you don’t get a satisfactory result, you would feel like you are a failure. What exactly do you have to do to do your best? One professional League of Legends player is here to give the answer to this question, and that player is none other than Min-ho “Crown” Lee of SamSung Galaxy. As the Mid Laner for SSG, Crown has shown impressive improvements throughout his career and all the great effort he put into every game has made him what he is today.

But even Crown didn’t easily get the result he wanted. He started out in a team that descended to a promotion relegation match, and even though they made it to the 2016 LCK postseason, they failed to defeat the gigantic kt Rolster. For the first round of this spring split, the belief was that they would not make it to the ‘top 3’ after Samsung Galaxy lost to SKT-kt as well. Along with this, Crown couldn’t avoid criticism for his narrow champion pool.

However, both Crown and Samsung Galaxy’s final scores came to surprise many of us. With the appearance of new mid champions, Samsung Galaxy started to soar high. The team continued to fly when Samsung Galaxy miraculously beat kt Rolster in last year’s World Championship promotion tournament and finished this year’s regular season in 2nd place.

Around last year’s summer postseason, Crown, who thought they had lost due to his narrow champion pool, gave up his vacation time in order to come up with a new solution. Taliyah was his first shot, which successfully worked at the World Championship promotion tournament, proving that effort will never betray those who give it their all. And soon after, Taliyah and Syndra enthroned Crown as ‘MVP’.

• Crown with his ‘2nd Viktor’ in perfect condition

 
Many teams require players to have a diverse champion pool, as they have to keep up with rapidly changing metas and must be able to deal with bans from opposing teams. However, Crown continued playing Viktor, a champ uncommonly used by other players, during the first round of the spring split. While others caught the spotlight with new champion picks, he continued to display his masterful Viktor plays. His utter mastery of Viktor showed no hint of vulnerability, even against Corki-Leblanc, champions considered OP back then.

However, even a master like Crown had to give up playing Viktor to adapt to faster-paced games, as Viktor doesn’t reach his full potential till mid-late game. So for the second round Crown replaced him with Syndra, a champ he had never used in the 1st round. This was a champion that wasn’t seen in public since her defeat in the 2016 LoL KeSPA Cup.

Despite this, Crown successfully turned Syndra into his ‘2nd Viktor’. Up until that early 2nd round, his Syndra showed no remarkable performances, but as time passed, she started to gain prominence in the game. It was especially notable when Crown successfully grasped victory from Wonseok ‘PawN’ Heo and Sanghyeok ‘Faker’ Lee, who were said to have deep insights in playing Syndra. Crown started as 0/4/1 in the 1st set against kt Rolster, but he did not lose his spirit and showed off his confidence with 6/1/6 in the 3rd set.

The climax of his Syndra play was seen in the 2nd round of the match against MVP. After being knocked away by the enemy Gragas’ Explosive Cask (R) in a team fight, Crown stayed calm and aimed for enemy’s key damage-dealer, Kog’Maw. He was not intimidated by the enemy’s aggressive frontline and managed to kite down their AD Carry. After being taken with a taste of bursting damage from Syndra, Kog’Maw was forced to choose Guardian Angel as his 3rd core item. That was how terrific Crown’s Syndra play was.

This trend of terrific plays continued with his Taliyah in the match against MVP. Until the 1st round of the spring split, he focused mainly on supporting the team with Taliyah’s ult, Weaver’s Wall. Then suddenly in the 2nd round, he surprised us all with a play where he seemed to take control of the whole game, weaving together some solo kills with a dragon steal and a 4:1 fight. It was hard to believe that this fearsome Taliyah was a champion that had not been in use on stage for about two months.

Until now, Crown did not willingly pick a new champion. He only picked them when he was confident he could show amazing performances. We wondered where he gained this confidence from- perhaps from his long and arduous training.

• Ryze, with the lowest winrate in ranked, becomes different when played by Crown.

After a series of nerfs, Ryze has become a champion with one of the lowest win rates. Based on Korean server data from March 28th, his win rate for a week has been less than 40% following the nerf.

But this seemingly pitiful champion still continued to be superb when played by pros. Ryze seemed to still be powerful after LongZhu Gaming and Samsung Galaxy played him against SKT T1 and won in each game. Crown’s Ryze especially showed no limit in his abilities, as if Ryze had never been nerfed in the first place.

There were many teams that managed to gain the upper hand against the mighty SKT T1 in the early-mid stages of the game, but there were few that actually succeeded in winning. Even when SKT T1 defeated Afreeca Freecs, it seemed that their ability to turn the tables in the late game seemed impossible to break. With top laners playing as Rumble, Bang’s trademark Ezreal having huge late-game damage, and Faker’s amazing performance, SKT T1 created an opportunity to turn the game around even in such unfavorable situations. When their opposing team hesitated for a moment at Baron, SKT T1 quickly used the chance to their advantage and took the lead in the game.

However, Samsung Galaxy was the only team that ever shattered their invincibility. With exact vision control and decision-making, and with the help of Ryze’s ult, Realm Warp, they gave the enemy team no chance for a turnabout when they took Baron. After SKT T1 had recalled and had no vision in the jungle area, Samsung Galaxy did not miss the chance and headed straight for Baron with Realm Warp. Even the invincible SKT T1 did not expect such a thing and could not react to that perfect Realm Warp.

Even in laning phase, Crown did not fail to astonish us, overcoming Ryze’s nerf with his great mechanics. Before, Ryze would have pumped out burst damage by using all of the skills, but as the cooldown for his Spell Flux (E) became longer, it was hard to play Ryze as he was played before. However, Crown managed to keep perfect bust damage by using Spell Flux(E) beforehand, then using Rune Prison(W) later. While many only felt the nerf when they played Ryze, Crown used his insight on that champion. This was the match that revealed what being pro is like, and how they hold different perspectives that others don’t see.

When there was a huge patch before, Crown posted that he spent about an hour reading its patch notes. Some people tend to make light of reading patch notes, but as a pro, Crown made sure to thoroughly go over even the smallest tweaks. This time, Ryze’s nerf included minor changes like a 0.25~1 sec cooldown increase per skill, which could have been easily overlooked by anyone. But Crown’s gameplay clearly shows how much he studied this small change in order to overcome it.

Results don’t necessarily reflect your effort. But Crown’s performance proves that earnest effort does beget great outcomes in time. We are curious as to what impact his new ‘2nd Viktor’ will have from now on.