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Our MVP of Worlds 2017 is Ruler
South Koreans again dominated Worlds, but this time it felt different. Worlds 2017 was the best yet, with some stunning plays, making this award even more prestigious.
On paper it may look like Worlds 2017 was just like any other year; we had an all Korean final yet again, and one that featured both finalists from last year, the only two teams to have claimed the top prize at the last five world championships. Once again it looked like these two teams, and arguably Longzhu, the other competing Korean team, were head and shoulders above the rest of the competition, and any dreams of the West progressing past the quarters were quickly dashed. Just another Worlds.
Watching it though was another matter. Yes, we had an all-Korean final, but many people wouldn’t have predicted this as the final going into the tournament. SKT had looked shaky in the LCK over the past few months and yet again many people questioned how Samsung even managed to make it to Worlds, let alone all the way to the final.
Then when the final kicked off the unthinkable happened. The legendary SKT, who were on track to win Worlds for the fourth time and the third year in a row, were absolutely dominated by Samsung. It wasn’t even close. Samsung ended the game with a 13K gold lead and zero deaths to their name. League of Legends is known for having a lack of kills, but zero deaths is impressive nonetheless.
The series got closer as it went on, with SKT finding some form and making it one of the best Worlds finals we have seen, but even then it wasn’t enough to stop Samsung claiming their second World Championship with a 3-0 win that lasted just 112 minutes on the Rift.
After failing to get it done last year, in what was undoubtedly the best Worlds final to date, this Samsung side fought back and went one step further, dethroning the kings of League of Legends and cementing their reputation as the best team in the world. All members of the team put in a shift and a half; during each match you could guarantee that one of them would have such a good game no one would be able to touch them. But across the whole tournament, and after a near unbelievable performance in the final, our MVP award has to go to Park 'Ruler' Jae-hyuk, the AD Carry for Samsung Galaxy.
While other members of the team had a slight advantage over Ruler in our rankings prior to the final, it was these three games that secured him the win. His support Jo 'CoreJJ' Yong-in also put in somewhere north of 150 percent, but the clear line was that if Ruler was not in those final three games, Samsung would not be two-time world champions.
While stats only tell a part of the story, here they really do not lie. In the first two games of the final he had the highest net worth when the Nexus fell by a long way, and only the split pushing Trundle of Heo 'Huni' Seung-hoon managed to beat him in game three, and that was by a mere 500 gold.
In game one, much like the rest of his team, Ruler didn’t die once, but also had 100 percent kill participation, with two kills and five assists to his name. Game two was the same story: zero deaths, four kills and five assists, totaling 100 percent kill participation. He was also close in game three, with four kills, two deaths and 11 assists, missing out on 100 percent kill participation by just one kill. Ruler was an integral part of the team, one the rest of the squad liked to work around to make sure that he was always in a position to make the play, and crucially, also alive, as a death with that amount of gold could have turned any of the games.
In the final, Ruler played Xayah in the first two games and Varus in the last and his performances on both heroes were remarkably consistent. He hit the minions, he killed the enemy and he took the towers; while there were mistakes here and there, which his team usually helped rectify, this was very close to perfect AD carry play. Throughout the tournament his hero pool wasn’t massive, but that didn’t matter, as the champions he did play were clearly some of his best.
But it wasn’t just the final where Ruler showed up; he was one of the biggest reasons as to why Samsung only dropped three maps in the entire tournament, including the group stage. The group stage was actually where Samsung looked a little weak, at least compared to the other two Korean teams. They ended at 4-2, with both losses coming to Royal Never Give Up. But once they made it out of the group stage they really turned it on, with Ruler taking over almost every game with huge amounts of damage output.
So stark is the contrast between Samsung’s games at Worlds, and recent matches where Ruler did not play on Twitch, it’s almost hard to believe you’re looking at a largely overall similar squad. While he may not be the biggest name in the position, he certainly played like he was, and that's why he is our MVP. Out-performing the SKT bottom lane as he and CoreJJ did in the final was unbelievable to many, and puts forward a strong argument for the par as the best bot lane duo in the world.
Clearly, winning Worlds is a team effort, and bringing down SKT is something that no other team has ever managed to do at Worlds before, but this Samsung team managed to do the unthinkable and end the reign of Faker. While much of the discussion has been around what the best League of Legends player in history did wrong, and his emotions after the final, that conversation does a disservice to the young Samsung team. After losing in heartbreaking fashion last year, they worked hard to improve and make it back to exactly the same stage this year. The difference was that this time they managed to take the win, proving last year was not a fluke and creating one of the best redemption stories in all of esports. Sure, SKT losing was a big deal, but the bigger and better story is that of Samsung and how they find themselves on top of the pro gaming world.
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