After Evil Geniuses' 0-3 loss to Team Liquid in the LCS Lock In Finals, mid laner Joseph "jojopyun" Joon Pyun tweeted, "I wouldn't be NA Chovy if I won my first trophy instantly."
Jeong "Chovy" Ji-hoon has been recognized for his mechanical skill and in-game prowess since his LoL Champions Korea debut in 2018. In 2019, Chovy became the first player to record over 100 KDA in a professional LoL league. Now, he's currently one of the best mid laners in the world.
Jojopyun is a 17 year-old rookie in North America's much-maligned League of Legends Championship Series.
Every World Championship team since 2013 has been from either South Korea (six total titles) or China (three total titles). North America is commonly, and rightfully, cited as the worst of the four recognized major regions, with China and South Korea jockeying for first, and Europe, who has produced two Worlds finalists in the modern era and a G2 Esports team that won the Mid-Season Invitational title in 2019, a bit behind them. North America as a region is dead last.
We act as if these international accolades are transitive properties for every set of hands on every player from these regions. That's not to say that solo queue in South Korea, China, and Europe isn't better than NA, or that these regions aren't producing stronger teams. They are. But the trickle-down effect to the individual level isn't nearly as stark or as permanent. Put a top North American player in South Korean solo queue, the Chinese super server, or on EU West and they'll still climb.
"You think you're the best mid laner outside of Chovy, true or false?" I asked jojopyun a few days before Lock In Finals.
"True," he answered immediately.
Risk assessment is a vital part of success in League of Legends. Myriad factors go into every play. The best players in the world know the game well enough to calculate in their heads — or feel how that calculation works instinctively in their fingers — in order to react and execute a positive play accordingly. And even the best players make mistakes or counterbalance a steep risk against a greater reward.
Similarly, every offseason between the League of Legends World Championship and domestic regional play is measured in perceived risk (and money, which also goes into public perception of how much risk in picking up a particular player is involved).
Evil Geniuses took a perceived risk in promoting jojopyun from their LCS Academy team to their main roster as their starting mid laner once he turned 17 years-old. They theoretically — I'm blatantly ignoring a lot of factors that go into negotiations here, hence the caveat of 'theoretically' — could have picked up an established and known quantity who performed individually well at the last world championship like Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen.
In another region, a better region, jojopyun wouldn't have been cited as that great of a risk. Instead, it would have been like Oh My God promoting Lin "Creme" Jian or Mad Lions picking up William "UNF0RGIVEN" Nieminen from SK Gaming Prime. Still calculated risks, but ones with optimism behind them.
The community sentiment around jojopyun's promotion was not as optimistic, and a lot more divisive.
Although I didn't ask him this directly, I'd hazard a guess and say that jojopyun doesn't really care. He's talked about being recognized as a potential risk and having a tremendous amount of pressure on his shoulders in broadcast and third-party interviews.
He doesn't see why he is perceived as having more pressure on his shoulders than anyone else.
"I'm not sure why other players aren't as confident but I know that being confident has no downsides and that you'll play way better with a good and confident mindset," he told me when I asked why a lot of other young players don't seem to believe in their own mechanics as much as he does.
This is a simple and obvious answer. Yet, in execution, it's a lot more difficult than that.
For years, I've been asking League of Legends players who come to play in North America from other regions, why players in NA are comparatively hesitant to their other regional counterparts. The quality of solo queue is brought up frequently in relation to how much confidence one has in their ability to immediately execute on a play.
Jojopyun doesn't have this problem.
When sifting and sorting through the nuanced answers — yes, there are nuanced answers it is not at all simple — to why North America is not as strong as other regions, one factor that is just beginning to be recognized more is the state of gaming in North America specifically. When it comes to consoles versus PCs, consoles still lead gaming in the United States and Canada. This pushes anyone who is thinking of pursuing a career in gaming towards FPS games like Fortnite or Call of Duty, or fighting games.
The common line around jojopyun is that he could have been a Fortnite pro. The unspoken part of this fact is that League of Legends is not the common choice for a prodigious North American gaming talent like jojopyun.
He didn't start playing LoL seriously until about two years ago.
"I started playing League…I don't even remember," jojopyun said. "I downloaded it as a kid but I didn't play it a lot, I would just play it casually. Maybe five years ago? But I almost never played."
"When I hit really high elo, so when I hit 1,000LP I was like, 'Oh I can actually take this game seriously and pursue it,'" he added.
With all other games jojopyun had played previously, he had grown bored with them over time. He even admits to this happening with the solo queue aspect of League of Legends.
"I think I do get bored of League in solo queue but competitive-esport-wise is fun," he said. "I think compared to other games it's probably the best esport. I like the competition a lot."
I asked him if there was a jump in how he thought of the game when he initially made the move and pursued a professional career.
"It definitely gets more serious and obviously there's more on the line since it is your job you have to perform, that's the biggest difference," he said. "It's also really fun competing so other than that there's not really much else."
Jojopyun and Evil Geniuses produced an unlikely undefeated run to the Lock In Finals where they were bested by Team Liquid. Although they surely are disappointed with the loss, there's a lot to like already about how well-coordinated this team already is, and how fearlessly they play.
After all, if your mid laner is aggressively contesting the minion wave at Level 1, forcing his opponents to react, even to the initial detriment of his own creep score count, it's impossible to say that he doesn't believe in his own mechanics.
In closing, I will leave you all with some random jojopyun facts.
His favorite movies are as follows: Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Inception, Good Will Hunting, Dark Knight, Silence of the Lambs, and Shutter Island
The toughest mid laner he's ever faced was DWG KIA's Heo "ShowMaker" Su. They met in European solo queue.
He thinks aliens exist. "What do you mean, like those green things in movies or any living thing outside of Earth?" he asked. "Yeah I definitely think there's living things outside of Earth."
He is the loudest person on his team, according to him.
When asked who on his team would make it off a desert island as the last alive, he immediately answered, "Me."
"Why?" I asked.
I'm just built different," he said, laughing. "I dunno."
