The deafened crowd in Brussels sat in near silence. The KOO Tigers, Korea’s second seed at Worlds, had just finished their kill of the incapacitated number one European seed, Fnatic. Sparse applause followed, the Tigers waved to the crowd, and they ventured off to prepare for the finals against their Korean comrade in SK Telecom T1. Following the set there was wide-spread acclaim for the performances of top laner Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho and marksman Kim “PraY” Jong-in, along with the general praise that star support Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon typically garners. What went unnoticed was the play of mid laner Lee “KurO” Seo-haeng, who bested a mid laner many considered far superior. Written off as another “over-performance”, KurO continued to do his job, being the anchor of his team in the mid lane. Entering the set against Fnatic he would be squaring off against Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten, the rookie European mid lane prodigy. Nearly every analyst and commentator agreed on two things entering this set: Smeb would outclass Fnatic top laner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon and Febiven would stand far above Kuro. Only one of those held true as Smeb put on a monumental performance, showing every single flaw of the rookie Fnatic top laner. In the mid lane Kuro did what he has done for three years now, standing toe to toe with a player most would consider superior.

One of three members on KOO who previously participated in the Incredible Miracle organization, Kuro held a standing with his team, Incredible Miracle 2, in a way Smeb did not. Whereas Smeb was more of a punching bag and a slight joke in Champions prior to leaving the ill-fated KeSPA organization, Kuro was one of the very lone bright spots for the bottom of the barrel team. All throughout his time with Incredible Miracle 2 Kuro was regarded as a player that was good, but not great enough to carry the pieces placed around him. Performing well through the assassin heavy meta in Season 3, he led Incredible Miracle to their greatest finish in League history with an NLB runner-up placing. From there he played on Incredible Miracle teams marred with a complete lack of talent until he would find a bigger and better opportunity.

Najin Black Sword underwent reconstructive surgery between the Spring 2014 and Summer 2014 seasons of Champions. Replacing four of their previous starting members with four up and coming players, including Kuro, Najin Black Sword suddenly had a renewed future. After SK Telecom S and Lee “EasyHoon” Ji-hoon stole a game five victory away from Sword in Champions Summer Quarterfinals, Kuro would once again help bring his team to the NLB finals. There he would meet his assumed opponent for the Season 5 World Championship finals: Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok. In what was the fifth ever meeting between the two, they dueled it out in the mid lane multiple times with Faker always coming out the victor. In a deceptively close sweep, SK Telecom T1 K would take the NLB crown. The massive exodus of talent and coaches that followed the Summer split brought us the formation of the now-KOO Tigers.

While everyone is talking about Smeb for his ascension during the year to the top of carry mountain, the other solo laner on the team has garnered extremely little attention or praise. Kuro’s style is not in the same vein as most other mid laners and as such he has received the brunt of fan criticism on the team. From a fan perspective, the prime example for mid lane and the player every mid laner should be modeled after is Faker. Lane dominant, snowball heavy game play that can single-handedly take over and win a game. The one vs nine mentality is pervasive in the mid lane role, carry oriented players being championed while secondary role players get discarded. Kuro is very much in the latter segment of mid lane. He brings stability, self-sufficiency, and versatility to the mid lane in lieu of lane dominance and hard carry potential. He wins game not by mechanically out playing his opponent, but by playing smarter than them; By filling the exact role his team needs and executing it to a high level. He has been the rock for KOO, the glue to every team composition coach Jeong “NoFe” No-chul has come up with.

In the Fnatic match up, Kuro adopted the mid lane teleport for all three matches while his lane opponent, Febiven, adopted more combative summoner spells in the first and third games. Despite bringing non-combative summoner spells, and playing weak laning champs, Kuro maintained an even-keeled lane against the more lane driven Fnatic mid. Once out of lane play began Kuro’s decisions to give up the lane for the late game paid off, making key teleports around the map. KOO’s map play and teleport usage swiftly gashed the neck of the European giant and the Brussels crowd fell into silence. Showing the ability of knowing what and how much to give up, sacrificing his personal laning performance and playing for the team has been one of Kuro’s greatest positives. It all shown through during the semifinals.

On October 31st, Kuro will presumably be squaring off against someone who he is personally 2-14 all time against, Faker. With the Season 5 World Championship final matches, Kuro will have faced Faker more times than any mid laner not named Heo “PawN” Won-seok and thus far he has historically shown disastrous results. While he has been able to stand toe to toe with nearly every other mid laner throughout his career, Faker is very much the white whale to Kuro’s career. Sporting a 1.96 total KDA against Faker, well below his 4.60 career KDA, very little has ever gone right in this match up for the Incredible Miracle alumnus. In fact, one of the plays that garnered Kuro a lot of attention was whenever he almost solo-killed Faker in NLB finals.

Kuro showed more success against Faker during the 2015 season, particularly at the beginning of the year when KOO were widely regarded as the best team in the world. The then-GE Tigers won a best of three set against SK Telecom with Kuro outperforming Faker for the first time in his career. Since then however, the Tigers have gone 0-9 against SK Telecom and Kuro’s performances, both against Faker and Easyhoon, have left a lot to be desired. Faker has broken out Irelia and Master Yi, style counter picks, and stomped versus the KOO Tigers during the Summer split. Many predict another stomp in the finals with the largest gap in talent sitting tall in the mid lane. If KOO are going to even make it a set, Kuro’s going to have to reverse his history with Faker and continue his “over-performance” for this tournament. The match up between the two teams has been incredibly one-sided since February and if KOO are to pull off the near impossible in the finals they will need an incredible miracle. No one expected them to get this far, yet here they are.