On the 28th of June, 2013, a former Starcraft: Brood War player by the name of Yu “Ggoong” Byeong-jun debuted for Najin Shield in the AMD-INVEN GamExperience. In that tournament, they would place second, falling to recent Champions Spring winners MVP Ozone. From there Ggoong would remain as a staple mid laner in the Korean scene, showing strong peak levels of play through 2014. His Spring 2014 performance was particularly notable, playing in a meta that suited him to a tee with champs he had mastered being top-tier. Starring in a team that worked to his strengths he would lead Najin White Shield to the Champion Spring finals, squaring off against Bae “dade” Eo-Jin and his Samsung Blue roster. While Najin White Shield would fall in the set 3-1, Ggoong was firmly placed on the world map with his performance through the tournament. He had gained a considerable following among fans and helped put Najin White Shield far above their sister team, Najin Black Sword. After a very disappointing Summer performance that encapsulated Ggoong’s largest problems, Shield would eventually twist and turn their way to a surprise Season 4 World Championship berth. Ending that in a poor Quarterfinals showing against Chinese powerhouse OMG, the Winter offseason had arrived and many changes had begun to shape the future Korean scene.

The destruction of sister teams brought an end to Najin White Shield and Najin Black Sword. They would form one team under the organization banner of Najin e-mFire. With a wealth of talent to choose from between their promising Black Sword squad and their veteran White Shield squad, Najin was unable to retain certain players with the merger. Star Shield support Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon, Sword jungler Lee “Hojin” Ho-jin, and Sword mid laner Lee “KurO” Seo-haeng would take off to the new Korean roster HUYA Tigers. Shield top laner Baek “Save” Young-Jin would leave for greener pastures alongside over 50 other professional Korean players as he tried his hand in the Chinese region.

Despite the losses, Najin e-mFire still had individually strong players on their roster, including world-class top laner Lee “Duke” Ho-Seong and marksman Oh “Ohq” Gyu-min. Due to Kuro leaving Najin, they would choose to stick with Ggoong going into the 2015 season despite being outperformed by his former Najin teammate during Summer and his own poor Worlds performance. With his individual play continuing in a downward slope through the Spring split, Najin would bring in a challenger for the mid lane spot in rookie Park “TANK” Dan-won.

I like to call Ggoong the “poor man’s Dade”. Dade as a player is someone who has mastered numerous champions and when he is on one of those champs and the meta is favorable, he is the only mid laner that I believe to be “Faker level”. However, he has gone through certain periods of time where those just don’t line up and when those criteria don’t line up Dade has shown to be a little less than stellar. Ggoong very much has traits of Dade, but doesn’t touch him in any aspect. He is less intelligent in-game, he is less mechanically skilled, he has worse champ pool depth, and his adaptability makes Dade himself look like a god. Najin this season didn’t need the poor man’s Dade. They needed someone who could sit mid independently, be a flexible, reliable laner, and allow the side lanes to be appropriated the most attention. Especially as the meta shifted with the introduction of season 5 as the mid lane lost a lot of its importance and priority in-game. In short, Najin needed the mid that they allowed to leave in the offseason, Kuro. With him gone to the then-GE Tigers, Najin had another chance at fixing their team midway through the Spring split with the acquisition of Tank.

Prior to Tank’s debut, Najin had gone a middling 8-9 in total matches and 3-4 in total sets during the first round robin of the split. Sitting in fifth place out of eight teams, this is not where Najin should have been. Tank would see his debut against Korean monster SK Telecom T1. Despite the 2-1 set loss, things appeared to be a bit more promising for Najin as they broke the rookie mid laner in against some stifling talent. What Tank had brought to the roster was an ability Ggoong had failed to accomplish his entire career; the ability to relegate himself to a secondary, supportive threat. This style has been ever-present in the season 5 meta among mid laners. Bringing in a proficiency on champs such as Xerath, Karthus, and Lulu, Tank could work his lane independently from the rest of the team which allowed his jungler to pressure the side lanes containing stars Duke and Ohq. Providing more flexibility in the draft phase was another plus with the addition of Tank as Ggoong had been notorious through his lifetime with Najin for his incredibly narrow champ pool that allowed teams to prepare quite easily.

Unfortunately, bringing in the rookie mid halfway through the split didn’t solve everything immediately. Najin continued their skid into mediocrity going 6-7 in total matches with Tank and 2-5 in total sets as the two mid laners shared the position. They would end the split in sixth place, only above Champions gatekeeper Incredible Miracle and a Samsung Galaxy organization that was rebuilding from a natural disaster. The Spring split was a total failure, the second split in a row that Ggoong had horribly underperformed. Najin had flirted with the idea of total replacement and come Summer they had the chance to pull the trigger.

They didn’t. Instead of diving into Summer head first with their young, promising mid laner, they stuck with the stubborn veteran that had failed to showcase consistent, strong performances in over a year. The mid lane meta had devolved to the point where it was the entire opposite of what Ggoong had excelled at. Assassins being neutered, zero roaming opportunities present, and wave clear mages being in vogue, Ggoong’s greatest attribute had been fully neutralized. Despite mid lane losing total importance in the meta, Najin continued giving Ggoong the in-game attention he needed to be a relevant mid laner. At this point, Ggoong had truly become the worst mid in Korea. Despite his sometimes positive matches and occasional carries, he was a total net negative for Najin and he drained resources across the map that would otherwise be spent on their masterful marksman Ohq or their stud top laner Duke, who played the position with the most importance and priority in the meta during season 5.

Through the Summer split, Najin would squirm their way to the fifth place finish and final playoff seeding. They would find themselves up against the KOO Tigers, Kuro’s team. After taking the first game off the back of Ohq and Duke, KOO would take the final two matches and the set, knocking Najin out of playoffs where they sit locked into the final regional seed. To salvage their season they would have to climb through three straight best of five sets against three of the top six Korean teams. They would then get a berth to Worlds and presumably get smashed in group stage.

So you may ask, why exactly is Ggoong so detrimental to the success of Najin in-game? Due to Ohq and Duke being on the team, his presence forces a triple carry threat system between all three lanes. Typically you’ll see a top-mid, adc-top, or mid-adc centered teams. Whoever is the odd position out typically is relegated to a more secondary option in almost every regard. Ohq and Duke combine to form one of the scariest duo threat combos in the world and with them being positioned on opposite ends of the map, it’s very tough to stop both of them from making things happen in any given game. This system works if you have a mid laner that allows himself to be relegated to a secondary carry and play independently in lane. Ggoong cannot do that and thus he forces a triple carry threat system which doesn’t have the resources to work in the meta, or he forces one of his superior primary carry side lanes to relegate themselves to a secondary carry threat. Additionally all of these problems have been compounded by the mid lane meta being incredibly low impact through the season, something Ggoong struggles mightily in dealing with.

Ggoong being apart of Najin has effectively ruined their season. Any other mid in Korea would be an upgrade over him for the sole fact that any other mid would take a step down in priority to allow Duke and Ohq to have increased priority. No other mid would draw as many resources in-game. No other mid would have as many champ pool woes. No other mid would be as one-dimensional. Ggoong’s sole presence on Najin delayed Ohq and Duke’s pending success. Holding onto the washed up veteran was the worst roster move of the entire season.