We are watching the best support in EU ever. Whether you believe YellOwStaR is that or not, no one can deny that Bora Kim is the most decorated player the entire League community has ever seen. He is one of two players alongside Dyrus to qualify for all 4 World Championships. He is the only player to win 4 EU LCS titles and is looking for his fifth. The only achievement that is continuing to be elusive to Yellow is winning a World Championship. The closest he has come was during Season 1 where he fell to the organization he now represents, Fnatic.

So who exactly is the man behind the ign YellOwStaR? Bora is the current face and captain of Fnatic. New LCS viewers have now come to subconsciously associate the support’s name and face to the organization he has represented for so long. But veterans to the scene will remember YellOwStaR the adc who played for a myriad of teams including Against All Authority, a short stint at Millenium and SK Gaming.

Season 1

Bora first started his competitive gaming career in Warcraft 3 where he became crowned as the ESWC French Champion under the ign Psyko. His brother then introduced him to League and he was stuck there ever since. His first professional team was with Against All Authority where he was the adc. It was at this time when he was able to bring current OG top laner, SoaZ to the competitive League of Legends scene. With SoaZ, Yellow and aAa qualified for the first World Championship where they were able to make it to the finals. There they fell to the Shushei-led Fnatic squad.

Season 2

After his loss at the World Championships, Bora and his bot lane partner, nRated (current support of SK Gaming), had a brief testing period with Millenium. They both declined to stay with the team, with Yellow going to SK Gaming. As the adc for SK, he was able to qualify for the Season 2 World Championships where him and his team ultimately fell flat, failing to win a single game.

Season 3

Bora then joined Fnatic, replacing Rekkles as Rekkles’ age prevented him from playing in the LCS. This move reunited Yellow with his former teammates, SoaZ and nRated. In season 3, Fnatic ended the spring split 22-6 as first in EU with Yellow-nRated bot lane. After a rocky start to the summer split, Fnatic decided to start prepping for Rekkles’ return to the team, letting nRated go and Yellow swap into his spot as support. For the rest of the season Fnatic would play with Puszu as the adc and Yellow as the support. Fnatic would go to take the title as EU summer split champs and end up qualifying for the Season 3 World Championships where they placed 3rd/4th.

Season 4

The era of Rekkles-Yellow botlane would finally come. In the spring split, they would end up as EU champions yet again. For the summer split, Fnatic would fall to Alliance marking the first split that they were not EU champions. Despite not being the summer split champions, Fnatic and Bora were able to compete in the Season 4 World Championship where they failed to get out of the group stage.

Pre-season 5

Pre-season 5 was maybe the most tumultuous time for the Fnatic organization. Longtime members xPeke, SoaZ, Cyanide and Rekkles all decided to part ways with the team. Peke went to go create his own Challenger team, Origen, in hopes of getting back into LCS. SoaZ joined his Spanish mid laner in Origen. Cyanide, the jungler veteran, decided it was finally time to retire from the League competitive scene. Rekkles went to the Summer 2014 EU champions, Alliance, now rebranded as Elements. Bora was the only one who decided to stick with the organization. As the veteran and only one remaining, he was tasked with scouting and rebuilding the team along with Fnatic manager Oliver “IzpAH” Steer. Steer was quoted as saying, “I was like, alone with YellOwStaR. YellOwStaR and me. That was the team.”

Rebuilding of Fnatic

A few months before the Season 4 World Championships, Steer and Fnatic went to Korea to learn more about the Korean esports culture and to visit as many gaming houses as possible. The first house they visited was the Samsung house, the team that housed Heo “Huni” Seung Hoon. At the time, Seung Hoon was part of Samsung’s training team or their “academy” team where he and other solo queue talents trained. Huni was actually the person who answered the door and the first Korean player Steer talked to while waiting for the Samsung head coach to arrive. He remembers asking Huni what the Korean thought Fnatic’s chances at Worlds were. Huni replied saying he didn’t think Fnatic would do well, the players on Fnatic weren’t on the Korean level and he went as far as saying they weren’t on his level. Taken back by Seung Hoon’s frankness, Steer arranged a scrim between Fnatic against Huni and whatever academy players that wanted to join Huni. One of the players that joined the current Fnatic top laner was the current Dignitas top laner, Gamsu. Four games in a row, Steer watched as the makeshift team comprised of Korean solo queue talents dismantled the EU superpower within 20 minutes.

When thinking about rebuilding the Fnatic team after the majority of the team had left, Steer asked Yellow if he recalled the scrim against the Korean solo queue team. Bora did to the point where he remembered which champions were played. With that memory in mind, they decided to extend an offer to the man who beat Fnatic just months before. Huni accepted the offer and became Fnatic’s new top laner. Steer then began to look for a Korean jungler who spoke English well to facilitate Huni’s transition to Europe. A Korean advisor and friend to Steer directed him towards Kim “ReignOver” Yeu Jin. ReignOver, at the time, was nicknamed GameOver, a reference to his tendency to tilt and being a lower tier jungler in Korea. He had also played with Huni at SKT’s gaming house so the two were acquainted with one another. After fighting through the doubts from the Chief Gaming Officer of Fnatic and even Yellow, ReignOver joined as Fnatic’s new jungler. For the remaining two carry spots, adc and mid, Bora selected Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten and Pierre “Steeelback” Medjaldi from the Challenger league. For Yellow this season was a huge risk, a huge question mark. He had a team comprised of a Korean solo queue talent that had yet to make a mark in professional play, a Korea jungler renowned for tilting and being a lower tier jungler, and two EU challenger talents; but yet he had confidence. Every single one of the players showed extreme drive to win and prove themselves. Steeelback, during contract negotiations with Steer, said, “I don’t care about money. Let me join.” The Challenger adc was eager to join with one of the best EU organizations and prove himself with EU’s best.

After resolving numerous visa issues, the team was faced with a new problem, the internet connection at their team house was failing. So for scrims and practice, the team went to a gaming club in another country to practice for a week on high ping. At this point voices of doubt and negativity were heard. Renowned League historian, Duncan “Thoorin” Shields came out saying Fnatic had lost their pre-season. Despite the skepticism and the disadvantageous position they were put in due to their internet issues at their team house, the new Fnatic squad led by Bora stomped every scrim from day one.

Season 5

For the spring split, the Fnatic team dispelled any doubt surrounding the team ending the split in first place and reclaiming their spot as the number one team EU. Steer believes that this dominating performance represented Fnatic for what it really is: a young, level headed team that has one definitive voice in Bora.

It has become apparently clear to any observer that Yellow is now one of the best shot callers ever to grace the competitive scene. There are very few teams that use the format of one definitive and final voice like the new Fnatic does. This is understandable since many people would be hesitant in giving one person so much power over the others. Such was the case when Steer told the old Fnatic squad that he wanted Bora to be the captain. They refused the idea citing ego being the main issue. However in this new team, Bora has become the captain that Steer has always wanted him to be. “Everyone comes here and it’s open ears, open eyes. …YellOwStaR says something? You have to do this. Everybody shuts up and does it straight away. There are no fights,” Steer said.

Now in their last week of the summer split, they are undefeated and the top team in EU by far. Bora currently holds the top kda in the entirety of LCS with 15.7 and he looks to be the summer split MVP, captaining one of the strongest performances that the LCS has ever seen. Now as Bora “YellOwStaR” Kim looks to qualify for his fifth World Championship, one can only wonder if this will finally be the year that the game’s most decorated field general can get the achievement that has eluded him throughout his career and achieve the pinnacle of success as the World Champion.

I would like to thank and acknowledge my use of a couple of sources that I used for this article; the lol esports wiki and Rob Zacny with Red Bull with his four part series on the Rebuilding of Fnatic where I obtained most of the information for the rebuilding of Fnatic section and the quotes (would highly recommend, it’s a great read!). Huge shout out to Keenan for helping me proofread the article. As always if there are any problems with the article don’t hesitate to let me know!

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