Every team in the world, be it competitive gaming or traditional sports, is looking for a prodigy. A young player who exemplifies the qualities of a future superstar; a player that the team won't merely bring onto the team, but a crown jewel that the organization can build around for years to come. The word 'prodigy' is constantly thrown around in all sports, as every new, bright-eyed younger with a bit of talent gets slapped with the title and the general public hyping that rookie by comparing him to established talent at his position.

Faker, SK Telecom T1's star mid-laner, was the Hollywood movie-type success story for potential prodigies: pulled out of solo queue by the biggest team in his country, he crushes every expectation set on him, and becomes the best player of his generation while also winning countless titles and MVP awards. When people label a solo queue rookie a wunderkind or a savant with minimal results, Faker is the best case outcome — amazing first year as a pro, best player on his team, and living up to all the traits that he exhibited in the amateur scene.

But for every Faker, that one prodigy the hype machine churns out correctly, there are hundreds of failures. The kid couldn't live up to the pressure. His skills from the amateur scene didn't translate in the world of professionals. He choked. He was never that good. Pundits and experts needed a new narrative to build, and the person they picked as the next big thing that week completely took a nosedive.

Marin, for all intents and purposes, is one of those failed prodigies. Not only did he go through the hype and anticipation of his debut from the amateur scene to the professional stage, but he did it in the same organization as Faker. Now the starting top-laner for SKT T1, Marin's career started out as the second coming of Faker into the Korean professional scene, his strengths and accomplishments in the online world were comparable to Faker's. With SK Telecom T1 picking him up to apparently lead their secondary team next to their world champion squad centered around Faker, the story built itself.

A year-and-a-half following his debut with SK Telecom T1 S in the 2013-2014 Winter season of Champions Korea, Marin's career has been anything but perfect. Instead of being an explosive, playmaking top-laner that was supposed to be the 'Faker of the top-lane,' he has been primarily a tank and utility player through his career. He still has his signature champion in Rumble that he can carry on and is a threat to any team in the world that goes up against SKT T1, yet his usual role is protecting the player that he was once expected to follow in the footsteps of.

On the first day of the Mid-Season Invitational, Marin lived up to the expectations people attached to him before he even played his first pro game, winning all three games on the day and finishing with a scoreline of 20/3/18. Unlike a lot of games in Korea where Rumble, his best damage threat champion, was taken away and being forced onto a meat shield, Marin was able to play the champion twice to great effect. Against TSM in the final game, he went to one of his secondary picks in Gnar, not slowing down after his fist two Rumble performances, killing opposing top-laner Dyrus twice in lane with help from jungler Bengi during the first ten minutes of the game.

One of the prevailing storylines from the first day of MSI was the lack of attention opponents gave to Marin in the top lane. While teams would focus on punishing mid lane with Faker or Easyhoon, or try to pick off an early kill in the bottom lane with a gank, Marin was given the freedom at his position to bully in lane and get ahead of his peers while all eyes were glued to the middle lane whenever Faker was in the vicinity.

When Marin first made his SKT debut, he was promoted as a roaming assassin. He would win lane, and then vanish from the top lane, going to anywhere on the map he wanted and setting up kills across Summoner's Rift. The reality when he first started playing was the exact opposite — he was predictable, almost always picking a tank like Reneketon or Shyvanna, and then grouping with the team and playing a selfless style that usually ended up with him on a grey screen with no kills to his name.

The first year of Marin's career was muddled with lackluster results, his stock dropping from 'Faker of the top-lane' to becoming a player that was definitely good enough to be a starter, but not someone you build a team around. He was a good utility player, someone who could engage well and soak up damage, putting himself in front of the chaos while the team's main carries did the damage. It was far from the glamorous future he was predicted to have, killing thousands of champions and becoming the best top-laner on the planet. He went from the penthouse to working for the people who lived in the suite, doing the dirty work so that their lives could mirror the one that he was once imagined to enjoy.

Thing is, Marin, while being a capable carry and proving that with his excellent Rumble and Hecarim games through the 2015 season, is still, in my opinion, a better utility player than carry. There are flashes of that Marin that ravaged solo queue and put him on the map for SKT T1 to scout him, but his greatest moments have come from protecting his teammates through his defense. He is arguably the best Maokai player on the planet, holding a 13-1 career record with the magical talking tree, being the safeguard that Faker, Easyhoon, and Bang need to live up to their in-game potential.

SKT's top-laner does the little things to help his team. It's not the highlight reel plays that make him great — although his Rumble ultimates are the best in the business — it's those flanks, teleports, and protecting of his teammates.

When SKT T1 were on the verge of losing to CJ Entus in the fourth game of their Champions Korea semifinal series, a game that would have knocked SKT out of the tournament, Bang was heralded as the hero of the game. He played fantastically and put on one of the best solo carry performances in recent memory with Lucian, but SKT would have already lost the game if it wasn't for Marin. After a team fight that left most of SKT dead and CJ with another troops to roll through the middle lane to win, Marin's Maokai sped in the direction of their near conquerors, clearing out the middle lane of minions so that CJ couldn't bust down the SKT base's front door before they spawned to fight once more.

Player narratives almost never work out the way you think they will. There are the Bjergsen and Faker stories, players who do actually live up to the hype in the way they're intended. Then you have a player like Marin, who was supposed to be one thing but has turned into the absolute opposite of what was expected. He's transformed himself into a professional player from a reckless solo queue prospect, finding his place in the professional scene and on SK Telecom T1. Marin can carry games if need be for SKT T1 — he's still one of the top players in Korean solo queue — and we've seen that in the Champions playoffs and now at MSI.

Sometimes a player can surprise you. Marin is a few months of way from entering his third year of professional play, and he now has a premiere domestic championship with SKT's Champions victory with the possibility of additional titles in the future with the current MSI, Champions Summer, and the potential of the World Champions. He didn't get here down the road that was expected of him, being the protector for the main carries instead of the one carrying the load himself. But that's life personified: you can work hard to be one thing and end up in the polar opposite path a year later, making a new path for yourself.

Marin is a failed prodigy in the eyes of some. He is not the carry superstar that reaps the map for kills and is a household name for competitive gaming fans. He's not Faker, and will never have the same career course as him.

Marin is a protector of the carries he was chosen to become in the future. He does his job to the fullest, performing the small, dirty tasks that the main carries of the team don't have to worry about. The appointed captain of the new SK Telecom T1 over the more seasoned Faker and Bengi, Marin is the backbone that allows the rest of the players to shine.

You don't have to be a prodigy to be one of the best top-laners in the world, and Jang "Marin" Gyeong-Hwan is proving that this weekend in Tallahassee.

Tyler "Fionn" Erzberger is a staff writer for The Score eSports. He thinks that hamburgers are vastly superior to hot dogs.