As KT Rolster and Origen booked their trips to London to compete in the World Championship quarterfinals next week, one player's long and historic career came to an end in Paris. Following his team's loss to LGD Gaming in the finale of Group D matches, Team SoloMid's Dyrus announced that his pro-gaming story had reached its conclusion, spanning over five continuous world championships and countless domestic accolades.

Group D, from the outset, was heavily focused on the top lane and contained five legends who competed in Paris to try and claim their spot as the group's greatest top laner. The futures of a few of the top laners are still in question, but one did stand above them all to continue his ongoing quest to be known as the greatest player at his position in League of Legends history.

Before we get into the team that went undefeated today and won the group, let's breakdown their play at the World Championships and appreciate the legacies they've crafted over the years.

Dyrus

The tortured hero from the famed North American empire. Dyrus' World Championship career began back in the 2011 season on Epik Gamer, where he actually played his future legacy team, TSM, in the the tournament's knockout stage. Dyrus fell to TSM by a score of 2-0 and finished the competition in fourth place, the highest he would ever finish at Worlds in his five trips. Following the loss, he went on join TSM during the 2012 season and started his historic career with the American powerhouse, making it to every World Championship and playing in every single North American LCS final up to this point.

While his fifth chance at the Summoner's Cup came up short and was his worst overall finish on the world-stage, he did have possibly the one decisive decision that secured TSM their only win of the competition. Against LGD Gaming in the first week of group play, both teams came into the match needing to win to keep their Top 8 hopes alive. Dyrus faced off against Acorn, arguably the greatest top laner in terms of teleport usage, and beat him to the punch when it came to utilizing his transportation summoner spell, making the crucial call to teleport down to the bottom lane and help his team pick up a quick two kills.

Dyrus' final year of pro-gaming wasn't perfect. He played the sacrificial lamb for a majority of the season as he was left alone in the top lane to fend for himself as four people pounced on him under his turret. But, through that all, he kept his composure and did everything he could — which included a lot of greyed out screens — and helped his team win the IEM World Championship earlier this year as well as the spring season of the NA LCS.

When people look back at Dyrus' career in the future, he shouldn't be remembered for his despair in the top lane or even his incredible play in his early years. He should be remembered as the heart of Team SoloMid that always kept pumping and moving the North American dynasty into the future.

Flame

Was Flame the main reason that LGD Gaming were somewhat able to salvage their disaster of a World Championship? No, but no one, not even players like Ssumday or MaRin, would have been able to single-handedly turn around the wreck that was LGD.

What Flame did do was play well in the two games that LGD did win. In their first game against KT Rolster, he got off to a strong start on his Darius against Ssumday's Renekton, but everything fell apart when TBQ got caught in the jungle with his Evelynn and allowed Renekton to pick up two kills to gain the advantage he needed to become the split-pushing monster he's proven to be throughout the World Championships.

The other two games were better from Flame and the entire team, and his Olaf play in the game against Origen was the highlight of his tournament. He picked up a Triple Kill after teleporting in and blitzing the members of Origen in the top lane, completing his trio of kills with his final axe before also falling to the converging pressure. All in all, Flame did as well as you'd expect from a guy who hasn't played a professional game since August and was sitting on the bench for all but one game in the LPL post season.

One of the best top laners of all-time, Flame will now return to China with a renewed sense of promise after leaving the tournament with a positive record. As a player that can compete against the highest level of challengers in the current top lane carry meta, it'll be interesting to see if Flame stays with LGD instead of returning to Korea after a year abroad, or if he finds a new home in the western region as a squad's all-important ace.

Acorn

If Dyrus is the tortured legend in the top lane and Flame is historically the strongest carry at the position, then Acorn would get the distinction of being the most consistent. Although Dyrus' record of making it to six straight NA LCS championships is impressive, Acorn's streak is one of the greatest feats in League. Since last year's spring season of Champions, he's played in four straight domestic finals, two of them in Korea to end 2014 and the two domestic finals in China this year. In the scene's two strongest regions, Acorn has played on two different teams and gone to the finals four straight seasons.

Sadly, that consistency in domestic play didn't translate to his second trip to Worlds, his first being last year with the semifinalists Samsung Blue. Acorn, like the rest of LGD, was a mess in the first week, getting beat when it came to teleport, transporting to wrong places on the map, and being an overall negative to the team. While it wasn't primarily his fault for LGD's collapse, he was the one switched out of the starting five in the second week due to Flame being the one substitute they were allowed to play, meaning that he had to sit on the bench during LGD's mini return to form at the end of the group.

Along with Dyrus' retirement, there have been rumors that Acorn could be thinking of stepping down as well from pro-gaming, moving to the realm of a full-time head coach. He was already a player-coach for LGD for parts of the season when their coaching situation was in a state of flux, and with how well he's been able to help carries reach their full potentials over the past few years, his future as a coach could end up even greater than the one he's created as an elite player.

Soaz

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, and it was the age of foolishness for Soaz.

The first week couldn't have been scripted better for the Frenchmen, playing in front of his own home crowd, going undefeated in Origen's first three games, and having the highlight of week one by completing the major upset (at the time) against LGD Gaming with a Nexus backdoor that made every fan watching in attendance jump out of their seats.

Today's games weren't as glamorous and movie-like for the player with the most map wins in Worlds history (24). He was zeroed in on in both of Origen's losses to LGD Gaming and KT Rolster, Ssumday having his second straight successful game against the West's best top laner of all-time. The KT ace had his way with Soaz in their first matchup in a duel between Ssumday's Olaf and Soaz's apt Fiora pick, and today was more of the same, this time Ssumday's Darius repeatedly dunking on Soaz's Kennen until it was impossible for the Origen player to be left alone on the map in fear of being deleted from the map instantly.

Origen were at their best when Soaz and xPeke could use their double teleports to zip around the map and make plays through their superior map pressure, but that was negated today when both LGD and KT Rolster used teleports of their own to keep up with the solo lane duo. While I don't think it's time to panic for Soaz or Origen fans as they have a week's time to prepare new strategies for their quarterfinal match, the French carry will need to be more cautious in future rounds if he wants to make it to the Summoner's Cup Final.

Ssumday

Ssumday is the best top laner in the world.

I know, I know, you're all thinking, 'What about MaRin!? He's been amazing!', and I'll agree with you. MaRin has been amazing this tournament and has proven that he's not only a Maokai player and can even be a better player when he is put on to carry, split-pushing champions. MaRin dominated Group C and was the MVP of the 6-0 SK Telecom T1 team that is heading into the quarterfinals as heavy favorites to lift the Summoner's Cup.

Now, let me make the case for Ssumday: he was equally as dominant as MaRin (beating Soaz handily in the one game KT did lose) but went up against a quartet of Acorn, Flame, Dyrus, and Soaz. MaRin's competition was AmazingJ, a player that didn't start for EDG until the very end of the season; Odoamne, admittedly, a topflight European top laner; and Warlock, probably the weakest top laner in the entire tournament. Ssumday's competition was stiffer and was head and shoulders above them all, being the best Darius player in the group stages and carrying KT in almost every game they've played.

Ssumday began his career on the same day that Faker started his. Two and a half years later, the KT Rolster ace wants to cement his own legacy as a world champion, MVP, and possibly, if his rise continues, the greatest top laner to ever play League of Legends.

World Stock Exchange

Rising Stock: KT Rolster

Last week had its up and downs for KT. They played well in all three games but fell in their final match against Origen, losing in a close game that came down to OG taking advantage of KT's positioning on the map. Wanting to make sure they could grab first in the group, Korea's third seeded team came into today's rematch versus Origen with a strategy that wouldn't allow for the same mistakes to happen twice.

KT played a composition that had four champions who could transport across the map in a matter of seconds, and the only immobile champion, Jinx, being the glass cannon of the group to output the most damage possible from the backlines. After getting a big lead early through their mobility and renowned early-game movements, KT fell into the trap that has hurt them ever since Piccaboo joined the team in summer and transformed them into a title contending team: they played too carelessly in the lead.

SKT and KT aren't that different when you look at their strengths and weaknesses in their styles. The biggest difference is that when SKT get their early lead in the lane phase and get a sizable lead, they know how to close out games cleanly and wisely, completing their victories quickly. KT are the complete opposite; they get a huge lead with some ingenious decisions, roll into the mid-game, and then, without any warning, go crazy and try to dive an entire five-man team under the tower with Ssumday without teleport on the other side of the map.

Rolster are the definition of a reckless genius. They have brilliant schemes and are as talented as SKT T1 pound-for-pound, but KT sorely lack when it comes to holding a lead and shutting the door on teams when they get an advantage. Now looking like the clear second strongest team in the tournament with a 5-1 record over six games and their only loss coming in an extremely close battle against Origen, KT Rolster will need to work on their patience and ability to end games cleanly if they want any chance whatsoever of taking down their long-time Korean rivals from SKT.

The King of Worlds: Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho

Previous Kings: Hai, Karsa, MaRin, Balls, Maple, Bengi

As mentioned earlier in the Daily, I believe Ssumday is the best top laner in the world and today only furthered that idea in my head.

Instead of going on like I've already done about how great he is from his split-pushing to teleporting to playing every type of top lane champion to wearing fake lenseless glasses, let me just show you his scorelines today against Flame, Dyrus, and Soaz:

3/0/7 on Renekton vs. LGD (and even completed the 'Flame Horizon' against the namesake of the term, outfarming Flame by 101 CS)

7/2/6 on Olaf vs. TSM

12/3/6 on Darius vs. Origen

Yeah, he's pretty good at League.

Tyler "Fionn" Erzberger is a staff writer for theScore eSports. You can follow him on Twitter