It doesn’t seem like that long ago that the word “LCS” meant nothing to me. It doesn’t seem that long ago that me and the friends I started playing League with were sitting in front of my computer screen, watching the finals of the Season 2 World Championship, after only a couple of months after we started playing the game. It felt grandiose, fascinating even that such a large number of people would gather to watch these adolescents play a video game. Soon enough, we were no different.

So we started watching, and it didn’t take a long time for us to adopt to the LCS time schedule, giving up both the weekend and the two days that preceded it to both EU & NA LCS. It was fun and exhilarating, watching these kids play, albeit at a much higher level.

Relatively soon, one man stood out from the crowd. He wasn’t just a trash talker, he was mechanically skilled beyond reason. What he did, we had never seen before. The speed in which he reacts, and the way he positions in team fights was mindblowing. Always outplaying his opponents, always outpositioning them. It became impossible not to tune in each game just to see Konstantinos “FORG1VEN” Tzortziou play.

FORG1VEN during his Gambit Gaming days.

And we were hooked. What had previously been a wait until the EU LCS started, had now become a wait for SK Gaming and the matches they played. The meta suited him perfectly — mobile AD carries were all the rage at the time.

Everyone is amazed when a true master of the game displays a high mastery of a champion. It’s the moments that make all the highlight reels, and the moments that make us want to open up the client and queue up.

Of course, this wasn’t for the whole entirety of the games they played. The majority of the game was just focused on farming and objective control as it always is, but it was all worth it — enduring those strategic map movements, rotations and sieging for a few moments of absolute glory.

We were astonished, after realizing that we only scratched the surface levels of the carries he championed, merely imitating this great player. It didn’t matter to us if he was the first in CS at 10, or if he dealt the most damage. (he mostly always does, something he often showcases on his Twitter account) Heck, we didn’t even cheer that much for SK Gaming, even though they were a likeable team. We just tuned in to see what will this guy do next.

However in a relatively short amount of time, FORG1vEN changed a lot of teams. And that wasn’t a rare occurrence, he changed four teams in the span of two years. SK Gaming, Gambit Gaming, H2K, Origen. That can’t occur if everything is going according to plan. Teams started banning his champions, realizing he has a relatively small champion pool. We never really found out what happened. You could say he was just a toxic teammate, being selfish both in and out of the game, or you could say he always cared the most about winning but rarely found a way to vent those frustrations. Maybe it’s a bit of both? No matter what the reasons were, those following FORG1VEN’s odyssey through the LCS didn’t have a good time. After a couple of years filled with various successes and failures, the fact that FORG1VEN got to go to the World Championships put a smile on a lot of people’s faces. His fans finally got a chance to see him on the stage against the world’s best, and his haters got the same chance wanting to see him fail.

It’s a weird feeling to be honest, getting granted a wish after so long. The meta changed. New teams and superstar players appeared, and what had previously been looked at as the “old guard” has slowly but surely gotten into retirement and (for some) obscurity.

The world of League of Legends moves on, whether he plays or not. Those are facts. But for that single moment in time, we were glued to our seats for longer than we thought was possible, watching in complete awe this young man, displaying mechanical skill as we hadn’t seen prior, defying all the odds.

The current H2K lineup.

Right now, League is more of a team game than it has ever been. Being extraordinary as an individual, as a laner or playmaker can only take you so far but no matter how well you play, you will almost always lose to the team with better communication, with a better macro game. For FORG1VEN this is good news in a way, because he (arguably) never had such good teammates in Ryu, Odoamne, Vander and Jankos — the first blood king. Some questionable drafts aside, they have what it takes to advance further, they have what it takes to make Europe proud.

So now, four seasons later, the same group of friends who watched the Season 2 finals will gather once more, waiting to see if FORG1VEN can muster what is left of his energy and will, to perhaps shine like he once did, and this time — he doesn’t have to do it alone. And if it’s for the last time, then it was a pleasure and a privilege to watch.