Immortals haven’t had the best season, especially when you consider that the organization boasted consecutive first place-finishes in the regular season last year. In the beginning, there were so many questions: How will Flame perform as a starting top laner? Will Dardoch continue to have friction with his teammates? Can Cody Sun perform as a rookie AD — and with a Korean support in Olleh, no less?

Immortals had their moments with Flame and Dardoch occasionally shining, but teamwork across the board was sloppy and Immortals struggled to maintain any form of consistency. The new bot lane of Cody Sun and Olleh, being 2 players that most fans wouldn’t know of, faced a great amount of criticism early on. Recently, however, they’ve become a true heel for the team as a duo and have played a significant role in Immortals’s gradual improvement.

Cody Sun is feeling more comfortable in LCS © Riot Games

Bot lane synergy

Cody Sun had trouble acclimating to the LCS, but once he and Olleh really came together as a duo, all was well. “Olleh and I had a lot of criticism in the beginning from our team and I guess Reddit. Every day we just worked on becoming better and better. We just played to improve and both trusted each other that we can play at a high level.” That trust has brought Olleh and Cody’s play inline and allowed for the recent lane pressure that they’ve been able to dole out. Cody also initially struggled with stage-play as a rookie, where the stakes of the match and even the new ping make a big difference. “Now, we feel really comfortable playing on stage. Especially for me as a rookie, it was a pretty new experience playing onstage and it wasn’t the same. Now that I’ve played a lot onstage, Olleh and me are just comfortable laning with each other.”

Olleh comments that the comfort they share now wasn’t easy to obtain. Being a Korean import, with a lack of history in Western regions, made him fairly unknown apart from basic scouting. “Firstly, I had to convince [Cody]. In NA many people don’t know me because I was playing in Taiwan and Brazil. I don’t have a reputation around here,” Olleh says. Despite being a relative unknown, Olleh has a wealth of experience that he wants to share with Cody so that he can refine his talent. “I was trying to convince Cody that I had a lot of experience and that if he believes in me, I can help him grow to be a really good AD carry. Finally, Cody started to believe me and we started to talk a lot as a bot duo. I think trust is the most important thing for a duo bot.”

Dardoch consoling Olleh after a tough loss © Riot Games

Trust in each other

Olleh mentions trust as something he believes to be crucial and expands on that in regard to Cody. “Yeah, for example, if Cody dies and I just think ‘ah, he is so bad,’ we can’t grow. But if after we die, I tell Cody that I can give my advice to him, that’s better. Even sometimes personal stuff, we just talk as friends. I think we are a really good duo bot in NA LCS. After some of his mistakes, I don’t want to point and blame, he knows that I want him to be a good AD carry.”

Olleh also really needed to find trust to work effectively with the rest of his teammates. Being in a new environment with new teammates left him uncertain. “Normally in scrims, I talk a lot and make big plays, but I didn’t have the same confidence on stage. I tried to figure out why I didn’t talk … Actually, I was afraid of Josh because sometimes when I called something, Josh answered a little strongly and I was afraid of that.”

He’s likely not the first to feel that way; Dardoch has a bit of a reputation for being hard to work with. Olleh, being an experienced player, made his concern heard and it seems to have really benefited IMT. “Before we played against Flyquest, I talked with Josh and was honest about my feelings. I told him ‘I want to play with you.’ That talk was really good and I got confidence. After the talk, I was the same on stage as in scrims and that’s why we could beat Flyquest.”

Immortals are starting to feel like a team © Riot Games

More work to do

Cody remarks that communication has also grown on a personal level and practical one, as language barriers tend to be an issue. “I think Flame and Olleh’s English have gotten a lot better. This week, we slowly worked on communication and having better communication is just a valuable asset to the team. I think that’s a big part of why we’re able to perform well now.”

Immortals may have looked good this past week, but IMT still dropped the ball against Team SoloMid and struggled against Team Liquid and EnVyUs the week before. Olleh believes there is still much to learn. “Whenever we lost, it was not the enemy’s strength, but our mistakes. Each player has really good mechanics. Next week, we are going to talk about baron calls and how to snowball off of bot and top lane. Our team just needs to learn from its mistakes.”

Despite that, IMT have made the gradual climb to looking like a playoff team — or at least, the bot lane certainly thinks so. Cody conservatively claims, “I think if we keep playing well onstage, we can make it to playoffs.”

Olleh, much like his playstyle, is always looking for more. “In spring, only one team can go to MSI. Even if we go playoffs, if we lose to one team — we can’t go to MSI. So, the main point is to improve and be the best before playoffs no matter what. I think that our team is getting better faster and if we fix our problems, we can be the first place team.” And as Immortals continues their steady rise with a bot lane that’s hitting their stride, that doesn’t sound so far-fetched.