Winning Mentality -- Huni on his growth and playing for SKT

Seung-hoon “Huni” Heo lost a total of three regular season sets from 2015 Summer to 2016 Summer to the tune of a 51-3 overall record. SK Telecom T1 was one of the few teams that had an even better grasp than him on what it takes to win -- and then he joined them.

Many eyebrows raised when news first broke out that Huni would join SKT. And, at the time, perhaps for good reason. I’m not going to pretend like I thought it was knockout signing. It certainly wasn’t bad. But in an offseason that saw the likes of Smeb and Ssumday move, Huni being picked up by the best team in the world felt a little underwhelming. Almost as if we were robbed of a potential super team (as if SKT wasn't that already). But it was the NA LCS that was robbed of one its supreme talents and personalities.

Huni’s playstyle was... aggressive to say the least. At his tamest, he was flashing into the backline to secure a kill. At his wildest, he looked like he’d just chugged a Red Bull for every single CS he missed.He’d developed a sort of reputation for not being able to play tanks. He laughs when recalling the kkOma belt memes. The most revered coach in the world wouldn’t put up with erratic top lane picks -- this was the public consensus. Whether Huni could adapt was the question mark.

It wasn’t hard for him, though. “SKT is the best team in the world,” he says. “In League of Legends history [even]. I just adapt to the situation -- whatever champion we need, I just play it. That’s my job.”

It’s a testament to the organization’s culture, sure. I don’t mean to take anything away from SKT as they’ve undoubtedly earned their every accolade. But I think there are times where people think you could stick a dog or a bronze player into top lane and SKT would still contend for Worlds. But now, more than any other time in League of Legends history, winning is the result of a concerted team effort. The type of solo performances that elevated Faker into the spotlight are much fewer and much farther between.

Which is why it’s important to acknowledge Huni’s feats. I think it’s easy to remember him for his antics. His HOLOs and his Lucian top. Maybe you tie his wins to Reignover. Maybe it’s the mic checks where he’s constantly cracking jokes -- that veil of goofiness sometimes overshadows the fact that he just wins. Though, interestingly enough, with two EU LCS Championships and now an LCK Championship, the NA LCS is the only title which managed to elude him. The evidence is conclusive: the NA LCS is clearly harder than EU and Korea.

I thought one of the most difficult things to adjust to would be pressure. In EU and NA, he seemingly had free reign to do whatever he wanted. But on SKT, losing meant would mean he was the faulty cog. I thought it’d be like playing doubles tennis with your crush -- you don’t want to let them down. But not for Huni.

“It’s for sure less pressure,” he says. “I can focus one hundred percent on my own play. When I played outside of Korea, I was sometimes pressured to watch other lanes for example. On SKT I just need to focus on myself.”

There are many reasons for Huni’s success, but it’s his aggression that sticks out the most for me. What happens when you have a player willing to be the wedge is that it creates a safer path for everyone behind them. Think about how old wars were fought -- soldiers charged with their swords and spears pointed forward. The front line fatality rate was probably astronomical. But you couldn’t fight without that line.

And in League of Legends, having a teammate who’s not just willing to take the initiative, but excels at it, is a godsend. A couple things spawn from that. First, whichever team starts the fight will have their cooldowns come back up first. The first move will almost always take a brief advantage. You get an extra ability or an auto-attack. It’s why white wins more in chess -- white always ends the game even in moves or up one.

Second, if your front line is capable of drawing attention (and Huni is a magnet for attention), then that opens up space for your damage dealers. In this case, that’s Bang and Faker and sometimes Peanut. You catch my drift on this one? Those are the last people you want to give space to.

Huni says, “There are so many times where when I die, the team can get something else. There should always be a benefit when I die, so I just need to pressure as much as I can.”

Of course, this means Huni needed to mitigate solo deaths. But he says he’s upgraded his League skills since joining SKT. “I’m kind of better -- just a little bit,” he laughs.

He’s also found himself splitting play time with substitute Profit this split. But the idea of a six or seven man roster is still not regularly utilized -- especially in the EU and NA LCS. There’s a stigma attached to it. It’s not like traditional sports where rotations are based on stamina. Being subbed generally means, “X does Y better than you.” It means you have space to improve.

“[Being subbed] has made me try harder,” says Huni. “But it also lets us share really good tips for top and for matchups. We play against each other to [learn specific matchups].

“If I could do better,” he continues, “then I could ask kkOma if I could play top Lucian.”

I ask him what kkOma would say.

Huni laughs for a second and says, “[He’d say] Shut up.”

Winning definitely attracts a lot of fans, but it was Huni’s antics and personality that really drew people into his circle. I think that’s a trait vastly undervalued, if only because it’s hard for the average spectator to quantify. Huni mentioned he’s talked to former teammate WildTurtle while at MSI, and that he still talks to Pobelter from time to that. And, of course, he’s still friends with Reignover.

Adjusting to SKT, too, was easy -- he says they’re really nice personally. “It’s quite easy to get used to them,” he says, “That’s why they’re first place.”

Recently, fans have had more access to the SKT players because of their migration to the Twitch.tv streaming platform. We’ve seen drunk rants. We’ve seen kkOma burst onto that drunk rant to turn it off. For a long time, SKT was seen as mechanical. Precise. As if they were robots. Now -- of course -- we are finding they aren’t. That the timing coincides with Huni joining the team is more than just a coincidence to me. He’d always seemed like an ideal teammate to play with. He was someone that could relieve the tension of being on stage.

There’s another angle with which to look at taking the initiative. It’s not always going forwards. Sometimes it’s retreating to create a false opening -- this is something SKT does better than any team in the world, and is for me the biggest strategical factor behind their dominance. There are plenty of teams that know how to take a lead and snowball it into victories. 

But nobody can stall a game and reverse the tide quite like SKT. That’s probably the biggest adjustment for Huni on a gameplay level -- learning how to coax the enemy team into taking a step too far before pouncing. That’ll be one of the biggest things to watch for as MSI continues to play out -- though I don’t think we’ll see SKT fall into many holes. The might have the five best individual players at the tournament.

Fitting into this slower style might seem counterintuitive to what we know of Huni -- the brashness and the go-go-go type of play. But it’s been a while since many fans have seen him. Huni missed every international event in 2016, so the last time we saw him compete on a stage like this was the 2015 Worlds Semifinal, where he was manhandled by Smeb. Since then, though, he’s been forced to reconsider his style.

“I’m more rock solid,” he says. “I trust myself 100%. I try as hard as I can and I’m a little bit quieter. I got older.”

A more controlled Huni was a scary thought back then for a guy who was already so dominant. But here he is now, holding down top lane for the three time World Champs. You’ll see very quickly he’s a more rounded player, but you’ll still find the relentlessness that got him here in the first place. Extra aggression is, perhaps, the last thing would-be challengers wanted to see on SKT. The Huni signing may be the perfect harmony for SKT. Aggression and counter-aggression. Vibrant personalities and calm ones. 

And for Huni, it’s all a bit of give and take. “I was definitely never a robot,” he laughs. “[But now] it’s kind of half-half. I’m becoming half robot, and SKT is becoming half human.”   

SKT takes on TSM to kick off the MSI Group Stage's second day of action at 11 am PT. 

Kien Lam is a writer for LoLesports. You can find really awful great jokes on his Twitter @meanmisterkien.