SoaZ borrows xPeke’s backdoor crown in LGD upset

Even though Origen’s mid laner and support both sported winter-themed champion skins in the team’s shocking upset of China’s No. 1 seed LGD, it was Paul “SoaZ” Boyer’s Vlad in the end who proved to have ice water running through his vampiric veins.

 As a potentially game-deciding fight broke out in the Baron pit, SoaZ pushed brazenly into LGD’s base and went to work on his opponents’ Nexus turrets.

"There was a big wave coming bot," says SoaZ, "and I see everyone walking to the Baron pit so I just asked my team, ‘can you stop them?’ They said ‘yes’ so I was just staring at my screen trying to look for the Malphite because I saw him recall. But otherwise, I was just focussing on my teammates’ communication, to hear if somebody else had [recalled to base]."

xPeke, who’s just joined SoaZ and me in the interview room, looks over at his teammate and laughs. "It’s funny because I noticed in the game that he was saying that [he was backdooring LDG’s base]," he says, "but I didn’t realise he was actually finishing. Because I was just thinking, fuck, we’re gonna lose this fight, they’re gonna get Nashor and we’re gonna lose this fight. Then Malphite backed so we actually killed them all. And then I see you there finishing while I’m chasing the Lulu, and was like, oh nice! It’s SoaZ, The Backdoor Master!"

It was a euphoric moment of redemption for Origen’s French top laner, who’d had a year to mentally replay his failed backdoor attempt in Fnatic’s game against OMG during last year’s World Championship. While he was pressing in on LGD’s Nexus, did his mind ever toggle back to that OMG match?

"It actually didn’t," swears SoaZ, "until Sjokz said it in the post-game interview."

"In that moment you don’t think about it so much," adds xPeke, who knows a thing or two about a heart-in-throat nexus backdoor attempt. "Because you’re like super nervous. You don’t care."

What’s cooler than being cool? Paul "Ice Cold" Boyer, ladies and gentlemen.

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Crowd Pleaser

Thousands of spectators filling the current Parisian Group Stage venue The Dock Pullman lost their minds -- and possibly voices -- cheering on their French compatriot as LGD’s Nexus fell. Even before the game, the French shoutcasters Chips and Noi had been leading the crowd in chanting SoaZ’s name. Since Origen’s top laner hadn’t visibly acknowledged the crowd’s support, I had to make sure he could hear them through the bulky noise-cancelling headphones, which also broadcast white-noise static to dampen exterior sound.

"Yeah," SoaZ laughs, putting his hand over his face with a tinge of embarrassment. "Before the game, yeah. I was like [groaning noise]. It’s just really funny. Then my teammates made jokes."

"We just started chanting ourselves," says xPeke, laughing. "‘SO-az, SO-az, SO-az!’"

Does it add any extra pressure playing such an intense match in front of a European home crowd?

"I don’t think it’s the audience that adds pressure," says xPeke. "It’s mostly yourself and how you take critics. The fans themselves, it’s nicer here [in Europe] because everybody supports you a lot, it’s always nicer to go somewhere where people chant for you and know you and ask for pictures, than going somewhere where everyone doesn’t care about you. But at the same time that doesn’t put pressure, it’s just nicer."

"I don’t really mind," says SoaZ. "As I said earlier, it’s just funny to have people shouting your name or the name of the team. But when you’re in game, you really don’t care about this kind of stuff. You don’t even hear it, you just focus as much as possible on the game.

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Mission Improbable

Origen’s first game of the 2015 World Championship would take a superhuman amount of focus, levels of focus that are liable to make laser beams shoot from one’s eyes. Every single expert on the analyst desk had predicted Origen’s defeat before the game began. Understandably. This was an LGD squad whose AD Carry Imp hoisted the Summoner’s Cup as a member of Samsung White just one year prior.

To put things in perspective, at the time that Imp was lifting that cup, Origen’s own AD Carry Jesper "Niels" Svenningsen hadn’t even started competing professionally. This year is his rookie season. Yet Niels would be responsible for initiating one of the game’s key momentum-shifting fights when, 35 minutes in, as Kalista, Niels used Fate’s Call to slingshot Alfonso "mithy" Aguirre Rodriguez's Annie right into the middle of LGD. This allowed xPeke’s Orianna to follow up with a devastating Shockwave ultimate. The French crowd exploded.

Up until this moment the game had unfolded in tense advantage-trading lockstep, with the gold and tower tallies falling almost perfectly even. There hadn’t been many kills. You could almost feel the spectators in the audience squirming in their seats from the tension. Even xPeke, a seasoned veteran of professional League of Legends, felt himself gripped by the tension.

"You do get a bit nervous," admits xPeke. "Especially after Kog’Maw got two kills [16 minutes in] when I TP’d bot, at that point you get really nervous because you feel like, damn, we actually had the game if we kept just going equal, slowly. You know, when you do that it’s like, fuck, we just put ourselves so behind. I was thinking then, if I didn’t TP, I would be super ahead of Lulu and now I’ve given her a chance to come back. Kog’Maw is fed now. You get a bit scared, but you try to keep calm and try to focus. Because we knew it was going to be hard but we knew it wasn’t over so at some point in the game we could win fights. So we just tried to wait for that. Luckily for us, they took a bad fight themselves, really messy, and that was perfect for us."

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Can you, west?

Two days into the Group Stages, Europe and North America have the rest of the world’s undivided attention. Cloud9 shocked ahq e-Sports Club. Fnatic had Invictus Gaming in such a suffocating headlock, the Chinese squad tapped out with an early surrender. Counter Logic Gaming overwhelmed the Flash Wolves. Now Origen has bested another top-tier Asian competitor in LGD.

How does xPeke feel about the show of strength from Western teams so far in Worlds 2015?

"It’s really nice to see that there is a chance of [a Western team] winning," he says. "I feel like every other year there was always a Korean team that was just a step ahead. Last year it was Samsung White. The year before that it was SKT. And you always knew from practicing them once, or seeing them play, these guys are gonna win for sure. This year SKT seemed dominant, but then they get into the tournament and they made mistakes you wouldn’t have seen Samsung White make last year. It just makes you feel better knowing that anyone can win. It’s not going to be just about fighting for a second spot or fighting for a semifinals spot."

Origen’s fiercely devoted European fans, along with the rest of the world, will be watching to see how things play out.

Jason Killingsworth is a senior writer for Riot Games, based in Dublin, Ireland. You can find him on Twitter @RiotWhiski