Big Fizz, small pond: Westdoor

With a new season comes new stars and new stories. Here is one of the players you should look out for in 2015! Team: ahq e-Sports Club Region: LMS Position: Mid It's rare for Southeast Asian players to get any recognition, as the last two years have been dismal in terms of international results. Even for Taiwanese players and teams, who have held sole and undisputed reign over the region, their struggles against the rest of the world have largely left them outside the spotlights. Even then, the name "Westdoor" inspires fear. Westdoor's suffered tribulations in pursuit of glory. Though now famous for his dynamic mid lane play, his career was nearly fatally stalled out back in late 2012 – though AHQ had planned to acquire him since the start, a contract dispute with Thermaltake Dragons put him on freeze until late 2013. Was it worth it for AHQ to wait out his contract? All signs point to a vehement “yes!” Not only was Westdoor a legendary player on both North American and Taiwanese solo queue ladders, but his performance has only gotten sharper as time’s passed and metagames shifted. He just needed an international spotlight to prove it, and one was finally provided this year. Though he missed Worlds in 2013, Taiwan's dominance of Southeast Asia's World Championship seeds finally cracked the door open for Westdoor's international debut -- AHQ was the only one of the two to have anything resembling success in the Taipei Group Stages. Their group stage victory over Edward Gaming was a triumphant display by Westdoor and support player GreenTea, proving that even as Korea and China's largely hogged the eastern hemisphere spotlights, they did not have a monopoly on raw talent. Though they failed to advance to playoffs, they did – at long last – catch the eyes of the world. In the intervening time, however, competition's heated up. Not only was former TPA mid laner and world champion Toyz returning to the limelights, but mid laners Maple and Chawy have also proven themselves worthy adversaries. "It's a matter of who can play more consistently," said Westdoor, when asked how he stacked against these well-known threats. That is not the same thing as playing passively, though. "My style of play is to keep eyes on only the AD or AP," he said. "And choose to assassinate them from the most unexpected moment from their perspective." He's priming that towards a role that demands more map control of him. "4.20+ should put more focus on Dragon and less on 'win lane win game,'" said Westdoor, with the entire team snowballing off the advantages that the revamped Dragon mechanics bring to them. However, because of that, "you should see less reversals." If his assessment is on point, it might indirectly be to his detriment. His best successes against rival organization Taipei Assassins came in the form of dramatic overturns – even as his team gets out-rotated for turrets, even as his teammates fall behind on kills, he's snatched victories from the jaws of defeat with one good Chum the Waters, one bewildering Playful/Trickster, and one infuriating application of Zhonya's Hourglass – a parade of stuntwork that leaves the audience dizzy and the opposition scattering. But nobody's yet figured out how to make a barricade strong enough to keep Westdoor from knocking on their front gates, nor a metagame stringent enough to keep him from carrying. If there is anything to expect from him in 2015, it’s for the king of SEA to make a splash. Check out the full list of players to watch in 2015 right here.