The Stars of StarHorn Royal Club
Riot·9/9/2014, 9:22:13 PM·0 votes·19,800 views
StarHorn Royal Club (RC) is not the same team as Royal Club Huang Zhu, the team that took second place at the 2013 World Championships. They’ve lost four of their members to migration or retirement. The only player returning to Worlds from the 2013 Los Angeles lineup is Jian “UZI” Zihao, star AD carry. And though he may still be the centerpiece of the team, SHRC has evolved, and they’re prepared to bum rush the competition.
2013 LPL Summer would end with a three-way tie for second place. Royal Club Huang Zhu would take second based on having won more total games against Positive Energy and World Elite than the other two teams had against RC and each other. This second place found them a spot in the 2013 World Championship Qualifier, where they shocked onlookers by coming back from the loser’s bracket to 2-0 the nearly untouchable OMG and take the first seed to Worlds.
Royal Club immediately stole the hearts of fans internationally with Tabe’s charisma and the appeal of the team’s “raise the puppy” strategy, which involved funneling gold onto AD carry UZI and unleashing him upon the opposition. RC once again 2-0’d OMG on the Worlds stage, and from there, the team would take Fnatic out 3-1 in the semifinals before being summarily decimated by Faker’s nigh-untouchable SK Telecom T1 K.
This left Royal Club scrambling for a new roster. The team tried out several players during the offseason and the regular season of LPL Spring, including Yu “Avenger” Rui, the star AD carry for LMQ TianCi. During much of the offseason and LPL Spring, UZI played mid lane for the team, and growing pains were evident. In the 2013 Galaxy Esports Carnival, UZI had the misfortune of playing Vayne mid against OMG’s Yu “Coo1” Jiajun and never attempted it again.
Despite this, UZI found some success in his new mid lane role, primarily when playing Syndra. He and jungler Wang “kmi” Longjie developed a certain amount of synergy that kept Royal Club treading water above the bottom two spots in LPL, an important point considering those spots are marked for auto-relegation into LSPL at Spring’s end. Even so, just barely top six was less than ideal, and it was clear changes had to be made.
Several weeks into the split, UZI returned to the AD carry role, and the roster was revamped yet again. Kmi and UZI remained the focal points, but the rest of the team struggled. UZI would often get caught out attempting to make plays, and he lacked the peeling resources he had grown used to on RC’s former roster.
In the end, Royal Club barely avoided relegation, placing sixth in their final best of two against Energy Pacemaker. To avoid a scare like that again, the team would undertake drastic changes between the Spring and Summer splits. If Royal Club wanted to see international competition again, they had nearly nothing to lose, and so much to gain.
Around Week 8, however, something seemed to click for StarHorn Royal Club. Part of this was a swift change in the meta that favored 2v2s, allowing UZI and Zero to frequently find and snowball trading advantages against their opponents. The second factor was a huge increase in performance coming from the team’s mid laner, corn.
With the exception of a strong Yasuo performance, corn’s conservative play had failed to win him any attention for most of the split. In Week 8 of LPL, StarHorn faced OMG, and Coo1 picked Twisted Fate into corn’s Fizz. The resulting havoc sent SHRC snowballing forward to their first win against OMG all season. Then, in Game Two, a powerful OMG was pushed back by corn’s well-timed Orianna Shockwave, and a set that should have split even went 2-0 in favor of SHRC.
SHRC’s new success seemed to coincide with better team communication as well. InSec could be found in both Cola’s and corn’s lanes, and when he or UZI chose to commit to a fight, the entire team would follow after. StarHorn games became an exercise in cat-and-mouse chases that allowed them to take wins off both EDG and OMG, teams that seemed dead set for the top two spots in LPL.
StarHorn placed third in the regular LPL split, despite earning the same number of points as OMG. Regardless, the two teams would face off first in LPL’s expanded best-of-five double elimination Playoffs format. In this first set, OMG went down two games, only to come back with a vengeance to take the series 3-2. In one of these games, Coo1 used one of corn’s favored champions, Yasuo, to go 20/1/8 against a direct counter pick, Ryze.
Then, when the teams met again in the lower bracket, the set would go to another five game series, with OMG coming out on top again. Despite stronger starts, OMG appeared to be the better team in a best of five, and SHRC would finish third.
Prior to Playoffs, however, the team had been split. Due to difficulties with visas, inSec and Zero spent the week leading up to playoffs in Korea, which left little time for scrims. StarHorn took the weeks leading up to Regionals to shake off the rust. In their first best of three against LGD Gaming, StarHorn would play a more controlled game, going 2-0. Then, they found their chance for revenge, and took out OMG swiftly in two games. OMG seemed unable to adapt quickly enough in a best of three to make the same kind of comeback they had in Playoffs.
Despite StarHorn’s ultimately losing to Edward Gaming in a best of three finals, games went closer than some expected. StarHorn managed a win in Game 2, and in Game 1, they took several early advantages.
Now, with an international title on the line and inSec and Zero committed to remaining in China only if the team performs well in Busan and Seoul, SHRC is more motivated than ever. Can UZI reprise his spot in the World Championship Finals, or will inSec and Zero be bested by their Korean brethren?
NEAR THE TOP
In 2012, after leaving Team OMG, Pak Kan “Tabe” Wong would start as a founding member of Royal Club Huang Zhu, alongside his AD Carry partner UZI. From there, the team struggled to find promising solo laners, eventually landing on Pun Wai “Wh1t3zZ” Lo and Xiao “GoDlike” Wang who were brought up from Royal Club’s secondary team. This lineup would go on to take second place at the 2013 World Championship, but the sailing wasn’t smooth. For most of the LPL season, Royal Club Huang Zhu seemed to be just beyond the top three. In 2013 Spring, RC was outclassed by OMG, World Elite, Invictus Gaming, and Positive Energy and failed to make the playoffs. In 2013 Summer, RC increased their cohesion. Tabe had been in and out of the team during Spring, but he came back to the roster with full commitment to try for the World Championship before falling back into retirement.
2013 LPL Summer would end with a three-way tie for second place. Royal Club Huang Zhu would take second based on having won more total games against Positive Energy and World Elite than the other two teams had against RC and each other. This second place found them a spot in the 2013 World Championship Qualifier, where they shocked onlookers by coming back from the loser’s bracket to 2-0 the nearly untouchable OMG and take the first seed to Worlds.
Royal Club immediately stole the hearts of fans internationally with Tabe’s charisma and the appeal of the team’s “raise the puppy” strategy, which involved funneling gold onto AD carry UZI and unleashing him upon the opposition. RC once again 2-0’d OMG on the Worlds stage, and from there, the team would take Fnatic out 3-1 in the semifinals before being summarily decimated by Faker’s nigh-untouchable SK Telecom T1 K.
TREADING WATER
After the loss, Tabe stayed true to his promise of retirement, and Wh1t3zZ would follow. The team’s jungler, Liu “Lucky” Junjie, would also choose to step out of the competitive scene after a short period of time, leaving three spots vacant on RC. Before the team would return to LPL, GoDlike would leave to become ackerman of LMQ iBuyPower in North America.
This left Royal Club scrambling for a new roster. The team tried out several players during the offseason and the regular season of LPL Spring, including Yu “Avenger” Rui, the star AD carry for LMQ TianCi. During much of the offseason and LPL Spring, UZI played mid lane for the team, and growing pains were evident. In the 2013 Galaxy Esports Carnival, UZI had the misfortune of playing Vayne mid against OMG’s Yu “Coo1” Jiajun and never attempted it again.
Despite this, UZI found some success in his new mid lane role, primarily when playing Syndra. He and jungler Wang “kmi” Longjie developed a certain amount of synergy that kept Royal Club treading water above the bottom two spots in LPL, an important point considering those spots are marked for auto-relegation into LSPL at Spring’s end. Even so, just barely top six was less than ideal, and it was clear changes had to be made.
Several weeks into the split, UZI returned to the AD carry role, and the roster was revamped yet again. Kmi and UZI remained the focal points, but the rest of the team struggled. UZI would often get caught out attempting to make plays, and he lacked the peeling resources he had grown used to on RC’s former roster.
In the end, Royal Club barely avoided relegation, placing sixth in their final best of two against Energy Pacemaker. To avoid a scare like that again, the team would undertake drastic changes between the Spring and Summer splits. If Royal Club wanted to see international competition again, they had nearly nothing to lose, and so much to gain.
REBOOT
To get a leg-up, Royal Club revamped not just their entire roster, but also their name. Royal Club Huang Zhu became StarHorn Royal Club (SHRC), and new management and ownership was brought to the team to complement the change. With new leaders at the helm, StarHorn Royal Club looked abroad for talent. UZI remained the team’s constant and would be retained as one of the main voices in and out of game. The team found further direction in a Korean coach, Kim “vicaL” Sunmook and renowned KT Bullets jungler Choi “inSec” Inseok, as well as off-and-on KT player, Yoon “Zero” Kyungsup. SHRC also picked up top laner Jiang “Cola” Na from LSPL team Kx.Cash and Lei “corn” Wen from Team King to play mid lane. The team vowed to adapt themselves to the Korean work ethic, including scheduling meal times around LPL. The team adopted both the Korean additions and the regimen well. UZI in particular took the additions of inSec and Zero favorably, claiming he could rely on inSec to help him carry and that he enjoyed playing aggressively in lane with Zero. At the start, the focus of the team was very bottom-heavy. It was easy to predict that inSec would travel to UZI and Zero’s lane to gank. As a result, corn and Cola also played very conservatively, often losing due to an unwillingness to make plays. In addition, miscommunication was apparent. InSec and UZI both played overzealously and would find themselves in difficult positions, surrounded by the opposition. Expert play by Zero on disengage champions like Nami would reset fights, allowing SHRC to brute force wins, but the team couldn’t find a way out of fourth place for most of the first half of LPL. Fourth place would grant them a playoff seed, but it wouldn’t qualify them for Worlds.
Around Week 8, however, something seemed to click for StarHorn Royal Club. Part of this was a swift change in the meta that favored 2v2s, allowing UZI and Zero to frequently find and snowball trading advantages against their opponents. The second factor was a huge increase in performance coming from the team’s mid laner, corn.
With the exception of a strong Yasuo performance, corn’s conservative play had failed to win him any attention for most of the split. In Week 8 of LPL, StarHorn faced OMG, and Coo1 picked Twisted Fate into corn’s Fizz. The resulting havoc sent SHRC snowballing forward to their first win against OMG all season. Then, in Game Two, a powerful OMG was pushed back by corn’s well-timed Orianna Shockwave, and a set that should have split even went 2-0 in favor of SHRC.
SHRC’s new success seemed to coincide with better team communication as well. InSec could be found in both Cola’s and corn’s lanes, and when he or UZI chose to commit to a fight, the entire team would follow after. StarHorn games became an exercise in cat-and-mouse chases that allowed them to take wins off both EDG and OMG, teams that seemed dead set for the top two spots in LPL.
CLINCHING SECOND SEED
StarHorn placed third in the regular LPL split, despite earning the same number of points as OMG. Regardless, the two teams would face off first in LPL’s expanded best-of-five double elimination Playoffs format. In this first set, OMG went down two games, only to come back with a vengeance to take the series 3-2. In one of these games, Coo1 used one of corn’s favored champions, Yasuo, to go 20/1/8 against a direct counter pick, Ryze.
Then, when the teams met again in the lower bracket, the set would go to another five game series, with OMG coming out on top again. Despite stronger starts, OMG appeared to be the better team in a best of five, and SHRC would finish third.
Prior to Playoffs, however, the team had been split. Due to difficulties with visas, inSec and Zero spent the week leading up to playoffs in Korea, which left little time for scrims. StarHorn took the weeks leading up to Regionals to shake off the rust. In their first best of three against LGD Gaming, StarHorn would play a more controlled game, going 2-0. Then, they found their chance for revenge, and took out OMG swiftly in two games. OMG seemed unable to adapt quickly enough in a best of three to make the same kind of comeback they had in Playoffs.
Despite StarHorn’s ultimately losing to Edward Gaming in a best of three finals, games went closer than some expected. StarHorn managed a win in Game 2, and in Game 1, they took several early advantages.
Now, with an international title on the line and inSec and Zero committed to remaining in China only if the team performs well in Busan and Seoul, SHRC is more motivated than ever. Can UZI reprise his spot in the World Championship Finals, or will inSec and Zero be bested by their Korean brethren?
