The struggle of Singapore's last Sentinel
Chawy's been fiddling on his mobile phone for the past 30 minutes, scrolling through his Facebook news feed, thinking wistfully about his family and friends who are almost 2000 miles away in Singapore. Looking around the room, his teammates are all engrossed with watching movies or chatting with their friends on Skype.
"Welcome to Summoner’s Rift" echoes through his headset.
Instantly, he puts his phone aside and devotes himself to his ranked game, attempting to gain more League Points for that elusive top spot on the Challenger Ladder, and more importantly, achieving his aim to be the best player in the world.
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In esports, most players practice 8, 9, or 10 hours a day. But for me, I only want to be the best, that is why I practice even more than the average. As a professional player, you need to be the best. Even if you come in 2nd or 3rd, no one will remember you.
The story before League
Xing Lei "Chawy" Wong has always loved playing video games. He has been playing video games competitively since he was 14, building a reputation as one of the most fearsome opponents in Defense of the Ancients.
His standout tournament performance came in 2011, where he represented Singapore in The International, DOTA2’s equivalent of the World Championship, and clinched 3rd place amidst the field of top international teams.
However, his future did not lie in DOTA2, and it only took a short while before he made the switch to League of Legends.
League of Legends provides fast-paced gameplay, which keeps me awake all the time unlike other MOBAs. Also, you need to play with your brains, and not only your hands.
Singapore’s prodigious son
Chawy was first introduced to League of Legends in 2010. He picked up the nuances of the game immediately, and quickly established himself as one of the best players in the Southeast Asian servers. His first foray into competitive League of Legends came during the 2010 World Cyber Games, where he finished 3rd place behind North America’s Counter Logic Gaming and Europe’s SK Gaming.
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Shortly after WCG 2010, League of Legends' popularity exploded around the world, following Riot's announcement of the Season 2 World Championship and increased esports support. Garena was quick to pounce, and they seized five of the top players in Singapore to form the Singapore Sentinels -- the first professional League of Legends team in Southeast Asia.
Concurrently, they set up the Garena Premier League (GPL), which would be the first professional league where the best teams from Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam would compete for the title of being crowned the champions of the Southeast Asia. This would be the Sentinels' greatest proving grounds.
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Unfortunately for Chawy, he was not even considered for the Sentinels' roster as he was undergoing compulsory military service and was unable to commit to competing full time for the next two years.
But unperturbed, Chawy formed his own team, and managed to topple the Singapore Sentinels in several local competitions with dominating individual performances. It didn't take long for Garena to come knocking on his door, inviting him to join the Sentinels despite his military commitments.
Most players give up or don’t try as hard the moment they have to enlist in the army. Chawy on the other hand, tried even harder BECAUSE he was in the army. Pulling off insane performances in local tournaments also showed that he still had the competitive drive to compete at the highest level, even though he might not have time on his side.
So near, yet so far
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Chawy’s time with the Singapore Sentinels spanned over two years, where he frequently swapped between AD carry and mid from time to time in order to accommodate team roster changes.
With Chawy, the Singapore Sentinels were dominant. In local competition, they were nigh untouchable, losing only six games total between the 2012 and 2013 Seasons. But more impressive was their 75% win rate over 97 matches in their first 3 splits of the GPL. During that time, the Sentinels were the only team that represented a credible threat to the Taipei Assassins’ dominance of the league.
But Chawy and the Sentinels were never able to break through to showcase their skills on the Worlds stage, as they failed to topple the Taipei Assassins for automatic qualification; and to everyone's surprise, they failed in the Southeast Asian Regionals two years in a row. In both Seasons 2 and 3, SGS were just ONE game away from qualification. In both of the Finals, SGS were the overwhelming favourites, and Chawy played magnificently -- but alas he was unable to drag his flailing teammates across the finish line.
I will never achieve anything if I stay. Every year is the same. Every ****ing year.
The twilight of Singapore Sentinels
Heading into 2014, Chawy’s career was at an all time low. Burdened by his fellow teammates who did not have his drive and motivation to practice, the Singapore Sentinels were no longer able to keep up with the competition in GPL Winter 2014. They occasionally lost to the previously subservient Vietnamese teams and were no longer a match for the elite Taiwanese teams. SGS proceeded to be demolished by ahq eSports club in the Quarterfinals in a 3-0 clean sweep.
Two months later in the Legends Circuit (a local Singapore / Malaysia tournament comprised of both pro and amateur teams), the unthinkable happened: SGS dropped two games in the Round Robin stage and barely managed to squeak through as the first seed by a single point. At the time, this was completely unheard of (and unacceptable) for a professional team who were competing against mostly amateurs. Instead of this being a wakeup call for the Sentinels, it became the start of their downfall. SGS proceeded to again lose to ahq in the Quarterfinals of the GPL in the exact same fashion as the previous split.
With the Sentinels being out of the running for the GPL, Chawy decided not to play for the Singapore Sentinels any longer. It was time for him to contemplate his future in League of Legends.
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The Assassins come calling
However, Chawy’s fortunes would soon change for the better.
Shortly before the start of GPL Summer 2014, the Season 2 World Champion Taipei Assassins came knocking, and offered Chawy a chance to play in Taiwan. The Assassin’s decision to sign Chawy was to improve the competition between players and increase the depth of their roster. It also helped that Chawy was able to play multiple roles, and it was announced that he would be tasked to juggle the mid and support roles.
In the beginning, Chawy was given the privilege to split scrim time with Morning, where each of them played half of the scrims. It was then, where his aggressive laning style and his lust for kills were heavily punished by his Taiwanese opponents, who were levels ahead of anyone else he had faced while playing for the Singapore Sentinels. As a result, he fell behind Morning in the coach’s pecking order.
As the GPL 2014 Summer Split was nearing its end, the coaching staff of the Taipei Assassins re-evaluated their training methods and decided to dedicate their training time with Morning, resulting in Chawy taking to the sidelines for the third year in a row, albeit as a substitute instead of a spectator.
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At the 2014 World Championship, the Taipei Assassins were drawn into a relatively easy group (in theory), devoid of any Korean teams and only the 3rd Chinese seed, Star Horn Royal Club. All they had to do was to beat TSM, and a weakened SK Gaming to come out 2nd place in the group.
TPA started the tournament amazingly, rushing to a 10k gold lead against SHRC. With fans and analysts raving over TPA’s excellent early game performance, tragedy struck as TPA started to play even more passively, allowing SHRC to claw back into the game and grab the victory. Morning was the main culprit as he was unable to convert his huge lead in the mid lane into any sort of advantages for his team while playing Syndra.
I agree [that my Syndra is better than Morning’s], he doesn't do anything even when TPA gave him the advantage he needed. He's too passive for a mid laner.
The rest of the games did not go according to plan, as TPA stumbled against TSM twice and lost to SHRC again in the rematch. Even against SK Gaming, TPA were only able to beat them when Svenskeren wasn’t playing, leaving TPA with a 1-5 record in the Group Stage.
All Chawy could do, was to shake his head, and lament the fact that he could have been the one to make a difference for his team.
I dislike the fact that I feel I am better but yet didn't get the chance to play on the Worlds stage.
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Dreams Shattered
After the Taipei Assassins were knocked out of the Group Stage, Chawy revealed in an interview that he would be the starting mid laner for the Taipei Assassins in the next season. Finally, the Singaporean prodigy would be able to show the world what he was made of.
2015 started off well for the Taipei Assassins, finishing 2nd in the Spring Split Regular Season as Chawy dominated the competition, racking up the most kills and dealing the most damage amongst all players during the regular season. The Spring Playoffs, on the other hand, told another story. It was deja vu all over again for Chawy as TPA lost to ahq 3-0 in the Playoffs and ended up in 3rd place overall.
Things went from bad to worse in the next few months. Prior to the start of the Summer Split, TPA’s star jungler, Peng-Nien "Winds" Chen decided to retire and TPA had to pick up Kung "Domo" Yu-Te as his replacement. With their new and relatively inexperienced jungler, Taipei Assassins struggled to compete at an acceptable level and looked completely disorganized, resulting in a 3-7 game score for the initial five series Domo played in.
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TPA’s fortunes did improve when they brought in former Flash Wolves jungler Chen “REFRA1N” Kuan-Ting, but the damage was already done. The team was in low spirits and it required a Herculean effort from Chawy to drag Taipei Assassins to 5th place. Chawy ended the Summer Split with a 3.8 KDA, an impressive individual feat as he was on a team that had a less than 40% win rate. Chawy's efforts did not go unrecognized from the LMS crowd, as he was 2nd place in the MVP voting, only behind ahq’s superstar top laner Yi "Ziv" Chen.
Luckily for TPA, the Circuit Points earned during the Spring Split was more than enough to qualify them for the Regional Playoffs, giving Chawy another lifeline to qualify for his first World Championship.
It was at this point where he thought that maybe, just maybe, everything would fall into place and that his hard work would finally pay off. Little did he know, his world was about to come crashing down yet again.
On the 1st of August 2015, shortly before the Taiwanese Regional Finals, Chawy was suspended by Garena for Elo boosting. Like every season before, he would be denied a chance to go to Worlds, and this time, it seemed like his career had came to a premature end.
I'm sorry for disappointing everyone supporting me out there all these times. I'm even more sorry for letting my team down, including my managers, coach, and translator. I never expected this to happen and I'm just as, or even more, disappointed than anyone else is.
Sorry.
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The start of something new
After failing to qualify for the 2015 World Championship, Taipei Assassins made the choice not to renew Chawy's contract for the 2016 Season. For Chawy, this was an opportunity for a fresh start.
Throughout the offseason, Chawy received numerous offers from teams in the NA and EU regions, all willing to splash cash on the highest rated mid laner in the LMS region. However, Chawy decided to give the LMS another shot, and signed with Worlds 2015 Quarterfinalists, ahq eSports Club.
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Throughout the years, mid laner Shu-Wei "Westdoor" Liu has been a staple for ahq eSports Club, surviving through multiple roster shuffles and meta changes with his unique champion pool. However, during the World Championship, top teams around the world managed to punish his limited champion pool and exploit ahq’s tendency to default to the same "Protect the ADC" strategy every single game.
By adding Chawy to the roster, ahq aims to imitate SKT’s 2015 system where Easyhoon and Faker shared playtime and were both utilized for different compositions and strategies. With their new addition, ahq won't have to build their team compositions around ADC Chou "AN" Chun-An in every single match. Instead, they will be able to mix it up to play around the other solo laners, Ziv and Chawy, who placed 1st and 2nd respectively in the previous Split’s MVP voting.
Currently, ahq utilizes Chawy for their red side games, while Westdoor plays games on the blue side. With this set up, they are able to utilize Chawy's huge champion pool to get a favourable counterpick in the mid lane. With his famed laning prowess, teams are set on the back foot even before entering Summoners Rift.
On the other side, by giving Westdoor opportunities to play on the blue side, teams are no longer able to punish his limited champion pool by target banning as they will in turn, have to give up power picks in the current metagame. This results in Westdoor getting the chance to secure his favoured picks to have a bigger impact in the game, or giving ahq an extremely strong champion pick which increases their chances of winning as well.
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According to ahq’s team manager Hulk “Hulk” Wen, Chawy and Westdoor will be splitting games to the benefit of ahq. As of this writing, ahq e-Sports are on the top of the LMS standings with a 7-0-0 match record with a 14-0 map score, and it seems that this experiment is successful so far. The big question right now, is who ahq e-Sports will choose to field if they ever reach the penultimate game in a Best of 5 series. Will Chawy be able to stake his claim to play the clutch role for ahq, or will ahq revert to their comfort zone and go with Westdoor?
As the season starts to heat up, only one thing is certain. For Chawy, excellence is not an act, but a habit. Regardless of his team’s circumstances throughout the years, Chawy consistently plays at a high level throughout his career, while being a big game player who performs even better in clutch situations. This Season, Chawy will be looking to reassert himself as one of the best mid laners in the world and maybe this time, break his World Championship curse.
