Rite of Passage: How adversity has changed Turkey’s champs
For Dark Passage, losing is an unfamiliar experience.
While they've occasionally been challenged by individual rivals, they've always been the dominant team in Turkey. So when they found themselves in the middle of the pack halfway through the Split, they were in uncharted territory. For the team that never faced adversity, it all seemed to be coming at once.
Their Darkest Timeline
After last season's successful campaign, it was expected that Dark Passage would continue their reign. But the team has been plagued with roster instability since the beginning of the season. From last year's championship team, they only kept two players: star mid laner Koray "Naru" Bıçak and jungler Atakan "Crystal" Aydın.
During the off-season, they lost top laner Asım "fabulous" Karakaya to rival HWA Gaming. To replace him, they tapped veteran journeyman Kaan "Elwind" Atıcı, who performed well for the team in the Winter Split. But while Elwind played well, the team came in second in the Turkish Champions League (TCL) for the first time.
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During the mid-season break, more changes occurred. Omid "Touch" Rosander, their Norwegian substitute turned starting support, left the team to join the military. Long-time AD carry Anıl "HolyPhoenix" Işık joined fabulous on HWA in May after being moved to a substitute role.
Team owner Ertug Okcuoglu knew that the experience of replacing two of his players was going to be painful. "I don't like to change players and get through the adjustment period," says Okcuoglu. But it did give him the opportunity to fix a longstanding issue with the team. During the previous season, the team normally communicated in English so that Touch could understand what was going on. But while everyone on the team spoke English, it was a second language for all of them, and they often reverted to Turkish in high stress situations.
With his new roster, Ertug looked to resolve that. To fix any potential issues he says they decided to start the second split with five Turkish players. To do this, he picked up rising AD carry Berkay "Zeitnot" Aşıkuzun from HWA Gaming and support Onur "Zergsting" Ünalan from Team Turquality.
A Rising Region
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The team that took advantage of this instability the most was Beşiktaş e-Sports Club (BJK). The Black and Whites had a strong showing during their first Split, taking 1st place after sweeping Dark Passage in the Winter Finals. Their success, to Dark Passage, was equal parts luck, skill, and timing. "I felt like we could have beaten BJK in [the Finals], but the misfortunes we encountered prior to the finals impacted the team's spirit and we failed to perform," says Elwind. "I think they were quite lucky too."
Beşiktaş wasn't the only team to take advantage while Dark Passage stagnated though. The rest of the region improved as teams imported players from Europe. Traditional rival HWA not only picked up fabulous and HolyPhoenix, but also European journeyman Piotr “SuperAZE” Prokop and ex-LCS pro Sebastian “niQ” Robak after the Winter Split. Every team in the league except NumberOne Esports has added a foreign player to their ranks, and the imports have brought more parity to the league. "Foreign players have without a doubt increased the quality of the Turkish league, as it did with the rest of the world, and balanced the power difference between the teams," says Okcuoglu.
A Strategic Change
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While Dark Passage had hoped that their new all-Turkish roster would resolve their problems, it only showed that the problems were deeper than communication. "[After the roster change] we saw our problem wasn't communication but rather our game mentality and strategy," says Okcuoglu.
Once the team identified that their problem was strategy, they quickly knew what they needed to change. "We needed a support who is dominant in lane and during the early stages of the game," says Elwind. The team searched and finally decided on former Giants Gaming support Fernando "Rydle" Soria.
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For Rydle, the change to the TCL hasn't affected him significantly. "[It's] a smaller league than the EU LCS, so the level of the teams are not the same of course," he says. "Despite that, the leagues are pretty similar. It's super great how serious and competitive the league is."
In addition to Rydle they added a coach, Salih "Auspexa" Kızıldağ, to help the team's strategic vision. Auspexa has focused on fixing two problems since joining the team: the team's overall decision making and the information flow in game. "Most teams in small regions have these major problems," he says. For the team's decision making he says it’s the issue that they've invested most of their work into. "It's not enough to have a main shotcaller to fix this."
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The recent additions have rallied the team and with the return of Naru from his six game suspension for poor behavior, Dark Passage is positive about their fortunes for the rest of the split. They now sit in 2nd place and have clinched a Playoff spot. It’s clear, despite all their issues, that the road to Worlds in Turkey still runs through Dark Passage.
