A tale to remember: Deft’s Last Dance

 

Kim Hyuk-kyu, widely known as Deft is a Professional League of Legends (LoL) player from South Korea. He had been a professional player for almost ten years and had a rollercoaster of a career. Now he is one of the most successful LoL players being one of the few to win both the MSI and the League of Legends World Championship.

Deft’s Early Life

Kim “Deft” Hyuk Kyu was born on the 23rd of October 1996 in Seoul, South Korea. He was a student of Mapo High School alongside the most decorated LoL player Lee “Faker” Sang Hyeok. Deft was always passionate about video games as he frequently played Sudden Attack before he came across League of Legends. In a short period of time, he was able to master the game and without hesitation, he joined MVP Blue in 2013 to compete professionally.

Deft’s Professional Career

Deft had a slow start in his career as he and his first team MVP Blue were unable to show a good performance in the year 2013. But the next year after his team was rebranded as Samsung Blue achieved much success in the regional league. Being constantly in the top 5 in the regional league, they were able to qualify for the season 4 World Championship and were deemed as the favorites. Unfortunately, the team lost in the semi-finals against their sister team Samsung White (SSG) who went on to become the Champions of the tournament.

 After the frustrating loss, Deft left the team and went to China where he joined EDward Gaming with a teammate from the sister team Heo "PawN" Won-Seok in 2015. The duo seemed to be unstoppable during their time in EDward Gaming, being first in both of the regional splits of China and winning the first edition of the Mid-Season Invitational against his rival Lee “Faker” Sang Hyeok and his team SKT T1.  Deft and EDward Gaming just had one more event to win and that was the season 5 World Championship. He and his team were the favorites again yet this time they fell short against the European champions Fnatic in the quarter-finals. In the next year, Deft decided to stay with the team and try once again. He became one of the most decorated players in China within this short amount of time and became the 7th player to get 1000 kills in the regional league. Even though he was achieving a lot individually, his team wasn’t able to beat Royal Never Giveup in any of the split finals. With the disappointing losses, they head to the season 6 World Championship to try once again where they ultimately fell again in their conquest to bring the summoners cup losing to the Korean powerhouse ROX Tigers. At the end of the tournament, Deft decided to leave the team and come back to Korea.

After coming back to Korea he was invited to join KT Rolster in 2017 which was supposed to be a super team that didn’t manage to win any of the regional splits and was unable to qualify for the international events. In 2018, being unassured of his skills anymore he thought if he should play anymore however the management of KT Rolster persuaded him to compete. He started the year without any confidence but gradually he got it back with the help of his teammates by defeating most of the other teams of the region in a dominating fashion and eventually winning the summer split and getting most of the MVP awards of the whole league to himself. Despite them winning the split, they weren’t considered to be the favorites of their region. But in that year’s world championship they showed a promising performance and only lost in a very close series to the eventual champions Invictus Gaming, with a scoreline of 2-3. Although Deft and his team were very close this time, he knew he won’t be able to compete at the highest level much longer as he was diagnosed with serious lower back pain. He then tried for 3 more years by joining different teams but every time he just couldn’t do it.

Deft’s Last Dance

 

Earlier this year Deft had announced that this will probably be his last year as a professional gamer as his time was coming for the mandatory military service in his country. He joined DRX while having no hope still, he wanted to give his all for his presumed last year.  Deft managed to hit a lot of individual milestones this year, becoming the second player to hit 2000 kills in the Korean region right behind Faker, reaching the 3000 career kills milestone and also hitting 1000 career games. But his achievements didn’t mean much if he couldn’t the biggest competition of the year. He and his team barely managed to qualify for the season 12 World Championship as the 4th seed after struggling the whole year. They were thought to be the worst out of the 4 regional teams to qualify. Regardless of the criticism by the natives, he and his team didn’t falter at any point in the tournament. With that Deft had a miracle run by winning against all the tournament favorites including his former team EDG in a reverse sweep and reached the finals for the first time where he had to face his rival from the start of his career Faker. This time Deft came ahead of Faker again since the 2015 MSI and finally won the World Championship. He is now the second most decorated player in Korea behind Faker.

After struggling so much in his career and having multiple ups and downs throughout, he managed to fulfill his dream and win everything there is to the game. It is not sure what he will do from here on but the run he had in his probable final year will be remembered by everyone especially the fans that supported him from the beginning.