I’ve had plenty of tribulations in my life, I’m sure all of us have. There have been times where I wanted to give up, throw in the towel and say that it all isn’t worth the effort. There were instances where I thought my career was spiraling downwards after moving from Korea, away from one of the best organizations in the world in KT Rolster Arrows, surrounded by legends, but through this struggle, I persevered. I went to the far reaches of Brazil to prove my worth, then to LMS with the same intentions. I’ve come too far to fail now. “Are you ready, Olleh?” asked Doublelift. I shake my head, not in disagreement, but to bring myself back to reality. “Of course. Let’s go kick some ass!” I replied. Doublelift pushes me onto the stage and I look back at him and smile, letting out a chuckle as I rush into the amalgamation of cheers and cries for Team Liquid. I can’t help but feel apprehensive as I sit down on my chair, setting up my peripherals as I hear the crowd murmur. My most recent memories are still of MSI. I felt so ashamed of myself. After pouring my all, every ounce of my being into one specific task, it is a dastard effect when you fail. Imagine giving your utmost effort for something and falling short; worse yet is when others count on you to accomplish their own goals, that is the heaviest of weights. Many might miss the most important lesson through all of this, which is what I found through self-reflection, in that you cannot achieve the loftiest goals without some form of help, and with that comes the risk that you and others will disappoint each other on occasion. That's just how... “OLLEH! ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH MORGANA?” Coach Cain shouts through the headset, seemingly for the second time through his tone hinting irritation. “Oh sorry, yeah,” I reply, shaking my head to bring myself to the present. “Wait, they banned my Thresh!” I say with a long chuckle. I’m finally getting some respect bans. Every pro player will tell you that it actually feels good when the enemy bans the champions you’ve been shown to dominate on. They can’t handle it. “Olleh, make sure you prioritize vision around bot side. Xmithie, I want you to help with deep vision and make sure we keep track of this Hecarim. Other than that, good luck guys, I believe in you,” Coach Cain says as he takes off his headset and walks off the stage. Cloud9 is going to be tough. GAME 1 I chunk out Zeyzal during the beginning of the game and get a great ward next to the enemy wolf camp. That should help us out in determining Hecarim’s route. Time passes until about four minutes into the game. “Ok, I’m going to recall. You should recall soon too,” I say to Doublelift. Doublelift ends up staying for another wave, but what about Twitch? “Shouldn’t Twitch be in lane right about…” I say just as Twitch reveals himself from stealth and kills Doublelift. “Haha. God, I’m such an idiot,” Doublelift responds. “We can still keep tempo up. I know exactly where Blaber is at all times,” Xmithie chimes in. He’s completely right and if there’s a person that can keep Blaber’s aggression checked, it’s Xmithie. I have total faith in my jungler and he’s definitely one of the best I’ve ever played with. Xmithie is the type of guy which always seems to be the voice of reason. I’ll often get hyped, or Pobelter will get quiet, but then you have Xmithie, he simply balances our entire team out. He’ll call out my panicked calls or he’ll put a stop to Doublelift’s overt aggression. If Xmithie wasn’t my jungler, I’m not sure how our team would pull back and look at the entire game state rather than our initial advantage or disadvantage. Xmithie is about to gank our lane, nice! The clock ticks 21:00. “Wait, nononono!” I shout as the enemy Hecarim and Malzahar are looking to counter-gank, just beyond the fog of war. Shit, I used Black Shield on Xmithie. Damn it, well I deserve this death since they just turn onto me. “My bad, I totally forgot you had ult to get out,” I lament. What’s the point in putting Black Shield on Olaf? I’m such an idiot, Pobelter, with his tranquil voice, suddenly speaks out at 26:40. “Come to top, he's way out of position,” Pobelter iterates as he sees Jensen pushing top wave by himself. Pobelter Realm Warps top and Xmithie joins him to cut Jensen off. Wait, where’s Doublelift? “Guys, kite, kite, wait for me,” he says in a slightly panicked voice. Good, everyone listened to the call. YES! 3 for 0! “BARON! HAHAHA”! I scream into the mic. Easy game, easy life. GAME 2 Coach Cain is looking over across the stage towards Goldenglue and Svenskeren. I can see him wondering how to handle this substitution, but I have the utmost confidence in him. Coach has helped me so much to improve because he was a support himself on the famous NaJin Black Sword. He’s what I attribute to my growth as a support because I’m certainly not going to get that in solo queue. Wards, positioning, coach knows it all. “They’re picking Twitch again. Bot lane, pay attention to where he is on the map. You need to be aware of what he can do during recall timers, that’s his biggest strength until he gets to late game damage,” Coach Cain calmly iterates through the final portions of champion select. “Got it. We won’t play brain dead this time,” Doublelift responds. At this point, I would have been nervous. Game 2 is where we can close it out or Cloud9 can make a comeback with their roster swap. I’ll be the first to admit that I did, in fact, have problems during MSI. The crowd reacting to every misplay I did, the Reddit comments, everything got under my skin and I just couldn’t tolerate it. Jared is one of the best psychologists, telling me to block it all out, focus on your game and trust in your teammates to give you critical feedback. He's like my second father. “Olleh, remember to keep up with deep vision. You did great with Xmithie last game,” Coach Cain says as he snaps me back to the present. “You got it coach,” I respond.   Time to go hard.   “He’s dead boys,” Pobelter calmly remarks as he solo kills Goldenglue.   “That’s my fu**in’ boy!” Doublelift replies back.   Pobelter has always been a stable rock. I can always count on him to control his lane and make sure things don’t get too out of hand. He’s quiet, but it plays into our strength as a team. Maybe when he gets older he’ll get a little more vocal and confident. 10 minutes in, Sneaky is recalling in plain sight, I gotta stop him. I’ll drop a ward to get vision of him for my AA. Yes, got him. Oh shit. This is gonna get ugly. I gotta burn my stopwatch. “Yo! Xmithie come help, we can turn the fight, Doublelift is coming”. Malzahar is teleporting down, shit. “Just take top turret Impact. We’ll try to kite back,” Doublelift states. Both Xmithie and I die. F**k! “Sorry guys. I thought I could just stop his back and it would be fine,” I say in frustration. Later on around 17:00, Xmithie ends up using Rift Herald at our own top inhibitor. “I’m going to have Rift slow push top with Pobelter. Meanwhile, we need to make a play bot lane and make them choose. Ornn can’t stop Pobelter alone,” Xmithie says. Xmithie is one of the smartest players I’ve ever played with. He always has a game plan and thinks multiple steps ahead of the game. I don’t know how he does it, but maybe that’s why he’s always so level-headed. “Our 4v4 is stronger. We have me, they have no tank!” Impact shouts. “TWITCHTWITCHTWITCH!” I repeat as we close in onto their frontline. 2 for 0. Nice. “Easy money dude,” Pobelter says. “I hear that in rap songs. Does that mean when gangsters kill people its easy money?” I respond. “Uh, not quite…well, I mean, I guess it fits in this context,” Doublelift tells me. We focus back onto the game and close it out with ease. Pobelter is far too fed for them to do anything against us. So much for our mid laner being ‘passive’. GAME 3 They finally decide to not ban my Thresh. Thresh into Braum is super easy, so I’m glad they let me pick it up this game. “Why is he stepping up to the wave?” I ask Doublelift. Ok, I’m gonna burn ignite on you. Wow, he’s playing so selfish. I guess this lane phase should be easy. Now he doesn’t have any pots. “I don’t even think I need to use flash,” Xmithie says as he ganks top lane at around 8 minutes. First blood. And Licorice used flash. “I’m just going to gank top again, it seems pretty free,” Xmithie says right after they get the kill. An enemy has been slain. “Wait, you still have flash?” Pobelter chuckles as he misses a creep after hearing Xmithie still hasn’t used his flash to kill Licorice again. It’s now or never, 33 minutes into the game is when we pull the trigger. He’s about to go back towards mid baron bush. YES! I hit Cho’Gath with my hook. We got a good chunk, we need to engage harder now. Clank! Trundle is gonna die now. We should be able to pressure baron with this. 40 minutes in and we’re pressing onto the nexus turrets. I look over and see Xmithie looking a little nervous for once, Pobelter smiling. and Doublelift concentrating. When you’re about to win a championship, it’s one of the most anxious times in your life. I imagine this is what it feels like when you’re on your wedding day about to get married. The anticipation is overwhelming and there’s really nothing you can do to calm yourself down. I jump up with excitement as the nexus explodes and Doublelift immediately hugs me. We’ve been through so much together. He’s someone who I still idolize and I can’t believe I got the chance to even play with this legendary player. He’s helped me grow to become more confident and I can’t thank him enough. If I could be his support for the rest of my career, I couldn’t be happier. This is the beginning of a new chapter in my life. I’ve proved all the haters wrong. Everybody back in LMS were wrong. All the fans were wrong. No more sleepless nights and drinking soju. I am currently my best self and at Worlds, I’ll get to prove to the other regions why I’ve grown to be one of the best supports in the world. Just like my name, I’ve come from back to front. "Hello Worlds. My name is Olleh". ___ Izento has been a writer for the LoL scene since Season 7, and has been playing the game since Season 1. Follow him on Twitter at @ggIzento for more League content. Images courtesy of Lolesports Flickr.