During the pre-season of Season 5, Team Curse announced that long-time AD Carry, David “Cop” Roberson, would be released from the roster of the main team. With LCS only four months away and upcoming pre-season tournaments like IEM San Jose and Cologne right around the corner, the team would need to decide on their new AD Carry quickly. 

Leaving Behind a Legacy

One of the speculated replacements was someone well known to the European League of Legends community, none other than Konstantinos “FORG1VEN” Tzortziou. FORG1VEN was well known for his time with Copenhagen Wolves in the Spring of 2014, until being removed for supposed attitude issues, specifically for a statement on Twitter claiming, “Always nice feeling to win almost every bot lane matchup which is winning or losing and then lose half the games…” Fortunately for FORG1VEN, his statement was not far from accurate, specifically with him & support, Petar “Unlimited” Georgiev dominating the majority of their opponents, despite the team as a whole finishing 6th place overall (with a 13-15 record.) 

Photo Credit: Riot Games/lolesports

Towards the end of the split, FORG1VEN was fined $1000 by Riot, due to violation of Summoner’s Code. Specifically, the violation was being reported for verbal abuse & in-game misbehavior. Unfortunately for FORG1VEN, this added more weight on the toxicity claims. He decided that he no longer wanted to play with Copenhagen Wolves after jungler, Maurice “Amazing” Stuckenschneider headed off to NA’s Team SoloMid.

Due to the circumstances of him no longer playing with the team and the rumored “toxicity,” FORG1VEN was unfortunately not met with many opportunities. During this time of not playing in the LCS, FORG1VEN spent some time playing with Rest in Pepperonies, of which consisted of star players Nukeduck, Alex Ich, Mithy, & k0u. However, when the team was picked up by Ninjas in Pyjamas, FORG1VEN was out of the equation, replaced by none other than current Copenhagen Wolves AD Carry, Freeze. The Copenhagen Wolves still had a contract with the player, but allowed him to play with Greek challenger team, Different Dimension. FORG1VEN once again showed his dominance, carrying the team to win a Greek Legends cup, although he would go on to leave the team in July of 2014.

Photo Credit: Riot Games/lolesports

At this point, it was uncertain as to where FORG1VEN might end up. His reputation was not stellar with the majority of the community, but with Curse having an eye on him, FORG1VEN might just have had a chance. Unfortunately former Korean World Champion, Chae “Piglet” Gwang-jin became a free agent around the same time, and the Curse organization instead chose him over our hero. However, the hype-building work from the community had already been done for FORG1VEN, making him a high profile pick-up for any team interested. 

New Beginnings

Meanwhile, as FORG1VEN was struggling to find an in, Europe’s SK Gaming removed their AD Carry, Adrian “Candy Panda” Wubbelmann. SK, much like Curse, was looking for a quick replacement in hopes to make it to the upcoming IEM events. The obvious choice was by far one of the best roster changes SK management has ever made, and that would be none other than picking up FORG1VEN.

Photo Credit: Riot Games/lolesports

During the pre-season, FORG1VEN went on Summoning Insight with Thoorin and MonteCristo, and spoke about his career with Copenhagen Wolves & the hopes for the future. One of the more confident AD carries in Europe, FORG1VEN stated, “you can either try hard or you can suck a c*ck” - a statement of which would be an example of his past & future career. He was interviewed by onGamers shortly after SK announced his signing and once again spoke on his confidence going into the split. 

With predictions coming out from various media sites for the upcoming Spring Split, SK Gaming was nearly always ranked top 3 with power rankings, joined by the likes of Elements, ROCCAT, & FNATIC interchangeably. Extreme pressure was put on FORG1VEN’s shoulders, but SK, rounded as a team, have one of the best teams in the West on paper. The team had also acquired a new mid laner, Hampus “Fox” Myhre, and the roster is now as follows:

Photo Credit: SK Gaming

On his return to the LCS in the opening week, FORG1VEN utterly destroyed his opponents. Surrounded by fantastic team play and showing great synergy with his support, Cristoph “nRated” Seitz, FORG1VEN succeeded heavily in the opener versus ROCCAT’s bottom lane of Pawe? “Woolite” Pruski & Oskar “VandeR” Bogdan. Considered two of the top 3 teams coming into the season, the opener for SK/ROCCAT showed exactly who the off-season favored in terms of roster changes, with both teams making adjustments in the mid & AD carry positions. 

The following day, SK took on Meet Your Makers. MYM AD, Rasmus “MrRallez” Skinneholm was considered one of the best AD carries in Europe by FORG1VEN, so the matchup between the two would prove to be extremely entertaining. Just like on Copenhagen Wolves, FORG1VEN’s laning phase proved to be extremely strong, with nRated & himself farming heavily and punishing MrRallez & support, Nisbeth. 

Photo Credit: SK Gaming

This wasn’t all for FORG1VEN thus far, however. After two weeks of play with SK, FORG1VEN has the highest KDA ratio of any player in the EU LCS, with a total KDA of 43. Likewise, he has the highest gold per minute of any player in the EU LCS, with an average of 458 gold per minute per game. Because of high performance from not only FORG1VEN, but also the rest of his teammates, SK Gaming is first in the EU LCS standings currently, tied with FNATIC going into Week 3.

Welcome the Return of the King, Welcome back FORG1VEN!

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