Deft’s cinderella run at Worlds 2022 with DRX

As we inch closer to crowning the World Champion of the 2022 Competitive League of Legends season, it’s time we look back at some of the storylines. At least one team from the LCK will represent Korea in the Grand Finals, as JDG faces their biggest hurdle to date. DRX and Deft have made it this far, but huge obstacles await them.

DRX are the underdogs of the tournament

What if I told you that one of the most storied Korean franchises across esports lost its best player on the League of Legends roster during the offseason? What if I told you that he and the rest of the roster were replaced with journeymen and a former world champion? Well, if you’re wondering how the fifth-best Korean team in 2022 is playing in the semifinals of the biggest international event, you have a script for the perfect cinderella run.

Chovy leaves DRX and Deft

News spread that Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon would be moving onto greener pastures in 2022. That meant that the entire League of Legends community had written off DRX. Two years of mediocre results were enough for the mid-lane prodigy to start a new chapter. This time alongside another world-class ADC. Everyone was excited to see Chovy in a GenG jersey alongside World Champion Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk. But questions marks were everything DRX had left. Would Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu opt to resign with a depleted roster after two years of failing to meet expectations? So far to that point, failures had become a trademark of his career, despite the performances he put up.

Deft commits to DRX rebuild

Fast forward a few months later and Deft was back in a DRX jersey. Management had decided to pair him up with free agent and former World Champion Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee, who had just gone through a down year individually. The rest of the roster was filled with young journeymen. Talented Korean players who were good enough to warrant a roster spot but not to win a championship. For two of them, DRX was their fourth team since the start of 2020. There were not many expectations to be met this time around. Fast forward through the two regular season splits, and DRX were a middle-of-the-pack team. Barely making playoffs in spring and summer, and quickly being disposed of in both circuits.

2022 LCK Regional Finals

But then something strange happened during the LCK Regional Finals in late August. As teams were fighting for the last two seeds the LCK could send at Worlds 2022, a meta-shift started to be felt. Riot Games had just turned League of Legends on its head. Releasing the durability update right as teams were preparing for the playoffs. What resulted in a bot-centric meta turned out to be a blessing in disguise for DRX. Having one of the greatest League of Legends players of all time on your roster was always going to keep them relevant. But now their destiny was in his hands. DRX managed to squeeze out two wins in the series against KT and LSB, which both went to five games. Claiming the fourth and last LCK seed at the World Championship was a solid end to domestic competition. But how much could we expect from DRX?

DRX dominates the Play-In stage

As the last seed from Korea, DRX were forced to earn their spot at the World Championship through the Play-In stage. This sounds easy in theory until you consider they were in a group with the reigning MSI winners and Europe’s fourth seed. DRX cruised through the competition without dropping a single game as they geared up for the Group Stage of the World Championship. 

Here DRX once again came in as the underdogs. Placed in a group with the winner of the LEC and the second-best team from the Chinese LPL spelled doom for their chances of advancing. After TES crumbled against lesser competition, DRX needed to win a tie-breaker against the European champions to claim the top spot. And they did that in a convincing fashion, as the rest of the world and analysts started to take notice.

Knockout stage

With the stage for the quarter-finals being set, all eyes were on the second leg of the knockout stage. T1 and RNG facing off in an MSI Finals rematch had everyone’s attention. After the disappointing performances of all Western teams, nobody had faith in Rogue against JDG. Damwon and GenG facing off meant that at least one Korean team would reach the Grand Finals. But what about DRX? How did they end up here? 

DRXs road to the semifinals at the 2022 World Championship

Now they were facing the reigning world champions in EDG. Despite failing to meet the standards they set last year, they were still among the best teams in the world, with a world-class bot laner in a bot lane meta. And throughout two games into the series, it seemed Deft wasn’t enough to take DRX over the finish line. With DRX facing a 2-0 deficit after a heartbreaking inhibitor respawn that cost them game two, Deft and his squad faced an uphill battle. 

How do you recover and reverse sweep the reigning World Champions, especially after a demoralizing 40-minute defeat like that? Well, one thing these guys have shown throughout the entire year was resilience. That’s what all great teams are made of, and DRX proved it in convincing fashion. The stage was set for two elimination games, in which Deft played the hardest champions in the class. You would think Draven and Kalista don’t scale well due to various reasons, but Deft was the deciding factor in another two games that went past the 40-minute mark. If any League of Legends fan is curious about what two of the greatest ADCs going at it would look like, make sure to rewatch the DRX and EDG series. While fans across the globe held their breath every time one of them would walk up to try to make a play, we were all witnessing greatness unfold.

Deciding game 5

With the stakes never being higher, the deciding game five kicked off with EDG making moves. A small gold lead was on its way to breaking the game open when Deft got caught out on the third drake, but the rest of DRX finally stepped up. With the captain sidelined for the next 35 seconds, DRX managed to win a disadvantageous fight. The game turned in DRX’s favor but it wasn’t done yet. Luckily, apart from game one, DRX was the team with the better mid-laner on that faithful day. Apart from solo killing the reigning World Champion four times in the deciding game five, Kim “Zeka” Geon-woo proved he belonged in the higher echelon. Finishing the game with a quadra kill was the cherry on top, as he crushed the hopes of EDG for a repeat and brought Deft back to the semifinals after 2942 days. That is one hell of a birthday gift!

The Aftermath

One of the most closely contested and entertaining series had just concluded in frantic fashion. Tears of joy and sorrow were shed across the world, as everyone knew history had just unfolded in front of our eyes. As the dust continues to settle, it’s time to cherish the moment. Deft just reverse-swept his former team and teammates to reach the semifinals in a year where everyone but DRX had abandoned him. 

He’s now facing another two former teammates, as they prepare for Chovy and GenG, the reigning LCK champions. But whatever happens after this is just the icing on the cake. Beating Chovy and then Faker in the Grand Finals would give us a script of blockbuster value for a documentary on this season. As fans, we hope Esports can continue to top what happened in these quarterfinals. But regardless of the outcome, the story of the 2022 Deft and DRX cinderella run will live on forever.

Header: Twitter/ LoL Esports