OpTic Gaming mid-laner Lee "Crown" Min-ho has recently voiced his vendetta against fellow LCS team Cloud9. The Korean League of Legends pro has a history with Cloud9, the North American team being a source of frustration since 2018's World Championship. Now, an opportunity for revenge presents itself in the LCS play-offs.
Lee "Crown" Min-ho has stood on top of the League of Legends scene before, being a part of the Samsung Galaxy team that took a dominant SK Telecom T1 to 5 maps in the Worlds 2016 Grand Final. He got a taste of victory himself when Samsung Galaxy crushed SK Telecom T1 to win Worlds 2017. It was during this time that Crown experienced that all-too-common burnout, and League of Legends turned into job instead of a passion. This all came to a head when Crown, playing under the Gen.G name, bombed out of the 2018 World Championship in the group stage. They had lost to eventual semi-finalists Cloud9, a team that Gen.G should have been able to beat fairly easily. This elimination became a source of anxiety for Crown, so much so that he refused to rewatch the loss to Cloud9. He states that "in the past, I didn't want to watch it because I didn't want to imagine that game again."
The 2019 competitive season would see Crown making a move to North America to play under the OpTic Gaming banner. He has since been a carry for the team, now leading them to the LCS play-offs for the first time in the organization's history. The post season does present the possibility of earning a World Championship appearance, but Crown has set his sights on one team: Cloud9. On the final day of the LCS regular season matches, OpTic, and Crown, faced off against Cloud9 once again. The winner of that game would guarantee themselves a spot in the play-offs. Though Crown was motivated to carry OpTic to this victory, Cloud9 took out OpTic in dominant fashion. This forced OpTic into a tie-breaker situation, where they would have to defeat both 100 Thieves and Golden Guardians in order to advance to the play-offs. OpTic succeeded, but only after Crown had confronted the game that had been holding him back all this time. He took the time to watch the game that eliminated him from Worlds 2018, explaining that "I thought maybe it was time to watch that one." Crown would secure his spot in the play-offs later that day.
The LCS post season is set to begin on August 10th, though OpTic won't face quarter-final opponent CLG until the 11th. Should OpTic take the victory, they would come head-to-head with Cloud9 in the semi-finals, which are set to take place on the following weekend. "I want to f**k Cloud9," Crown says in a display of unwavering determination.
There's a lot up for grabs for the winner of the LCS Summer season, but Crown's focus remains locked on taking down this one team.