DAMWON Gaming top laner Jang “Nuguri” Ha Kwon is preparing for the 2019 League of Legends World Championship that will begin on October 2 with group stage matches.
This is the ninth World Championship tournament and DAMWON Gaming’s first trip to the biggest League of Legends tournament of the season.
DAMWON qualified for the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) in the 2019 LCK Spring Promotion Tournament and finished fifth in the spring split with an 11-7 record. They were two games better in the Summer season, finishing second with a 13-5 record.Â
They competed in the LCK Summer playoffs and were swept by SK Telecom T1 in the LCK summer championship. From there, they went on to win their spot at the World Championship in the regional finals, when they ultimately defeated King-Zone DragonX in a tight 3-2 series.
With the group stage beginning this week, all eyes are on the solo queue histories of the competing players for some insight into what sort of meta might emerge when play officially begins.
Â
As of this writing, Nuguri has gone 24-2 in European solo queue and used the Kleptomancy rune in all but one of those games. He has a 3.4 kill-to-death ratio in those games.
The rune is a noteworthy choice in that it enables champions to farm additional gold and mixed resources over the course of the laning stage and into later portions of the game, giving them the potential to outpace their opponents as they scale. This comes at the cost of more direct combat benefits given by other, more common solo lane rune choices.
Kleptomancy was added in patch 7.22. In patch 8.2, the drop rate of items in the first 15 minutes was reduced. The power of Kleptomancy has been debated since it was first introduced. In fact, in November of 2018 it was reported that League of Legend’s players had started a petition on Change.org to remove the rune from the game.
It was obviously not effective, and it looks like Kleptomancy might play a big role in the upcoming World Championship tournament if Nuguri and DAMWON Gaming have their way.
Players must be 21 years of age or older or reach the minimum age for gambling in their respective state and located in jurisdictions where online gambling is legal. Please play responsibly. Bet with your head, not over it. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, and wants help, call or visit: (a) the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey at 1-800-Gambler or www.800gambler.org; or (b) Gamblers Anonymous at 855-2-CALL-GA or www.gamblersanonymous.org.
