Who is Chovy? Korea’s best LoL player to never win at Worlds

Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon is the prodigious mid laner for Hanwha Life Esports.

To many, Chovy is a generational talent plagued by controversy and poor luck. To others, he’s an overhyped rookie who never achieved his potential. So who is the Korean all-star, and why does he manage to accumulate such a ridiculous amount of farm over the course of a game?

The first time most fans will have seen Chovy play was in 2018, on the up-and-coming Griffin roster. Though he had debuted at the 2017 KeSPA Cup on KeG Guangju, he truly made his name with Griffin.

Griffin took the Korean league by storm, qualifying via the lower league’s promotion series against MVP. Griffin was widely considered the best team in Korea heading into playoffs and had a roster of hungry rookies who were still checking the best in the league from the first day. Chovy was the mechanical prodigy at the center of it all until 2020 when Griffin slid out of the LCK due to a variety of controversies.

However, Griffin gained a reputation for being one of the best teams in the world during the regular season, but choking in the playoffs. Despite seeming like the favorites to claim LCK titles, Griffin and Chovy never claimed a first-place finish in regional or international play. The only two first places Chovy has achieved were at ancillary events in KeSPA Cup and Rift Rivals. So why is he still rated so highly by fans?

The answer is simple, Chovy is consistently the best performing member of his teams, and his mechanical ability is regularly on full display, leading to compilations full of outplays. Recently, however, Chovy has drawn fan attention for his ridiculous creep score numbers.

Why is Chovy’s CS so high?

One of Chovy’s consistent feats is his ability to create creep score advantages that are comically large. Even LoL Esports got in on the joke, pointing out his “Flame Horizon” over an enemy Galio on Twisted Fate. Between his mechanical skill leading to small advantages in Lane, Chovy goes out of his way to make sure he’s picking up extra gold wherever he can. From allied and enemy jungle camps to unsuspecting Scuttle Crabs, Chovy’s unrivaled at finding opportunities to create gold in his pocket.

At Worlds 2021, Chovy’s average CSD at 10 minutes was 15, with his first deficits of the entire tournament coming to Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok in the quarterfinals series in which Chovy was eliminated from the tournament. The team was eliminated from the tournament by T1.

After 15 minutes, he accounted for 28.4% of his team’s farm, nearly a third on his own. With his defeat at the hands of T1, Chovy continued the unfortunate trend of posting an incredible individual performance, only for his team to crumble around him.