The Story of Scout — A League of Legends Documentary

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along with it and if you sign up today using code gba 99 at checkout you'll get 83 off your purchase plus three months free all while supporting our content and channel thanks again to surf shark for the continued support now back to the documentary picture this the year is 2015 and you are a newly emerging professional league of legends mid laner from south korea you're a bit of a zed one trick but still talented nonetheless in fact this season you'll finish rank 1 on the korean solo queue ladder you develop plenty of impressive mechanics and skills as you play the game and before long all the top pro clubs in korea are lusting after your talents they each come making bids to try and sign you as a new trainee but you get to join the best of the bunch sk telecom t1 skt of course are the most respected and accomplished team in league of legends history they roster the greatest player of all time the mid laner faker and it appears as though they've just hand selected you to be the heir to his throne things couldn't be better the team lets you start your first ever game for the organization in the 2015 kespa cup as they're going up against esc ever this is a relatively obscure amateur team from korea's challenger scene so you have a pretty good opportunity to make an impressive debut here in champion select you lock in gangplank mid you're confident you're ready but when the match begins pick is available to them they're moving forward scout could be in trouble though speaking of this new player picking on the new guys they go deep scout not even have the opportunity throwing down a few barrels available for scout heck stringer passing will frog team alive for another moment but it's not enough turning it around on the key key turns on the backside crazy burning down the gameplay scout will drop the new blood being exposed is a weakness your debut went horribly wrong skt loses you play poorly and you're immediately benched for faker in game two but even then the damage has been done esc ever advance and skt are knocked out of the tournament i've been making documentaries on league of legends players for a number of years now and across all the projects i've released so far you may notice a theme i rarely talk about the best players of all time stars like faker uzi or bjergsen these are some of the most successful players in their respective leagues across the world yet i haven't really discussed any of their stories before and there's actually one particular reason for that these players are already the best at what they do and that is something i cannot relate to it's unrealistic to see stories where someone is perfect their entire career always labeled as the greatest of all time winning one championship after another it's certainly impressive to see that kind of talent on display but it's also something that's really hard to relate to most of us don't have things come so naturally to us in life we have to work through mistakes and disappointments before achieving any level of greatness we let our emotions get the better of us sometimes or give up on dreams entirely to chase new ones these are the stories i always find much more relatable in league of legends esports and today i'm going to tell you one of my favorites in the modern competitive landscape there's a player who's been on the cusp of greatness his entire career someone who's fantastic at what he does who's achieved loads already with his time in the game but who you might not have heard of since he's been dealt some really bad luck at the worst possible times and has been loyal to his favorite club almost to a fault even so i think he's one of the most relatable people in all of esports and this is his story slow scout down that's gonna be a pull in from mako after shock keeps him tanky he walks away with his life scout gets onto by the varys though and he actually answers the kill very nicely weaved in the auto attack keeps himself alive there's torque coming out for rookie gets enough as well with an empty cross coming off through but his scout turning around nany was on an equalizer the whole time he falls the scout gets two more for the books and should falls for the triple scout is on fire connection that's what it's a lot of damage second chain follow-up scout pretty close to it racing because and scott will get the kill looking towards mlxg connects another change he's on fire right now into the game flash knockoff income the cavalry edg running down rng right now [Music] in league of legends esports there's no shortage of curses that surround the world championship from eu's best and brightest getting 3-0 in back-to-back grand finals to north america famously failing to ever make it out of group stage plenty of organizations and regions can claim that their teams aren't performing up to snuff when the lights are shining brightest but of all the curses there are one team has had it worse than all the rest edward gaming might just be the weirdest team in league of legends you can see that a bit just by looking at their name while most orgs in the world of esports try to name themselves something really cool or possibly brand friendly this group of chinese players simply decided to name their team edward their history is also really weird they originated in the midst of a load of controversy as original members of the legendary team we roster that won ipl 5 decided to break away from their historic org so they could go and leave to form a completely new one but the weirdest thing about edg has to be their results specifically at the world championship ever since their inception edward gaming have been the most dominant team in all of china they won three of their first four lpl splits almost every independent tournament they entered and managed to continuously beat some of the best players in the world repeatedly every time they faced them from dispatching their rivals we on a regular basis to consistently outperforming uzi and rng in domestic competition edward even managed to win china's first ever major international title taking home msi 2015 after beating faker himself and sk telecom this is a seriously talented club except at worlds is in spite of the incredible talent edg's rosters have historically possessed they've never been able to perform well at worlds in fact throughout their first two years of competition their two worst placings they ever had were at the two most important events of the year at worlds 2014 they lost a narrow three games to two series against rng in quarterfinals which was a bit of a shock they had beaten rng just one month earlier but couldn't best them here this of course sent edward home early as they would have to sit back and watch their fellow chinese compatriots go all the way to grand finals that year cementing their own legacies the following season at 2015 worlds it was just more of the same although edg won an lpl split and msi that year they fell three games to zero in quarterfinals of worlds again this time to europe's fanatic a pretty big upset for the day edward gaming have consistently been one of the best teams in the world of league of legends and yet they've consistently failed to perform up to their skill ceiling when given a shot for the world title by the end of season 5 the team was noticing this was becoming a bit of a problem so at the start of 2016 they would make a roster move in the hopes of improving just a little bit more they didn't know it at the time but this roster move would accidentally save the organization in a way they could have never predicted meanwhile back in korea that trainee from sk telecom was growing dissatisfied his name was scout an 18 year old korean boy who just wanted another shot at professional glory but was having difficulty getting playing time with skt the year he joined the org 2015 skt went on to win the world championship themselves and the superstar mid laner faker was playing better than ever there wasn't really a path to playing time for scout the only other game scout got to play for the team was at the start of 2016 when skt let him sub in for an lck series against jyn air here he was put on lulu duty a pretty passive and boring support mage but even still things didn't go to plan he lost mid skt lost the game and he was benched again never to play another game for this legendary organization during spring of 2016 though an interesting opportunity crossed scout's path a chinese manager named aaron representing edg reached out to sk telecom and asked the team if they were interested in trading scout skt brought the idea to scout but he rejected it at first not wanting to leave korea but as time went on and scout continued riding the bench he started second-guessing his decision and began figuring this might be his only opportunity to play as impressive and prestigious as sk telecom was scout realized he wanted to build a legacy for himself a real career where he could play as a full-time starter and there wasn't any other opportunity out there when discussing the idea with his family scout's mom was worried that moving off to a foreign land like china where he didn't speak the language would be hard for him he was just 18 years old at this point but scout simply told her i can't see my future with skt eventually the two teams agreed to a deal scout was shipped off to china and would now be rostered by edward gaming but there was still one little hiccup edg currently had a few mid laners on their roster most notably pawn a korean import former world champion and the hard carry of the team that just led them to their 2015 msi title presumably pawn would be the starter at the top of the depth chart in any normal circumstance leaving scout to just train on the sidelines the way he had to on sk but fate gave him a bit of an opportunity here for better or worse that year in season six pawn began suffering from chronic back pain which was so severe he couldn't play in most lpl matches as tragic as this was it gave scout an opportunity to be the team's new starter as long as pawn was unable to play that opportunity comes with lots of pressure for a young rookie to perform he might not get another chance if he fails but he wouldn't need another chance to prove himself he's trying to get some work done but he's just taking too much damage has to flash it he's gonna be scout picking up the kill under swift that is a whole lot of their damage missing now from the fighters previously is there sniffer's divine actually daddy could be in trouble without flashing over the top wants to get the knock-up but he's going to be stunned by the gravity field it doesn't matter though he's popped the destiny he's going somewhere else whereas but it doesn't matter because edg they're gonna be able to take down the nexus and also finish the season undefeated in the summer split in the 2016 summer split edward gaming had a perfect regular season 16 wins zero losses that was immensely impressive scout had played incredibly well he kept the undefeated streak going every time he was starting later on in the split as pawn began feeling better and could play again scout had to take a bit of a back seat but he already solidified his talent and proved that he could play amongst the best really all scout needed was some more time to develop his champion pool practice a bit more in lower stress regular season games and he could become world class but he wasn't given that luxury of time by the end of the 2016 summer split pond's back pain had flared up again to a point where he would have to be hospitalized for two months this meant scout would be the starter for the team in the following summer playoffs edg weren't expecting this and didn't feel prepared at all the team was banking so hard on pawn being the playoff starter that co-founder and manager san xiao said the sudden personnel change meant the team would have to guide the lily to find success that's an idiom in chinese that roughly translates to we're gonna have to reinvent the wheel the playoffs wouldn't contain any easy series either in their very first best of five they would be playing in semi-finals up against team wwe their old rival and they wanted to put edg's perfect season in the dirt in game one of the series edg played well the whole team managed to crush team we scout included and seemed to look strong going into the next match but in game 2 things went pretty poorly especially mid lane we should be looking at the mid lane spectator there you are hello scout he's gonna go down a good game comes out from connie in the mid lane he picks up another kill scout got destroyed straight up 1v1 it was later reported that while pawn was watching this match from his hospital bed he tried to leap up and demand that he be rushed to the stadium as he shouted edg needs me but the team were able to put things back together scout was relegated to some safer more supportive mages and the rest of his team picked up any slack he had helping edg win the series with a very narrow three games to two score line this of course sent them to grand finals where they would be matched up against rng the team who knocked them out of their very first ever worlds run and who were the defending spring split champions this was certainly another high-stakes environment but this time around scout was much more prepared he had acclimated to become what the team needed him to be and helped carry them to a 3-0 sweep finishing off their perfect season as lpl champions and earning himself his very first title the team couldn't be in higher spirits at this point they had just completed a perfect split and qualified for worlds pawn was able to return healthy and ready to play everything was looking up for the organization as there was tons of hype surrounding them for the upcoming international event this world could be a crowning moment in the team's history finally proving the doubters wrong winning a world title bringing home china's first championship but if you know anything about edg you know what happens next edg were eliminated in quarterfinals again this was after a narrow escape from groups where they dropped matches to both h2k from europe and the wild card team intz from brazil before getting eliminated by korea's rox tigers it was frankly humiliating for the players for the organization it was even rough for scout as he was largely seen as one of the players who choked the final series against rocks that sent them home as great as edward gaming were with their perfect split and domestic competition everyone forgot about it almost immediately as they were labeled as nothing more than a disappointment internationally yet again controversy started to surround the team in the following off-season as many players contracts expired pawn and the other starting korean player on the roster deft took the opportunity to leave and head back home back to korea hopefully finding a better team to play for that wasn't so cursed but when scout was asked whether or not he would join his korean compatriots on their journey home he simply said so 2016 had just come to an end and edward gaming were as polarizing of an esports org as ever before they had some of the most domestic success of any regional team across the world but international demons continue to haunt them and their legacy at worlds at this point the team probably still felt like scrappy underdogs in many ways trying to get better and prove themselves to the international community going into season 7 it would be hard to improve considering they had just lost two of their starting players but it was scout of all people who stepped up and picked up the slack [Music] skel was coming off an incredibly successful rookie campaign having won an lpl title in his very first competitive split but he was still seen as a bit of a question mark in the eyes of many he had only played a single split while sharing time with pawn mid lane not to mention his gameplay wasn't too flashy or amazing at times especially in big events where it seemed like he was prone to struggle it was left to be seen whether or not he would grow into a bonafide lpl star but in 2017 he was able to do exactly that in the lpl spring split edg finished second in their group with a third place playoff result it's only natural there would be some regression as they were adjusting to a new lineup and scout was adjusting to starting every week but they only managed to get better from there edward gaming helped chyna win the 2017 rift rivals event before getting first place in their lpl group of the summer regular season they just needed half a year of regression before they were suddenly back on top in china and this newfound success was largely because of scout 2017 was really the year he was able to prove himself in so many ways this was the year that scout grew his champion pool to a size larger than ever before succeeding with multiple characters showing us he wasn't just a one-trick pony he also grew a lot emotionally managing to mature as an adult who could be the leader and face of the team even though he was still just 19 years old the only thing he had left to do was prove that he could be a hard carry for edg a mid-lane star who could perform under pressure and there was no better opportunity for him to do that than the 2017 summer playoff finals here edg are facing off against rng for the summer championship and scout has to play up against xiaohu one of the biggest talents in league history who honestly deserves a documentary of his own it's worth mentioning this is probably the most stress scout has ever been put under the team is relying pretty heavily on him to play well there's no other korean import on edg to help him carry and no other mid lane substitute that can come in if he fails whatever result edward gets here will largely rest on scout's shoulders and his ability to go up against one of the best mid laners of all time and in his first two games he bottles it 4-6-4 scoreline in game 1 0-5-2 scoreline in game 2. rng just took a commanding lead in the series and are now in position to sweep edg taking the title for themselves it seems as though scout can't handle the pressure he's already choked a couple of matches suggesting that he can't keep up with xiaohu not to mention how tilting it is to lose in this way failing when your team is relying on you letting your friends down not many 19 year olds are able to have the constitution to gather themselves and make a comeback happen from this position and yet in game three the team's coach no faye tells scout to pick leblanc one of the most flashy technical assassin mage hybrids in league who has plenty of room for error if played poorly but scout went off with her the teleport let me quote by himself pop seals a bit early but scout who's just picked up his gun blade and he wants to use it out of the top laner down goes let me pull up as well and gail it's not gonna open clean enough cannot move mid lane though let me just times what i want to scout oh yeah yeah you see miracles however tilted he may have been even with all the pressure heaped on his shoulders scout managed to outperform one of the best mid laners in china twice to force a game five here in this final match he picked lucian midlane and managed to hard carry again for a third straight time helping to seal the championship for edg winning his second lpl title not only that scouts turn around and play was so impressive he earned himself mvp of the finals and mvp of the entire summer split this had to be one of the most exciting moments in scout's young career he had taken a huge risk moving to china to play for edg moving when pawn was still on the roster meaning he might never get a chance to start but here he was edg's new star and a two-time lpl champion this was the year that scout managed to solidify himself as a world-class mid-laner with a really bright future ahead his dream of being an esports pro had been made a reality but as we all know at this point when it comes to edg every summer championship includes something dark on the horizon 2017 worlds wasn't just a disappointment it was edg's worst worlds yet they were eliminated in group stage after dropping matches to north america's cloud 9 as well as the lms squad ahq even after a rough first few days they nearly made a comeback happen to escape groups all they had to do was beat sk telecom in their final set to force a tiebreaker it looked like they might be able to for most of this match but they fell in the final few moments as scout's old team made a comeback to eliminate him and edg from worlds edward gaming came so close and they looked so good and they were almost that third team in but it is sk telecom t1 with another comeback win 5-1 one of the saddest things about sports is how easy it is for players and teams to not get the recognition their talent deserves by all account edg should be considered one of the most successful teams in league of legends history and scout should be a household name his story as the midlaner who blew an opportunity on skt only to build an entirely new career from scratch on a new organization is incredibly admirable he was the 18 year old kid who stepped up to play a perfect season when the mid lane starter went down with an injury he was the carry who led a reverse sweep of uzi and xiaohu in the summer finals he was a korean solo q prodigy who lived up to the hype in many ways turning his one-trick talent into world-class professionalism but how many of you knew his story before today a player's team really has more to do with their legacy than anything else and while scout might be viewed as a star in china today he's largely unknown to the rest of the world since the rest of the world thinks edg is a bit of a disappointing club i think the organization of edward gaming knew this and they wanted to get better they wanted to make changes to get over this curse of worlds and reach the upper echelon of glory that they felt like they deserved but that desire to improve might have led to some of the changes that began a downfall for the team at the start of the 2018 spring split edward gaming made some roster moves a new top laner named rey joined the squad bringing in some young blood and the legendary jungler clear love who was still starting on the roster began taking a bit of a back seat to an academy player named haro with these new two young players starting for the org an unintended consequence occurred scout was now the oldest and most veteran player on the roster this at a time when he's entering just his third year of competition and at 20 years old he had already been challenged by edward to take on a lot of responsibility and leadership in the past but this was a whole new level of responsibility scout was now the face of the organization and had to essentially be the sole carry responsible for their success he did well at first to his credit edg won the 2018 spring regular season and it got a second place finish in the following playoffs but scout wasn't infallible i think i can summarize how that season of play went for edg by pointing out throughout those two lpl splits scout won 37 man of the match mvp awards in other words edg had themselves a star who could carry them to victory all alone but they only had one if scout ever failed nobody else on the team could lead them to success one of the more impressive accomplishments of that year was scout carried edg to qualify for 2018 worlds through china's regional bracket but they would finish second in their group again and were knocked out of the event with another quarterfinals exit 2018 was edward's worst year yet and sent the organization into a horrible tailspin there was only one player left on the roster who was the sole reason for any games they managed to win and if he ever left the org might be doomed season 8's failures sent management into a panic for season 9. the team began experimenting with more roster changes to hopefully find scout a supportive group that could help him out in game new junglers new topliners and adcary started joining the team but this didn't do anything to improve the roster it began a death spiral as roster changes brought instability instability brought poor performance and poor performance brought more roster changes by the end of 2019 edg had failed to qualify for worlds for the very first time in the organization's history that's both an impressive accomplishment showing their dominant past but also reminds everyone of how far they had now fallen the cycle continued into 2020 as more roster changes occurred only leading to even worse performances by the time we were in season 10 the only constant on this team anymore was scout he was the last remaining veteran and the team's only good player and he was about to leave his contract expired at the end of season 10 and whenever he was asked about whether he would stay with the club or go elsewhere in interviews he always remained silent edward gaming fans naturally assumed that he was going to go to another lpl squad or maybe go back to korea and find a more reputable organization who could help him win an international title before his career came to a close some people thought he might stay the way he did back in 2016 but even that was just a faint hope in 2016 edg were offering him his first chance at starting for a pro club making perfect sense for him to stay and re-sign now the organization was in disarray they weren't winning anything domestically they were further than ever from breaking their curse it's probably just better to return to korea or go join a new international powerhouse create some sort of super team with old stars and pros to win a world championship [Music] back in 2016 when aaron first approached scout about joining edg scout was at the lowest point in his short career he felt like he had blundered his opportunity with skt and was touched that there was still a team and coaching staff out there that still believed in his talent right before signing with edg scout told aaron if you offer me a chance i won't let you down [Music] in the 2020 offseason scout re-signed with edg but he did much more than that at this point he had become fluent in mandarin a chinese resident and was now personally going out and recruiting other top korean players to come and join him on edg and this led to one of the biggest free agency signings of that offseason former superstar of team griffin and arguably the best 80 carry in the world today viper decided to join edg and it was all thanks to scout this kind of loyalty to a team is rare in sports of course fans always dream of rooting for players who love the team as much as they do but players are competitors above all else they want to win especially in something like esports where careers are so brief it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a player to spend too much time with a dysfunctional organization so for scout to stay with edg for him to re-sign with the club right as they were in the midst of their darkest days for him to take it upon himself to fix everything going out and personally recruiting top talent to join him as if he were the general manager i simply can't believe this actually happened but at the same time it does make a bit of sense back in 2016 it could be said that edg saved scout by believing in him when nobody else did so i think now half a decade later maybe scout was just returning the favor you're edg you need to be one of the top level organizations in the lpl you have a reputation to hold and you need to get back there one of the teams i've found fascinating this whole year has to be the edg team you look at the gm job and what a fantastic job whoever put this team together is it has been a long journey to make it back to that top and now they have a chance today against fpx but i still feel like a lot of people are favoring fpx or edg coming as someone of underdogs [Music] hero's entrance it's trying to protect the jungler as well don't be on the back line includes flight drape on the stopwatch he's coming up through flight training with a huge narrow ultimate maybe this is it but fbx still firing out ghostbusters what how does piper do it how did he manage to triple kill at the most crucial point of the game that's two picks for fbx that's the big thing or are they ready for the tvs are coming out and they stop the faces looking for it dodges it viper heads back toothpaste himself scouts though scissors around finds a window onto cs the dragon's right dead into 1v1 scouts [Music] oh my god [Music] nbx but they're outnumbered they don't have the damage they are taken down and it's all done for fps edgy abdominis they've taken down the phoenix you

Channel: Gbay99

Views: 231,468

Keywords: league of legends, lolesports, worlds, worlds 2021, scout, edg, edward gaming, sk telecom t1, t1, skt, lck, lpl, documentary, gbay99, gbay, league of legends documentary, edg scout, viper, edg viper, mid lane, mid

Id: tWf_OvzoCPI

Length: 34min 4sec (2044 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021