After years of attempting to make it on the world stage, one of the game's most mechanically sound marksmen has finally arrived. H2k Gaming's Konstantinos-Napoleon "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou has never been one to shy away from a challenge against any AD carry in the world, and the 2016 League of Legend World Championship is his ultimate opportunity to do so. After a bit of a shock on the opening day with a sloppy defeat to AHQ e-Sports, Europe's second seed evened its record at 1-1 with a statement victory over Brazil's INTZ E-Sports Club.
"I think I'm in a pretty good state right now," said the Greek AD carry a few minutes after picking up his first win at Worlds. "I'm not at my peak like I was a few years ago when people considered me the best AD carry in [Europe] for a lot of years, but now suddenly now I think I am top two. There are a lot of reasons why people [think] I dropped off, and some of them are correct. Truth is, I don't have the fire inside of me [I had] years ago in order to just play every game, grind the game. As I get older, priorities change, and so I planned to stop [playing] League of Legends a lot of times for various reasons. But I came back [to H2k] and I think I'm in a really good place right now."
FORG1VEN is the type of player who can pick up a random game and excel at it. While deciding his future in League of Legends, there were rumors of his possibly moving over to Heroes of the Storm or the newly released Overwatch. When it comes to the hand-eye coordination and the ability to make split-second plays that a majority of the world cannot, there are few players in the world like H2k's ace in the bottom lane.
"As long as I played League of Legends I never played against a bot lane in my career professionally or in scrims that I was like, 'Wow, these guys are really f---ing good', and that I should check replays to see how they play, outplay me, out trade me, move better in lane," he said. "[But RNG's bottom lane] did things I had never seen. They could use the frames of each champion. This could become a meme like Doublelift and 'auto spacing', but it's actually true. I think Jian "Uzi" Zi-Hao and Cho "Mata" Se-hyeong are a really good bot-lane. Every game I play against them - we're both basically the same players, [Uzi and I]. Uzi will contend every single creep possible, and I will contend every single creep possible. So when we face against each other, I think we are both ready to commit our lives for every creep."
On the topic of which AD carries he respects as good players, he listed the likes of TSM's Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng, C9's Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi, the aforementioned Uzi and EDG's Kim "Deft" Hyuk-kyu from international teams who impressed him while watching game film or scrimming against them in Korea. He did note that he wasn't able to play against SKT's Bae "Bang" Jun-sik so he couldn't comment on the marksmen of the defending champion. All in all, FORG1VEN said there are six to seven AD carries at the tournament that are really good and that in terms of ranking them, it all comes down to a fan's or analyst's preference on what they value in a player.
"We're going step by step, to be honest, I think that's the optimal course," he answered when asked what his goal was for the tournament as a whole. "If we get out of groups, that's good. I would prefer to go out as first seed but that doesn't seem to be very likely because our team is very inconsistent, although we're all really good players.and actually a really good team. But sometimes we have bad issues -- mostly with gameplay, sometimes outside of the game, like for example, our team was sick coming from Korea to here. But I trust my teammates, especially Vander. On good days, he's a really good player. On his bad days, it's another matter of discussion."
FORG1VEN understands that it's difficult being a fan of his. "It's been a hard past year to be a FORG1VEN fan," he said, finishing the interview. "Because me going to Origen for a few weeks, getting kicked, and then Origen almost getting relegated - really good choice from Origen. I'll say I appreciate when people stand behind me [even when I go through harsh times], support me and say something good. I appreciate all those people. I hope they keep doing it, and I hope I give them a good reason to through my performances."