South Korea's Han "Peanut" Wang-ho, 18, was a troubled rookie sitting on the bench of a submarining NaJin e-mFire squad last year. A year later, after joining the ROX Tigers, he has blossomed into a multidimensional jungler with the potential to be called the best in the world at his position.
At his first international tournament, Peanut has been a savior of sorts for his teammates, swooping in on his Nocturne in Saturday's match against G2 Esports to steal a Baron and get his team back into the game. The Tigers were able to turn around the large deficit they found themselves in following Peanut's heroics, and they kept their perfect record intact through the first three days of the tournament.
"I think it was just our picks that caused us to not play too strongly in the early game," Peanut said of why the odds-on favorite to win the tournament had such a slow start in the best-of-one match.
"[G2's Kim "Trick" Gang-yun] is a very good jungler," he said in giving credit to the back-to-back MVP. "But I think he'll always have to put the team in front of [him], so it's hard to tell who is better [between us]. I'm confident I can do pretty well in this tournament."
The jungling champion everyone has their eyes on so far this tournament is the highlight reel-machine Lee Sin. The acrobatic, blind monk has been a consistent pick through the first three days, and everyone is wondering which of the elite junglers is the best at the mechanically intensive champion.
"[Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen] from [Team SoloMid] is the best [Lee Sin]," Peanut said.
After a few more seconds of thinking about it, he added: "And [Liu "MLXG" Shi-yu] from [Royal Never Give Up]. They're pretty much tied. TSM and H2k were the best two Western teams we played against during Worlds [preparation]."
Looking forward, the ROX Tigers, though the consensus No. 1 entering the tournament, still have one enemy they haven't been able to defeat: fellow South Korean team SK Telecom T1. The white whale that the Tigers have gone to great lengths to vanquish has beaten them in the past three major finals they've played.
In Friday's interview with SKT T1's Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, Faker said that though the Tigers won the summer split of South Korea's domestic league, he is confident SKT can beat ROX if they meet again in the tournament.
"So if Faker says he's confident, that means he's really confident," Peanut said with a laugh. "So I'd like to avoid SKT."
"I'll play to the best of my ability to make [the fans] feel like I'm not overrated," he said in closing. "I want to thank all the fans who came and shouted at the game today when I stole the Baron. The TSM chants and all the American fanboyism actually make me really envious. They are great fans that really cheer for their teams. I envy them, almost to the point I want to join one of the teams for the fan chanting."