After T1 locked in their spot in the Rumble stage at the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational, the League of Legends Champions Korea representatives decided to have some fun in their last match of the group stage. Despite holding onto an undefeated streak in official matches throughout the entirety of 2022 so far, the team decided now would be the best time to break out an extremely obscure support pick. Against Saigon Buffalo to close out Day 6 of MSI 2022, Ryu “Keria” Min-seok locked in Rumble support.
Keria has never played Rumble in his young professional career. But that’s to be expected; Rumble isn’t a support champion anyway.
Can't stop T1's speedrun to the 'Rumble' Stage 🏃♂️🏃♂️🏃♂️ #MSI2022 pic.twitter.com/foL199Z6hZ
— LCK (@LCK) May 15, 2022
According to Gol.gg, Rumble has only been picked in the support role 27 times across all level of professional play dating back to Season 5. Major regions only picked Rumble in 10 of those games. None of those games have come in the last two years of professional play. In 2022, two minor region teams picked Rumble support, but both times the pick lost.
But the weirdness didn’t stop there. Not only did Keria play this champion for the first time in pro play, but it also looked like this was the first time he played the champion period. Looking at the summoner spells he took, Keria decided to go with Ghost and Cleanse. Across all levels of pro play according to Gol.gg, no player ever picked that combination on Rumble. But against all odds, Keria was able to make the pick work. Heading into the game, Rumble support had a lifetime win percentage of just 26%. Heading out of the game, it’s now 29%.
Keria didn’t really do anything special in T1’s last match of the group stage. But the Rumble was far from a liability. T1 did what they did in all their other games and simply outclassed the competition. Keria ended with a 2/1/8 KDA (kills/deaths/assists) as T1 defeated SGB in just 21 minutes.
