With Worlds 2022 about to begin, the League of Legends Circuit Oceania’s Chiefs Esports Club are one of the 24 teams from across the world that are making their way to the biggest event of the year. Every team entering the League of Legends World Championship have the same goal: to stand at the top uncontested and hoist the Season 12 Summoner’s Cup high.
✅ The Perfect Split
✅ @LCO All-Pro Team
🏆 Only one goal remains…✏️ @Alexicon13 >> https://t.co/Y4evCbeDrZ pic.twitter.com/B4lhkFGznf
— The Chiefs (@ChiefsESC) August 30, 2022
Proving that super teams can indeed work in minor regions, CHF went a combined 40-2 in regular season play including pulling off a perfect season in Split 2 as they enter Worlds 2022 as perhaps the strongest Oceania team to ever qualify for international play.
Chiefs Esports Club (LCO) Worlds 2022 starting roster breakdown
- Top: Kim “Topoon” Ji-hoon | Signed in January 2022, formerly a member of Immortals Academy
- Jungler: Park “Arthur” Mi-reu| Signed in January 2022, formerly a member of Hanwha Life Esports Challengers
- Mid: James “Tally” Shute | Signed in January 2022, formery a member of PEACE
- Bot: Quin “Raes” Korebrits | Signed in January 2022, formerly a member of Immortals
- Support: Ryan “Aladoric” Gregory Richardson| Signed in May 2022, formerly a member PEACE
How they got here
After years of failing to make Worlds, enough was enough for CHF. Entering 2022, the team cleaned house; with only a single member returning from 2021, they also looked outside of the region for help. They got it in more ways than one. First off, the team brought in two Korean imports. Topoon came back from a failed stint in the League Championship Series Academy league, and Arthur spent a year with Hanwha Life Esports before returning; both players have had previous stints in the OCE. However, those weren’t the only two moves — with the mass exodus of talent leaving the region for North America, one of the best players returned with Raes coming back to his home region and his home team. For Oceania standards, this team was stacked and ready to make a real push for Worlds in 2022.
Split 1 of the 2022 LCO season was a fantastic success for the roster. Despite only having limited time to mesh, the team mashed. Going 19-2 in the regular season, CHF looked unbeatable as they easily locked up the first seed entering playoffs and had three of the five players on the LCO all-pro team. But in the playoffs they uncharacteristically looked shaky. After barely squeaking past the third-seeded Pentanet.GG, CHF found themselves on the losing side of a close five-game set against ORDER and despite their regular season dominance, CHF once again missed out on international play.
In between Split 1 and Split 2, CHF support player Dragon “Dragku” Guo stepped away from the team; this allowed the team to bring Aladoric in as the new starter. While Split 1 was incredible for CHF, Split 2 would be historic; Oceania’s top professional league hasn’t seen a perfect season since its inaugural season. Ironically, it was CHF way back then that pulled it off with a 14-0 regular season. But in Split 2 of the 2022 LCO season, CHF did it again. A 21-0 regular season meant the team was literally unbeatable and this time there were pretty much unbeatable in playoffs. With just a lone one-game loss in their 3-1 victory over PGG in the finals, CHF are finally heading to Worlds for the first time ever.
Players to Watch
The most notable player on the team is CHF’s bot laner Raes — he is definitely a player to watch at Worlds 2022. As the Split 1 MVP, Raes has far and away been the best bot laner in the region; even though he didn’t put up league-leading player of the game awards in the summer, he still put up crazy stat lines. According to Oracleselixir.com, Raes led all players in the region in KDA, kills and Earned Gold Per Minute while being second in the league in Damage Per Minute. There isn’t a better carry in the region than him.
The other interesting player of note on this roster is their new support player Aladoric. Coming into a new team on short notice, Aladoric was fantastic as he picked up five player of the game awards which was just one shy of the league lead which was claimed by CHF jungler Arthur. These three players create a three-headed monster for the team.
How Chiefs Esports Club can succeed at Worlds 2022
CFO enter Worlds 2022 as one of the 12 play-in stage teams. As a result, they have been put into one of the six-team groups and the group they have drawn is the easier of the two on paper. Their group features the LCS third seed Evil Geniuses and League European Championship third seed Fnatic. In a way, this is similar to MSI 2022 where ORDER played in a group against EG and G2 Esports. That group did not go well at all with ORDER failing to win a single game. However, there are other teams in the group this time and CHF look significantly better than ORDER. Outplacing any of the two major region teams is a stretch. However, with this team playing like they have been, placing third in the group is realistic; they will still be the underdogs against DetonatioN FocusMe and Beyond Gaming.
