LoL – EDG Scout, from Faker’s understudy to world champion

It has been some time since the 2021 World Championship Finals, and as we wait for the beginning of the 2022 competitive season, it may be worth looking back into some of the players that stood out in the tournament. For this particular article, we will be taking a look at the Finals MVP: EDG’s very own Park “Scout” Ye-chan.

Beginnings

Scout started out as a solo queue prodigy. His solo queue highlights showed a lot of promise, and was soon signed by SK Telecom T1 as a trainee. The team, however, decided to go with Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok and Lee “Easyhoon” Ji-hoon as their starting mid laners. Scout started a game against Ever in the 2015 KeSPA Cup once Easyhoon had departed to China, but even this was short-lived as after losing that same game, he was subbed out for Faker. While he stayed with SK Telecom T1, he did not start a game for them again.

Going into the LPL

In March 2016, Scout got transferred to EDward Gaming, and became the starting mid laner for them for the summer, filling in for Heo “PawN” Won-seok. Scout immediately proved his worth as the Chinese fan favorite team went on a perfect 16-0 regular season record and won the summer playoffs. Despite the stellar performance domestically, they did not do as well internationally. With personal problems plaguing some of their members, they exited Worlds that year after getting defeated by the ROX Tigers in quarterfinals.

In 2017, they placed third in the spring but they made a massive resurgence in the summer. Scout proved himself essential to the team by getting first in the regular season MVP awards, and EDG took down RNG in the summer split finals. Their 2017 run at Worlds was also unfortunate, where they were knocked out of the tournament during the group stage.

The spring of 2018 was an up-and-down one for the team. They were not able to defend their title once again in the spring, losing 1-3 to Royal Never Give Up, but in the summer were able to secure the last Worlds seed for the LPL.

2019 was the beginning of a downward trajectory. They got knocked out of the spring playoffs for the first time before semifinals by SinoDragon. In the 2019 summer playoffs, they were defeated by Bilibili Gaming 2-3, and they missed Worlds for the first time. 2020 did not go better for them. They finished 6th in the spring, but were quickly knocked out by FPX, and in the summer, they missed playoffs for the first time.

Despite some of the rougher results, Scout was a shining light for the team, often putting up great performances on champions like Sylas, Zoe, and Leblanc. It was considered by analysts that it was rather regrettable that he was reaching heights in his career and yet the team was not showing the results.

2021 and beyond

Scout retained his stellar performance in the 2021 season, and now with stars brought over into the team with him in Park “Viper” Do-hyeon and Li “Flandre” Xuan-Jun, the burden to carry wasn’t on Scout alone. Scout was a solid force on the team, where he can just get a scaling champion like Orianna or Azir, and then he can help the rest of the team in team fights later on. Other times, he can still get more aggressive picks where he is the focal point of the team, where he plays Syndra, Leblanc, or Sylas.

One thing for certain is that he can fall back on what is now considered his signature Zoe pick.

Scout has shown a mastery of the role, showing different styles and enabling his jungler to get as much leads as they could on the map. His mechanical prowess even after all this time is still nothing to be scoffed at, and his ability to pick the right moment to be aggressive is also excellent. This is why Scout is a world champion, and this is why he was the finals MVP.

Scout became an LPL resident earlier this year, and save for that one game in the KeSPA Cup, he has played official matches in China for the entirety of his career. He has only recently reached the peak of his career, and will surely continue to be an exemplary player in the following seasons. He is only 23 years old, and he already has an immensely impressive resume. It will be great to track what else he will accomplish.