The Story of Doinb - Part 1: A Rookie Reaper Rises

Leading up to Doinb's debut, the Reapers boasted two wins and two ties in their LSPL group and, moreover, they had been able to overcome Team WE Future in their Demacia Cup 2015 Spring's Ro16 series. Once Doinb entered the fray, the team ramped up to a new level. Qiao Gu, a phrase which translates to something along the lines of 'reapers', were finally ready to reflect their terrifying name.

With Doinb in the lineup, the team won their remaining LSPL matches and, at the same time, made it to a surprising third-place finish at the Demacia Cup. For accomplishing such a feat, they had to surpass OMG, Snake, and WE, which made the LPL teams aware of their hidden potential. After leaving all the fans amazed by how easily they had dealt with those high-tier opponents, they went on to storm through the LSPL playoffs, getting the final victory and, with it, a spot at the 2015 LPL Summer Season.

After seeing how sudden their rise to glory was, a single question instantly comes to mind: How did they do it? Well, there are a lot of factors that played into Doinb's iteration of Qiao Gu achieving a spot at LPL not even one year after the inception of the organization.

In general, the roster played knowing they were usually better than their opponents. By having a higher mechanical level, they could continually force favorable situations around the map. V, although known for his proficiency with carry top-laners, became a Gnar maestro while still being targeted by multiple bans each game, whereas TnT tended to go for the Sivir pick to shatter his enemies once the late game came around.

While V and TnT had their moments, the performance of the Swift and Doinb duo was the deciding factor. Swift was the soul of the team. His early game aggression and constant desire to engage in fights were vital for the outcome of each and every match. He loved Nidalee, a pick with which he won every single game he played.

Doinb, however, was what really made him shine. The day of his debut, he decided to pick Katarina, putting up an impressive 6/2/4 performance for a complete rookie. That game spread the rumor of him being a Katarina one-trick within the Chinese community. However, that was nothing further from reality. During his 15 games in the LSPL, Doinb played a total of 12 different champions, only repeating with Ahri, Lulu, and Viktor.

Fans incorrectly saw this capacity to play almost anything he wanted as a sign of a lack of identity. By the end of the season, analysts all over the world classified Doinb as an "undefined" kind of player, someone who would have to find his in-game personality soon should he want to continue climbing echelons in the competitive scene. What they could not deny, however, was that, whatever his playstyle was, it had massively helped Qiao Gu as a unit.

After the Korean mid-laner joined the team, Qiao Gu's average game time went down from 41 to 31 minutes, turning them into a much more dominant team. Apart from that, it was hard to argue that his team would have gotten the same outstanding results had Doinb not been there. In reality, this all came down to a straightforward premise: Doinb accepted playing whatever worked well for his team and, more specifically, his all-star jungler.

To the untrained eye, it'd appear as though Doinb was the weak link of the team. But to those who could peel back the veil, it was clear that he was, in fact, the strongest link in the team, as he facilitated the playstyle that Qiao Gu became famous for. Instead of looking for his own wellbeing inside the Rift, he constantly roamed around with Swift serving as his protector to outnumber their enemies. For performing this task adequately, however, a bunch of personal sacrifices had to be made. One of these sacrifices was the willingness to play whatever your team needed you to play, instead of trying to appear in all the highlights yourself. This included champions that could either gain lane priority or pretend to be a legitimate support. That is the reason why, early on, fans talked indefinitely about a few weird picks he played which, seen from today's perspective, make perfect sense within the context of Qiao Gu's playstyle, such as Morgana or Nautilus.

The ultimate example of Doinb's role within the 2015 Spring Reapers, however, was their first game against Team WE for the third place of Demacia Cup. The legend has it that Qiao Gu's coach Lee "Hiro" Woo-suk told his players that AP Maokai was supposed to counter Viktor. At first, the Maokai they picked was meant to go top-lane but, once they realized WE were flexing him into the mid-lane, what did they do? Did they give up? Hell no! they had Doinb play mid AP Maokai instead. After all, he could do it, right? Of course he could! As Qiao Gu went on to win the map and, a few hours later, the entire series.

Before breaking into the LPL, Doinb was used to using cooldowns and trades in a very creative way to secure the necessary priority to help Swift do Swift things. Once he was pitched against top-tier opposition, however, all of that would inevitably have to change.