It would seem unthinkable that a player could force their team to use one of the less meta champions in the game, in a position that isn't supposed to be the character's position, but ends up getting so many results with it, that their opponents of the EU LCS (now LEC) are forced to ban the wolf from the woods.
This feat was achieved by Russian player Evgeny " Darien " Mazaev. During the 2014 Spring Split in what was then known as the EU LCS, the top laner played Warwick heavily. It was not a swaplane, as there had been the previous season with DragonBorn, but a Warwick top. The champion, hitherto mocked and shunned by most players, went from prankster to banned character against Gambit Gaming, Darien's team.
That good old Warwick
If the old Warwick was so despised, it's probably because he was one of the simplest champions in the game. Two of his spells were stat boosts, one of which was passive. His W gave him attack speed on activation, while his E allowed him to run faster towards low HP targets. His Q was a paw swipe allowing him to regenerate some of the damage inflicted by this spell, while his R had the same effect as it does now, except it had less range but was a targeted spell.
Warwick lacked spells to control and push waves of minions, so he found himself playing in the jungle. It was about another era of the game, at that time the jungle was just reserved for a few champions who could either protect themselves or sustain a lot. Warwick was also thought of as the champion to start in this position.
However, that didn't stop Darien from deciding to play him on the toplane during the 2014 Spring Split. make it quite useful in teamfight.
In the end, Darien wins.
On Day 4 of the EU LCS, after The Gambit's back-to-back wins with Warwick on the toplane, the Supa Hot Crew used their third and final ban to exile the Wolf of Zaun . This allowed Darien to wait for his ultimate goal: to use a despised champion and be threatening enough with him to force a team to banish him.
As you can see in the video above, Darien celebrated the ban like it was a win. And it wasn't the first time that the Gambit or the former Moscow Five had challenged each other like this. Certainly the atmosphere of the LCS was cheaper than today, and far be it from us to claim that esports was better before (it was different, period.), but here is one of the reasons who made Gambit such a popular and legendary team. They had a side where like ordinary mortals, they threw themselves silly challenges with their friends in the Summoner's Rift (well, you probably have to thank his teamates for not asking him to play Akali Archangel + Muramana, otherwise the story might not have been so beautiful).
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