If you were watching the 2023 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational, there’s a good chance that you might have missed one of the best highlight plays of the tournament today, courtesy of Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon, during T1’s five-game series against Gen.G.
The play occurred during the third game of the series, when Gen.G were on the brink of defeat in their own base after T1’s superstar AD carry Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong racked up a destructive quadra kill in what looked like a series-deciding teamfight victory.
As the only player left standing, Gen.G’s star mid laner Chovy was left with a sliver of health and two T1 members in hot pursuit. He was the only thing left standing in the way of victory for his opponents, and as they barreled down the mid lane, they even chased him underneath his own nexus towers and fountain turret.
The game looked just about finished, but in the chaos, Chovy saw that jungler Mun “Oner” Hyeon-jun was tanking multiple tower shots just to try and finish him off in the fountain. In less than a second, the talented superstar quickly opened up his in-game shop, bought a Stopwatch, and activated it before he died. This stalled out just enough time for Oner to die, while also giving him a chance to counter-attack, defend his team’s nexus, and prevent T1 from ending the game.
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It was a split-second decision that ended up saving the game, since Gen.G would eventually win the subsequent teamfights and pull off one of the most-improbable comebacks of the tournament so far. This was almost the turning point for the series as well, because the LCK champions would push the series to five games, almost pulling off the reverse sweep.
Although Gen.G didn’t end up with the victory, Chovy’s heroic play and fast fingers became the play of the tournament so far, in a moment that many people might not have even noticed. The margin of error was so slim for the 22-year-old, but he was able to pull off the fastest—and most clutch—shopping trip in LoL esports history.
Chovy will now take his talents to the lower bracket of MSI, where he and the rest of Gen.G will be facing off against either Bilibili Gaming or JD Gaming on Wednesday, May 17.
