Star Chinese ADC Jian “Uzi” Zi-hao didn’t have the best year in the LPL. But another strong Worlds tournament and his star power got him to the League of Legends All-Star Event. In Sunday’s one-vs-one final, he proved that he does indeed belong by defeating Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg 2-1 to retain his championship.
That makes Uzi the indisputable best one-vs-one player in the game. He’s so good, he let Bjergsen have Zoe—a totally broken champion right now—in the first game. Instead of countering with a mobile mage like LeBlanc or Kassadin, Uzi stuck with Kalista, who does have a mini-dash.
Related: Even Faker thinks Zoe is overpowered
Bjergsen managed to get the first summoner of the match with a well-timed trade, but almost died at the end of it to Uzi’s rend. Kalista is no joke at any point in the game, a big reason why she was perma-banned at last month’s World Championship.
Bjergsen managed to get wave control and with it, a minion advantage. But just when we thought the Dane was in charge, he tried a risky play, jumping into the minions with his ultimate. That of course made his location known, and Uzi had just enough burst to break Zoe.
Both players went with mid laners in the second match. Playing a more familiar matchup, Bjergsen ran away with the game. Taliyah is a much stronger champion in the early game than Syndra, and with her, Bjergsen again seized control of the wave. This time, he didn’t throw the minion advantage away. Syndra always has one-shot potential, but the damage just wasn’t there for Uzi to finish.
In the first two games, the player who chose the more aggressive early champion got wave control and won. In the third, Bjergsen opted to play Ryze, who has power early on, but really needs to scale with time.
That decision came back to haunt him. Back on Kalista, Uzi grabbed the biggest lead of the night, more than doubling Bjergsen’s CS total. Needing a kill, Bjergsen just couldn’t quite chain together enough spells to delete Uzi’s health bar. Time and time again, Uzi would live with a sliver of health.
Eventually, the minion disadvantage just became too much for Bjergsen to overcome. Desperate, he tried for another big play, but it wasn’t meant to be. Uzi’s final CS was Bjergsen himself, cementing the ADC’s place at the top of the one-vs-one hierarchy.
There it is: Uzi is your undisputed one-vs-one champion. It’s fitting that in a year that started with ADC memes, an ADC proved to be the master at the end.
