On June 19, 2015, Berlin – Germany, six men wearing a purple hoodie entered the League of Legends Championship Stage in quick succession.The Unicorns of Love players brandished keyboard and mice specifically reserved for their on-stage conquests, followed by a slender blond-haired man carrying notes and the weight of the team on his shoulders – a task he enjoys on a daily basis. As the players plugged their peripherals, they could take the time to focus, discuss, exchange jokes and smiles, and look at an audience chanting in their favor.
As the players sat and started warming up, Fabian “Sheepy” Mallant paced back and forth across the length of the Unicorns of Love player booth. The tall and lean blond-haired Head Coach drilled pre-game facts and allowing his players to focus fully on the game at hand. Sheepy’s mood shifted between tension, relaxation, amusement, laughter and focus over the course of five minutes, exchanging information and feedback. In the end, the players stood unified, converged towards him and huddled for one last time with the clear intent of conquering and plundering Summoner’s Rift, before the cameras finally turned on, and before the audience and online viewers could behold the pick-and-ban stage.
Over the course of the drafting stage, the players exchanged directives on their way to building a team composition that would beat Gambit’s. In the end, they decided that their top laner, Kiss “Vizicsacsi” Tamas, would play Shen – a fairly uncommon pick at the time. They would also exchange smiles when Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage instructed his support, Zdravets “Hylissang” Iliev Galabov, to select Orianna, a champion that had helped him take the Challenger scene by storm.
The outcome of the game was a resounding victory for Unicorns of Love, and they looked untouchable throughout. Vizicsacsi’s top lane Shen had allowed his teammates to decisively win clashes and enjoy the process of dismantling their opponents – a process Hylissang facilitated with his brutish and decisive Alistar. By the end of the contest, the crowd had fully bought into UoL’s victory, visibly entertained by the game their favorite team had played. The players also bought into the crowd’s vibe, exchanging high fives with the latter once the game was over.
Fans and players share one thing in common: an undying passion for the game they love; the game that allowed them to have fans in the first place; the game that had taught them much more than just playing a game.
“I’ve been actively searching for a team, and Sheepy had this offer to play with his team that he will [recruit players] that he likes. We formed the team as five people, and we played for fun. As we progressed, we started playing in tournaments, and to set higher goals: playing in the LCS or going into the Challenger Series.”
– Kiss “Vizicsacsi” Tamas
What some may know is that the Unicorns of Love were born as a team on October 2013, following the impulse of Team Founder and then-Jungler Fabian “MasterOfSheepy” Mallant. What not many know is the road that lied ahead for the team, the herculean trials and tribulations they encountered, as well as the now-unfathomable possibility that the team would be, shockingly, named anything but “Unicorns of Love.”
In fact, when the team was born, it almost had a different name. Sheepy’s liking of the bundle of randomness contained within the “Pink Fluffy Unicorn” video inspired another name, and an amused Kiss “Vizicsacsi” Tamas confessed, before laughing: “He was hesitating between two names, and we voted for this one. I’m not sure how it happened, it’s hard to remember,” before adding, “You should ask Sheepy about it!”
The other name? Rainbow Bunny Lovers, a team name Sheepy had used in a team that competed in Go4LoLs in previous seasons. He went on to state, alternating between amusement at the name suggestions, seriousness at a point made across, and excitement over the ‘what ifs.’
“It was always the same notion!” he had exclaimed about the randomness in the naming. He pragmatically added “You don’t start out in the bottom tier with a name like “We’re Gonna Wreck You! Gaming” or “We’re The Best Ever.” You want to name it in a win-win situation: If you lose, you’re like “Well, Rainbow Bunny Lovers! / Unicorns of Love!” People would expect us to lose. But if you win, just imagine: “SK Gaming loses to Unicorns of Love! What the hell is going on in Europe?”
In 2013, the Unicorns of Love were far from being an organization. Back then, “MasterOfSheepy” made teams that grouped individuals he enjoyed playing with. Those individuals shared a similar love of the game to his. At some point, the German Jungler met Top Laner Vizicsacsi, a competitively-minded player that had made waves in Eternity Gaming, and it was an instant hit. He knew that if he was to mount a team for serious competition, it would have to include the Hungarian top laner, but he also knew that he had fun playing alongside him.
With emphasis, he added: “Playing with us was a lot of fun, and he *played with us* – meaning he thought we were relatively good. One thing led to another, and he stayed with us and was like ‘This team is actually really good.’”
Sheepy would also meet an all-around player on numerous occasions in solo queue, a player whose mastery of Orianna was akin to a puppeteer’s magic, allowing the champion to thrive in ways few had done before. Yet it was the player’s Thresh that had solo queue players’ gaze transfixed at the screen, wondering if what they had just seen was real.
As much as he was brilliant, Zdravets “Hylissang” Iliev Galabov initially thought he lacked in ability to play League of Legends competitively. It took a little insistence from Sheepy, but Hylissang went on “to paint a wonderful picture of death for the enemy” times and times over.
“Back then, he was flash-hooking when you had to animation-cancel the flay, and Flash-Q [Death Sentence]. He did all of the stuff back then, and it was amazing. He was just a god at support.”
Sheepy had also found Pontus “Vardags” Dahlblom, an all-arounder and top lane specialist turned AD carry who enjoyed competing domestically in Sweden, as well as playing in solo queue. His meeting with Sheepy and Hylissang allowed him to join the core and evolve as needed, in an environment that had focused on enjoying the game. The only missing ingredient was the middle lane, and Tóth “xodiaz” Viktor filled the void.
Compared to Sheepy’s previous teams, it was clear that the Unicorns of Love were different; the five players he called his teammates not only loved the game, they had skills that would propel them beyond the zero-expectation plateau that plagues the many teams that come and go at Diamond / Challenger 5v5 level. As any starting project, they took to Go4LoLs to assert themselves.
The team, with Sheepy in the jungle, took solace in that environment, and they were awed at the prospect of having their matches cast in front of 400 live viewers by Jason Kaplan. Sheepy fondly remembered that the commentator had played the role of a ‘hater,’ but he also remembered: “revisits in our history show that some of the professionals were skeptical.”
In that newfound solace, the victories in Go4LoLs piled in, with Monthly Cup victories in January, March and April. Soon enough, the team found itself playing offline events and higher-profile events that would put them to the test against better teams. Their arrival at the higher levels of Challenger play was inevitable, and the team’s victory at Insomnia51 signaled their arrival in the competitive circuit and marked a turning point in UoL’s history.
“Our ambitions were low and high. Low in terms of: we were happy winning a Go4LoL. You won a tournament, you just had first-place in a tournament. That is the experience you need to actually win bigger tournaments, because if you never know how it is to be a winner at something, it is very hard to adapt that later on if you play on the biggest stages.
That experience occurred on April 21, 2014, for offline tournaments. It was the team’s first offline experience and victory, in the United Kingdom, in front of a crowd heavily in favor of their opponents throughout the tournament no less. In a fact that may surprise current European League of Legends followers, it was a tournament where UoL went against the wishes of the local audience, upstaging domestic names such as FM eSports and Reign eSports in the final rounds of play.
Upon conquering the British crowd, UoL set sail towards the 2014 Challenger Summer Series. To that effect, they would need upgrades to overcome the likes of Ninjas in Pyjamas, Gamers2, SK Gaming Prime, and EYES ON U Europe – a team that had beaten them in the 2014 Challenger Spring Series’ first qualifier. When news of that team’s disbandment reached Sheepy’s ears, he targeted a specific player in hopes of taking over: EYES’ former mid laner, Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage.
“It was really really rough and really tough. It was like a Cinderella story! Just when you give up hope, you just have to forget that and write your own story.”
– Fabian “Sheepy” Mallant on the team’s run through the challenger scene
Once a team that was there solely as an outlet for its players to express their love of the game, the Unicorns of Love had tasted victory sip after sip, the sweetest and most addicting being i51. It felt invigorating; with morale boosted across the board, ambitions rose, and Go4LoLs were out of the growing squad’s view. In came the bigger tournament, such as the Black Monster Cup, FACEIT tournaments and the Millenium House Cup.
As the team advanced through the play-in rounds of the 2014 European Challenger Summer’s first series, the team stumbled on a team that represented the pinnacle of Challenger play at the time: Ninjas in Pyjamas. Following an unsuccessful Summer LCS Promotion campaign, NiP had added Alexei “Alex ich” Ichetovkin in the top lane and met immediate success, at an intensity that would rival LCS teams at the time.
The Unicorns of Love bravely advanced forward to confront the Ninjas in Pyjamas in the EUCS quarterfinals, armed with their love of the game, a unique team atmosphere and a recent victory. Alas, they fell flat to the tune of a swift 0-2. On May 21, in the Black Monster Cup’s Summer Season, they went up against Berk “Gilius” Demir’s SK Gaming Prime and lost 1-2. In both games, the junglers limited Sheepy’s options, highlighting a matter that was unthinkable when the team was created.
“Before the next Challenger series, I said we needed to do a roster swap in the jungle. Sheepy had really good knowledge, but he couldn’t transition it into mechanics. I was looking forward to a roster swap, but we didn’t do that,” said Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage a year after the fact. “We horribly failed in the Challenger series, and lost to NiP again. Afterwards, I left the team when I saw they weren’t willing to make changes.”
Such matters marked the team greatly; they were not bad by any stretch, but in order to break through in the Challenger Series and in the LCS, changes had to be made – and they involved Sheepy’s tenure as a jungler. A player whose love of the game guided him to spearhead this endeavor may have to make the biggest sacrifice he would have to make in his League of Legends career. That he did, as he stepped down and took a path that led him away from Summoner’s Rift.
That path made him closer to the Unicorns of Love. Not only that, it made him much closer to the science behind Summoner’s Rift – the very science he was able to grasp as a player. As it turned out, his full immersion into the coaching role was one of the primary difference makers in UoL’s fortunes.
As the managing coach of the Unicorns of Love, Sheepy was no longer the jungler that directed the flow of the game, but the helmsman behind the team’s steering wheel. His first move was to assemble crewmates that excelled in the middle lane and in the jungle for the second European Challenger Summer Series: Daniel “Dan” Hockley in the jungle and Taner “Aniki” Orta.
The team’s quarterfinal run and subsequent 2-0 fall against NiP may have been enough to qualify them for a tiebreaker, but it allowed them to play for a Summer Challenger Playoffs spot. The stakes were higher than ever, with an opportunity to secure one of three tickets to challenge one of the bottom-ranked LCS teams for their spots.
What best than an improved and LAN-tested PowerOfEvil’s return in the middle lane to bolster the team’s chances? Short of a tryout period that many would have judged successful, the mid laner saw his future in NiP fade when internal issues led K0u to leave, and when Alex Ich returned to the middle lane. As he became a free agent, the possibility of reuniting with UoL presented itself; thus, he reached out to the team that had once reached out to him.
“[UoL] were improving a lot, and they were really nice guys, [and they] had a really good atmosphere.”
His NiP adventure lasted one month, but it allowed him to gain confidence on stage as well as reputation in Europe. The opportunity he had, following Erlend “Nukeduck” Holm’s six-month competitive ban, was what he needed; playing alongside some of his idols, Alex ich and Ales “Freeze” Knezinek. He went on to experience what UoL had experienced in Insomnia51: a LAN victory at DreamHack Summer.
The team had to recover from another crippling thunderbolt, as neither Dan nor potential substitute Billy “Nutri” Wragg – a player that won at Insomnia52 alongside PowerOfEvil, and that nearly thwarted UoL’s i51 efforts as a member of Reign Esports – were able to play. UoL’s future was at the mercy of luck, depending on an available jungler’s willingness to fill in the spot and allow the Unicorns of Love to play to their level. Sheepy elected to contact the jungler that had cornered him in the Black Monster Cup Summer edition, Gilius. Despite having no experience with him, the team boasted strength at its four other positions.
The team went on an unlikely climb towards the top of the European Challenger ladder in an instant, with marquee victories over Playing Ducks in the entry tiebreaker, and against heavy favorites Gamers2, 2-1. They nearly matched H2k-Gaming in the semi-finals, but such a defeat meant that they would face NiP.
Said Vizicsacsi: “We had zero experience on how to play with him, and it showed: we struggled a bit in the beginning, but it came down to the Bo5 against NiP. We had really good synergy, and we could win for real and get third place with that.”
The Unicorns of Love would face the Ninjas in Pyjamas in a Bo5, with a ticket to the LCS Promotion Tournament on the line. It was either go big or go home for the two participants. On one hand, an NiP team that had been dominant for the last six months had unexpectedly staggered against Mateusz “Kikis” Szkudlarek’s SK Gaming Prime.
If the days before were any indicator, the Unicorns of Love were surely about to unleash an uncommon pick, whether it was Vizicsacsi’s Yorick or PowerOfEvil’s then non-meta-compliant Kog’Maw. On August 7, the atmosphere in the studios had changed, as if bracing itself for what was to come. That day, UoL defied reason, eliminated Alex Ich’s team, and never looked back. They had prepared long enough for this encounter, and they reaped the rewards of the hard labor poured and sacrifices made over the last eight months.
“In the end, when we played against NiP, we picked Swain in the first game. We were really confident going into the this. We had everything right, and we were not playing “the” game – we were playing “our” game. In the end, we won 3-0, and I was really proud. The history we have is just incredible,” confessed Sheepy, who had yet to take us on another journey through time.
Vizicsacsi’s last-pick Swain had allowed UoL to knock out Ninjas in Pyjamas from their pedestal, but something greater loomed on the horizon, unbeknownst to him or to his teammates. It would be at the edge of defeat, against LCS Playoff Team Millenium.
“We all know the story. Game 3, Csacsi is nodding his head, looking to his left, and says “I’m gonna do it, boys!” We were like “Okay!” Gilius, who was a substitute back then and new to the team, was like “Are you for real?” but he had already experienced the Swain and said “Okay, okay!”
– Fabian “Sheepy” Mallant
The Unicorns of Love had continuously climbed for six months to fight for a chance to compete among the best in Europe, and they overcame significant obstacles on their way to the LCS: Gamers2, and Ninjas in Pyjamas. Yet, on September 11, 2014, they stood at the edge of a ravine, running the risk of diving back into the Challenger abyss they had worked hard to overcome.
On that day, Millenium held a commanding 2-0 lead over UoL and seemed poised to return to the LCS. The players on blue and red side prepared with hand warmers in tow, debating over which picks to make during the draft.
Vizicsacsi turned towards his teammates and, after a lengthy hover over Maokai, switched to Lucian for Vardags. Seeing that, Vardags picked up the pace in voice comm. Millenium, one game away from returning to the LCS, were smiling, unlike Vardags who had yet to see their opponent’s top lane pick. Hylissang’s Thresh was left available, and it constituted pick safe enough for the AD carry to secure.
Millenium’s composition mimicked that of their previous games, with each player locking in their comfort picks; in came Kha’Zix, Ryze, Ezreal, Nami, and the burly Dr. Mundo. Seeing Millenium’s pick transformed the vibe around UoL, from uncertainty to confidence; Vizicsacsi looked to the side and addressed Hylissang with two words: “Lock it.”
The pick UoL had made prompted experienced Shoutcaster David “Phreak” Turley to study the situation, in front of a stunned Los Angeles crowd. At the time, the only available statistic about that champion was the play rate of the Scarlet Hammer skin: 100%, because Vizicsacsi had just locked it.
He had locked in Poppy, in a do-or-die situation.
“It was exactly that: a do-or-die situation,” said Vizicsacsi as he revisited memories of the event with a smile. “I felt confident picking Poppy because I saw he was playing Mundo, Mundo, Mundo… I proposed it to the team, and they were like “Let’s do that!” They got pretty hyped up for that too. We had been trying to make Poppy viable for months, from February 2014; we would play it from time to time, with success against Mundos.”
Poppy stymied Dr. Mundo in lane and, one Teleport play later, secured an advantage that would never vanish. The crowd started cheering and believing that a team named “Unicorns of Love” may be able to compete, albeit in an odd way. The commentators keep talking about Poppy. It was not as much about Game 3, UoL’s do-or-die situation; it was all about that Poppy. The game was over as soon as Vizicsacsi had hit an item spike, 15 minutes in, with a Trinity Force in tow.
If the smiles after Game 3 were seen as subtle, the loud laughs at Game 4 were not, as they noticed Millenium’s second ban, Poppy. At that moment, they had turned the series in their favor, causing Millenium to stagger. Leave it to Hylissang to make them tumble, Thresh hook after Thresh hook.
In his first roam towards PowerOfEvil’s mid lane, he made Adrian “Kerp” Wetekam bite the dust, hook, line, and sinker, in one of the most amazing displays of prediction to date. Neither a subconsequently smiling PowerOfEvil nor the cheering crowd could believe that Kerp’s Talon, despite being invisible, would be read like an open book.
Reflecting on that moment left Sheepy in the same awe as he had experienced in Los Angeles, months after the fact. “This guy is so, so incredibly talented. You just have to understand him as a person; you don’t have to force him to perform, you just have to make him feel comfortable. He’s just flat-out amazing.”
The Unicorns of Love were able to play their game, trap Millenium in what-ifs, and push the series to an unlikely Game 5. The fan vote online had showed a significant shift from the previous series, with a gigantic 92% #UOLWIN tally – a tally that had reflected a reality. The series was no longer in Millenium’s hands, but in the hand of the team that dared to play Poppy.
And they dared defy the meta, again, when PowerOfEvil secured Cassiopeia in the final game, to the roaring crowd’s approval. In that game, Hylissang and Vardags did as well as they did over the series, despite the critics’ denomination of the team’s bottom lane as ‘weak’ in an LCS setting.
“Individually, we might be a little bit weaker than other [LCS] bot lanes. But the synergy of Vardags and Hyli working together, since they played for years together, they know what’s going on. If I say this-and-this, they can both answer at the same time and say “that’s not good;” then I know my bot lane is on the same page, and that’s what you want.”
The bottom lane duo showed up in the most critical of situation, and their mid lane teammate could not be happier. “Even after playing in the playoffs in the Spring Split, I would still call our series against Millenium the most important one. It’s just this one stamp you need to make in order to get successful in the LCS, and make yourself a name. After being 0-2 down, having this 3-0 comeback was insane.”
In the final act, after a narrow victory empowered by minions and a few PowerOfEvil autoattacks on the nexus, Millenium yielded, and the gates to the LCS were bust wide open for a team that was made for the love of the game, and it was time for the players to celebrate. After the yells and uncontrollable jumps atop their seats, Vardags, Gilius and their teammates hugged each other as soon as the nexus started imploding, with Sheepy and newfound friend Kikis celebrating alongside them.
Later on, Vizicsacsi added: “We felt that we figured out Millenium totally, during the series. They couldn’t pick anything that could surprise us. They went back to their comfort picks in the last game, and we expected it as well. We were very well prepared. We felt we could beat anyone at that point, after coming back from 0-2 to 3-2.“
Following Gilius’s tryout end, the jungler joined SK Gaming in the 2014 World Championship as an emergency substitute. As the team fine-tuned strategies with 2015 in view, they gave a tryout to Kikis, the man that was once a fierce competitor and barred them from winning the Black Monster Cup Fall edition and in the DailyMotion Challenger Cup.
Prior to the Unicorns of Love tryout, Kikis had experienced a number of team environments, and they shared their preference for meta play and their lack of comfort with efficient novelty picks – with a ‘What is played the most is the best’ reasoning. In UoL, “it was natural. I asked them ‘Let me practice Shaco. It’s really good!’ and I would tell them why; they would tell me ‘Yes, it sounds good!’”
Kikis was a convert to the Unicorns of Love way, as he saw himself in a mirror. “What attracted me to UoL was that I had already met them before. They seemed like a really good bunch of guys, enjoyable to play with. Their main reason to get into the LCS was not money or fun; it was just to have fun, play the game, and try to be the best.”
The player that was once an opponent befriended them, played with them, and ultimately became one of them two weeks after the promotion tournament, after he had congratulated them on stage. According to Vizicsacsi, Kikis was an instant hit – just like he was to Sheepy in 2013. “We found an instant synergy with him. It was really good for our practice as well, and we felt very confident going into IEM San Jose as well.”
In the 2015 IEM San Jose event, the Unicorns of Love became fan favorites overnight.
“I was kind of surprised that a team that had just gotten into the LCS was voted here and, you know, how the Unicorns of Love have so much fan support. But now I definitely understand it. How can you not love this team? They’re the team that play Poppy. This is the team that is pulling out Jungle Twisted Fate. You can hear the fans; [UoL] definitely have huge fan support, and it’s going to be an exciting EU LCS.”
– Sam “RiotKobe” Hartman-Kenzler during IEM San Jose’s cast of UoL vs. Team Solo Mid
The Poppy pick had allowed the Unicorns of Love to gain a fan following significant enough to eclipse the fans’ desire to see SK Gaming compete in IEM San Jose. With 47.9% of the online votes going their way, UoL had the opportunity to gain experience against three Western teams that had World Championship experience: Team Solo Mid, Alliance and Cloud9.
In such a climate, the Unicorns of Love were not the favorites to win the tournament, or the fan favorites for the matter as TSM and Cloud9 had formed a legion of fans over the years. “We weren’t a very well-known team, just another Challenger one with a special name of course,” stated Poppy picker Kiss “Vizicsacsi” Tamas, on the team’s popularity at the time.
The recent addition of Mateusz “Kikis” Szkudlarek had a mixed reception with the League of Legends community, as they could not understand why the team would dispose of Gilius following his run in the Challenger Playoffs and his role in eliminating Millenium from the LCS. To Pontus “Vardags” Dahlblom, it was not a matter of skill, but of attitude; when Gilius had affected the team negatively, UoL sought a jungler that would not detract them from loving the game and playing it at the highest level.
To them, finding Kiks was akin to finding a person that would have someone wish they had met them earlier, considering how seamlessly they clicked; Kikis’s jungling and attitude was a picture perfect fit in the Unicorns of Love’s atmosphere.
Kikis showed how quickly he had adapted by performing a “UoL” in IEM San Jose, when he picked Twisted Fate in the jungle. Brandom “SaintVicious” DiMarco, who was on the analysis desk that day, thought it was a middle lane pick, and the desk discussed the ramifications of it. In the end, Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles’ reaction, when LeBlanc followed (“I don’t know what to think about this one, guys!”) contrasted with the crowd’s cheers.
It did not matter that Kikis had set a precedent in the 2015 Spring Promotion Qualifiers as a member of SK Gaming Prime, when Gambit Gaming lost to a 6/4/10 Jungle Fizz, or when Lyon Gaming were left scratching their heads at the back-to-back Jungle Kayle pick. On December 6, 2014, the only thing that mattered to the crowd and to the casters was Kikis’s Jungle Twisted Fate.
The team had bought into the idea before the games as Kikis had showcased the benefits of such an unorthodox pick, much as Vizicsacsi did with Poppy and Swain, or PowerOfEvil did with Syndra, AP Kog’Maw and Syndra. “We instantly saw the idea behind it. [Kikis] explained what he excels at, that he can gank anyone. He had a big CC (gold card), a lot of damage. It was a pretty solid pick, and the jungle got nerfed due to it on the soft and hard resets – I don’t know how it worked, but Kikis had it all figured out.“
Team SoloMid had played into UoL’s mind game, and the rest was history. UoL upset the North American powerhouse 2-0 and advanced to its first international final, on its first international appearance; even when they lost, they had rallied a fan following that would carry them through the entirety of the 2015 LCS Spring Split. The defeat against Cloud9 was not without its marking effects, but Sheepy and the players had been there before; they had recognized the truth in a reasoning anchored long before, during the team’s Challenger run.
“You always have this side: either way you win, or you learn. We just kept on learning, expanding. We had people putting a lot of influence [on picks]. The team is not meta onto them; the team flourishes with the Poppy, Shaco, Kog’Maw [mid, uncommon at the time], Cassiopeia, Yorick, Hyli Thresh – the god!. All of these things flourished with all of the people that are part of the Unicorns of Love.”
As Sheepy’s father decided to invest in the Unicorns of Love’s brand, the players were able to focus solely on the game, on their way to the LCS. Their initial projections (fifth or sixth place in the regular season) would be judged as realistic by some (for new challenger teams with high potential) or downright optimistic, considering UoL’s history of coveting unconventional picks – picks many deemed were inefficient in the LCS.
“The story behind this is that we aren’t just picking random stuff,” notifies Sheepy, reaching out to the experience he had tallied over the weeks. “It’s not like we try out any AD jungle; that just has no place to me right now. Maybe it has – I’ll have to talk to Kikis – but I think it doesn’t. We already skipped the first 100 steps that we could do wrong, because we’re just so consistent in looking for innovative and efficient picks – literally efficient picks.” As such, Udyr was considered viable against mobile tank as an AD peeler, and Shaco’s splitpushing came under UoL’s radar.
Leave it to UoL to raise the stakes, on the wake of the Head Coach role’s recognition by Riot Games, and the possibility of coaches briefing players in picks and bans. Where many would falter and make poor choices at the drafting phases, UoL would not falter – despite their creativity. Sheepy’s job was to prevent UoL from mind-gaming itself, and to lay down the structure upon which picks were to be judged.
“I have to be the one showing them the right direction on picks and bans, if something doesn’t work in scrims. We have a very sophisticated structure to build around – Sustained DPS, Mobility, Rotational Splitpushes. This kind of stuff is the stuff I have laid the foundation of, and I can just say ‘This champion doesn’t excel in areas where we need it to, or where we needed it to in this game’ or ‘It didn’t do the job against this-and-this’”
Sometimes, they would understand by themselves, accelerating the formation of strategies based on the players’ picks, following lengthy scrimmage sessions to test a champion’s ability in competitive play. At times, Sheepy himself would discover a few tricks and report his findings to the players. At times, the players would introduce quirky yet efficient picks that end up shaping the meta, such as PowerOfEvil’s mid Varus.
The fans had bought into the Unicorns of Love’s way of competing, and none were as important as Jos Mallant, Sheepy’s father, who had invested his savings in kickstarting an adventure that allowed UoL and fans to share special moments. Moments such as UoL vs. Fnatic’s base race ping pong had Trevor “RiotQuickshot” Henry and many others lose their minds. Moments such as the crowd ushering UoL balloons during the season, or unicorn heads in the playoffs, helped support UoL.
Moments, such as UoL’s meeting fans after the game and sharing words with people who had seen them rise and came to idolize them, would sometimes give way to a parent-son encounter.
Or moments, when Sheepy would think back on the person he was over a year and a half ago. And it all started in 2013, when Fabian “Sheepy” Mallant had started assembling a roster that would later be known as the 2015 LCS Finalist, Unicorns of Love, and that would beat SK Gaming in one of the most exciting LCS series to date.
“I would be proud of myself. I went a way that is dangerous and not obvious. I feel incredibly happy as well, it’s really hard to describe. It’s as if somebody wanted something really good for me [to happen]. I work with people I had chosen as well, and I have great minds to work with.”
It has been a wild and unique ride, for the love of the game.
The post Unicorns of Love: The Wild Ride appeared first on Azubu Content.