When a team changes its roster during the offseason, it’s often intriguing to speculate how it will affect its style and identity. Sometimes, coaches bring in players and make them fit into a certain mold; in other cases, a player’s strong personality asserts itself and makes the group adapt to them instead. This is why, when building a lineup, a team should consider not only the skills of each member, but the synergy between them as well.
In this regard, fans of Misfits should be excited that the organization has decided to bring on Iván Martín “Razork” Díaz in the jungle.
A strong resume
Hailing from Spain, the 19 year old has already had a significant impact on the scene in his short career. After filling as a support in various squads, Razork played for Giants Gaming (or Vodafone Giants), which, along with Mad Lions, is one of the most important and successful gaming organizations in the region. The roster was good enough in fact that nearly all of its members were drafted into the LEC during the 2019 offseason by Schalke, Vitality and Misfits.
The latter acquired both the young jungler Razork as well as the more experienced support Petr “Denyk” Haramach. In terms of their performance, it’s quite apparent why the organization decided to bring in both the Spanish rookie along with his support teammate.
With the Giants’ squad, Razork would go on to take first in the LVP SLO 2019 Summer Playoffs as well as second in this year’s EU Masters and Iberian cup.
A noteworthy playstyle
The Giants mainly played around a strong core in their trio of jungler, midlaner, and support. Razork excels in three champions in particular: Lee Sin, Elise and Gragas. All of these picks tell the same story, one of early to midgame impact and aggression. Midlaner Aljoša “Milica” Kovandžić would compliment this playstyle by using champions such as Leblanc, Qiyanna, and Corki, along with Denik going Tresh, Pyke, rakan and Nautilus.
With these compositions, the Giants created a style that heavily focuses on midgame roaming and skirmishing. The top laner would usually play tanks while the botlaner would either aim to scale into the late game or assist his team in the midgame aggression.
This kind of strategy puts a lot of pressure onto the shoulders of Razork. The rookie had an obligation to make an impact in the early to midgame to make sure that his team would not fall behind. Doing so on mechanically demanding champions like Lee Sin, where a single missed skill shot can make or break a fight, requires great amounts of concentration, reflexes, confidence, and overall skill.
Luckily, these are all attributes that Razork has to spare.
Far from missing skillshots, Razork’s Lee Sin is a moving highlight reel, as was shown in the welcome video published by Misfits. The Spaniard is notorious for his mechanical skill, with which he manages to turn around unfavorable situations and perform unexpected ganks. Razork controls the pace of the game by moving around the map and exerting pressure where it’s most needed. The young jungler himself has stated that being good at his role is all about knowing where and when you should be on the map.
An attitude fit for a Misfit
However, Razork’s level of play is far from his only notable attribute. For a person of his age and experience, he displays an incredible amount of maturity and confidence outside of the game. In an interview uploaded in the Giants Gaming youtube account, Razork offers some insight to the journey and sacrifices that he made to pursuit an esports career.
In the exchange, the 19 year old displays his intelligence, poise and likeability. He reflects upon the successes and failures of his team and expresses his determination to win a championship, all in a lighthearted yet eloquent manner.
One of Misfits’ greatest problems in this past year was the lack of synergy between each of their members. Though all of the individual players were good, they failed at making their styles mix well together. A player like Razork ticks all the boxes that should in theory prevent the same from happening. He is young, mature, skillful and confident.
Furthermore, Misfits seems to be aiming to form a similar core to the one of Giants. They brought in the Jungler and Support from that team and are pairing them with Ronaldo “Ronaldo” Betea, who, curiously enough, was shown playing Leblanc in the montage that commemorated his addition to the roster.
With attitude, skill and synergy, the lineup of Misfits’ LEC roster is looking like it might have more promise than fans give it credit for.
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