How a Meta-Breaking Bad Boy Came Out of Nowhere and Nearly Conquered the World

In esports it can sometimes feel as if the games we play are scripted.

That players are shackled by monolithic metas and unspoken rules that force them to fall into line, giving up self expression in exchange for likelier silverware.

And while most players bow their heads to these conventions and accept them as blueprints to success, over the years we’ve been fortunate to see mavericks emerge who have rejected these formulas in favor of coming up with their own.

Trailblazers who challenge their contemporaries to rethink everything they thought they knew about their games.

And in League of Legends, you’ll have a hard time finding a more off-the-wall experimenter than Lê "SofM" Quang Duy.

Edited by: Matt Massey
Thumbnail by: Fermin Mulett

Footage Credits:

Music used under license from Associated Production Music LLC (”APM”).

[mr.singularity]

Never fight the Vietnamese in the jungle it's their home Territory

[SylvieTheCuteSylveon]

As a Vietnamese waking up at 3 in the morning seeing this, I feel so happy and having some tears in my eyes

[anselgatus]

Imagine having the balls to play TANK Rengar. ON THE WORLD FINALS

[merouln]

Between Levi in 2017 and SofM in 2020, vietnamese junglers don't play by the rules or meta, and we love them for it.

[aj]

Theres more vietnamese in World Finals than NA ever have....That saying a lot about how good is NA LOL

[underofficerbrandonjoseph]

He's a Vietnamese in the jungle. He brought the Tet Offensive to summoners rift.

[petermarry]

5:13 best nautilus's Q i've ever seen.

[xe]

His Lee Sin against G2 and that Tank Rengar is what makes him fucking crazy

[vnXun]

Love how everybody call him S-O-F-M (spell out his name) except for Vietnamese ourselves, we just call him Sọp (like the caster at 4:42)

[beeboonyakorn]

If i remembered correctly, during his time with FL in 2015, he picked lee sin with ignite smite in pro play(GPL) and built poacher knife with juggernaut enchantment
What an insane guy.

[sapk]

imagine him and Doinb in 1 team enemy needs like 20 bans or something

[skillex]

The fact that this vid is sponsored by geico gives me a weird vibe and I can't explain it

[lordtraxroy]

League of Legends is so toxic that you cant be creative because if someone figured out something new it will easily be patched out instead to let it stay there for Example StarCraft has so many strats or cheese strats that dont need to patched

[nicklewry]

I always find people who singlehandley shift the meta massively more impressive than people who master an established one

[paradisedcanh]

shout out to everyone he is a Vietnamese .So proud of that god damn guy . Fact:no VNese jungler could dominate him when he competed in VN that was so crazy he just smurfing with ignite and smite in jungle back to 2014-15

[thN_YT]

I'm a simple Vietnamese. I see the flags, i click

[Kaito-irep]

He picked Rengar bcs it is a hardcounter to Evelynn Selfmade said it

[nebula_t]

last time i came this early she held me and said everything would be okay

[Renahin]

Im really interested in seeing where this goes. Typically riot has been a fan of shutting down alternate play styles like his that become popular with their patches. Id love to see them encourage more players and orgs to find clever ways to play, instead of it just being a game of clicking faster.

[tuananhnguyen]

Ah yes, my favourite player Lê "Sofm" Quang Đuy