Why Gen.G 'Peyz' Kim Su-hwan is the Greatest Prospect

Peyz has been highly rated by insiders ever since his academy days and was the player who ranked first in my very first prospect report. He received such glowing reviews from the people in the know that I took a personal interest, and after keeping a steady eye on him for about a year, I became convinced of his potential.

Here, I'll talk about the evaluations I've heard from insiders about Peyz and my own thoughts on his talent. /By Seo Jun-ho (index writer), Edited by Kim Seung-joo, This Is Game

# Ideal Growth Rate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhl2Oms6oIc&t=38s

Peyz's Ashe Triple Kill Highlight (from 1:32)

Peyz has been highly rated by insiders ever since his academy days. However, even back then, he often showed a very aggressive playstyle in skirmishes, which also led to many deaths. At the time, I believed that AD carries needed to play as safely as possible to maximize damage output, and that this kind of aggressive play would be hard to pull off at a higher level of competition.

The biggest challenge most prospects face in traditional sports is adapting to a higher-tier league. Things that worked in the lower league often don't work in the upper league, leading to confusion or stagnation as players fail to find ways to fix their issues. This happens quite often.

So, while I thought Peyz clearly had the superb mechanics to hold his own in the CL, I expected it would take him some time to refine his play since his aggressive style wouldn't fly there.

Peyz, aggressive even in his academy days (Source: LCK)

Gen.G's CL team, which brought up academy players, managed only 4 wins in their first 15 games in the 2022 Spring season. While Peyz showed decent performances in the process, I don't think he displayed anything outstanding early on. In truth, his skill and playstyle were hard to showcase because the team situation was poor at the time.

But Peyz then showed a remarkable growth trajectory, posting an 11-7 record over the next 18 games. It wasn't an incredibly high win rate, but the improvement was clear compared to before. What amazed me personally was that the aggressive play I had thought wouldn't work started to succeed. His most iconic highlight, taking down four enemy champions with Aphelios, also came from this period.

In particular, around that time (late April), while preparing another article on prospects, I asked a Gen.G insider for an evaluation. When I heard them say, “Along with (Clear, Jun, and Castle), Peyz is currently the most highly rated player in the CL,” and that he had great mental fortitude, I became personally convinced of his success.

As I said earlier, many prospects fail to adapt to a higher league and ultimately don't live up to their potential. Conversely, those who adapt quickly often do fulfill their potential and grow into starting-caliber players.

Peyz, the youngest player to come up from the academy, showed such incredible growth that within just one season of being in the CL, he was being called its best player. This shows he has clearly adapted to the higher league. In this process, contrary to my initial thoughts, he impressively refined his playstyle without abandoning it. Given the low likelihood of mental issues, he was close to the ideal image of a prospect.

(Source: LCK)

# Peyz's Special Talent

Many LCK fans want to see super plays and consider them the hallmark of an S-tier player.

In that sense, the multiple super plays Peyz showed in the CL can be said to demonstrate the qualities of an S-tier player.

Some might disagree, but I personally believe the play Peyz made against DRX CL best showcases his special talent for two reasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5T8vS4wwao Peyz's Lucian Highlight - from 9:10

To briefly summarize the scene: Peyz's Lucian dashes forward to catch the enemy Alistar, then flashes to dodge the Alistar's W-Q combo, which was a reaction. Afterwards, he kites and kills the enemy Samira using Rapid Firecannon. From a typical perspective, a Lucian who dashes forward and then has to blow flash might not look like a good play.

But looking at the full context, you can see that the teamfight was practically over the moment Peyz dodged Alistar's W-Q. Prior to this, Gen.G had used key abilities—Nami's Tidal Wave and Taliyah's Weaver's Wall—to stop the engage from DRX's Alistar and Viego.

Key abilities burned to stop Viego's engage (Source: LCK)

Of course, they blocked Viego's engage with those spells, but Alistar still had his full kit. From Gen.G's perspective, they suddenly had no way to immediately peel Alistar's W-Q, making him a massive threat.

In this situation, Peyz chooses to dash forward and attack the chunked Alistar instead, all while not giving an angle to Samira or Viego. And as mentioned, he dodges Alistar's W-Q combo with his flash.

In other words, he neutralized the suddenly very threatening Alistar by trading flash for the ability. He then pushes back the enemy who could engage with their ultimate, and through precise mechanics, completely denies the enemy AD carry any damage angle while dealing damage unilaterally, securing the teamfight victory.

(Source: LCK)

A teamfight is ultimately a battle over which team can create a situation where they can deal damage while the enemy can't. Even as an AD carry, Peyz uses his play to eliminate the enemy team's damage angles and creates a scenario where he can attack freely.

What I see as Peyz's special talent here is that, unlike ADCs who play aggressively just to land one or two extra basic attacks, he creates the very scenario where he can hit his target while dodging the enemy's skills.

Because of this difference, aggressive play usually only puts the player themselves at risk. But Peyz's aggressive play forces a risk onto the opponent who has to respond—they must land their skill. Even though the enemy knows Peyz is clearly making a dangerous play, they feel the pressure that the moment their skill meant to punish him misses, the teamfight structure they had envisioned collapses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHDoAStq3WE&t=116s Peyz's aggressive play, now seen in the LCK. From 4:05 (Source: LCK)

And ultimately, this type of play explains why he has such excellent carry potential. To carry in , you need to constantly exert influence over the game, and Peyz is a player who knows how to increase his influence as an AD carry.

Whether intentional or not, how much this play actually impacted the game can be seen in the fact that Taliyah didn't have flash. The moment she used Weaver's Wall, she had absolutely no way to dodge Alistar's W-Q. If Alistar landed his W-Q combo and Samira followed up properly, DRX could have easily won that fight, meaning Gen.G was in a very dangerous spot. But Peyz completely shut down that variable with his play.

The second reason I think this scene shows his talent is because the enemy players made something close to their 'optimal play' but still ended up with this result. In this situation, Alistar couldn't really do anything other than the W-Q combo, and Samira was forced into a position where she could only take damage for free.

If Alistar hadn't used his W-Q combo the moment Peyz dashed forward, even with his ultimate, he would have either died to the fed Lucian's damage plus Taliyah's damage and slow, or been forced to completely disengage from the teamfight to survive. In other words, the W-Q combo was the best, most likely play Alistar could make.

(Source: LCK)

For Samira, it was literally a situation where Lucian was hitting her from outside her range using Rapid Firecannon, so she couldn't do anything as long as Lucian didn't step inside. And when Peyz executed a perfect play with Lucian, she really couldn't do a thing. (This is the exact reason I mentioned in a previous article about why Samira isn't played in high ELO or pro play.)

As such, Peyz excels at overwhelming his opponents when he has an advantage.

# Homework for the Future

The homework Peyz needed to solve to succeed in the LCK was laning.

Personally, I predicted that while Peyz was strong by CL standards, his laning wouldn't be as strong in the LCK. This wasn't because I thought his laning skill was lacking, but because I had frequently seen players called up from the CL, despite having strong laning there, completely fall apart in the LCK.

Laning at the pro level involves so many micro-details that it's very difficult to fully understand without an expert carefully reviewing replays. It's even harder for viewers watching a broadcast, who can't see every single lane interaction.

The emphasis on bot lane laning, to the point where Heimerdinger support became meta, plays a part (Source: LCK)

So, projecting based on relatively reliable laning metrics, I saw many CL players who had laning stats similar to Peyz's then posting poor laning stats in LCK games. Therefore, I predicted Peyz would also struggle with laning stats in the LCK.

However, I believe he will definitely overcome this problem over time.

First, when I first observed Peyz, still in the academy, playing solo queue, the most impressive scene was him hitting every single Mystic Shot on the enemy AD carry, creating a one-sided situation early in the laning phase. A player with such outstanding mechanics will surely, one day, display that excellent laning ability from solo queue in official matches.

Also, Peyz showed improvement in his laning metrics from the CL Spring split (15-min CS advantage rate 51.5%, 15-min CS diff -1.2, 15-min gold diff -139) to the Summer split (15-min CS advantage rate 63.9%, 15-min CS diff 4.3, 15-min gold diff 58).

Peyz, who was named to the 2022 CL Summer All-Pro team (Source: LCK)

In particular, it was very positive to see him achieve these results despite being heavily targeted by opponents after his form improved from the mid-point of the CL Spring season. During the initial period of being targeted, he would crumble in lane, but he quickly learned how to withstand that pressure and developed rapidly. While his laning metrics aren't absolutely top-tier, the reason for the favorable assessment is this rapid growth trajectory built on his mechanics.

In other words, even setting aside insider evaluations, the reason I believe Peyz has the greatest talent is that he can execute plays close to perfection based on his natural mechanics and talent, and he has consistently and quickly fixed his own weaknesses.

This might be the last time I write about Peyz as a prospect. From now on, he might be judged by the same standards as players like Keria and Zeus—no longer a rookie. I'll end this piece hoping for the day I can prepare a series about Peyz not as the greatest prospect, but as the greatest player.

(Source: LCK)