At 25 years old, Cho “Mata” Se-hyeong retires. He is one of the most well-known players in League of Legends. As a support, he revolutionized the game with Wards, control, and vision years ago. But the LoL player has big plans: he already has a job as a coach for a top team.
Who is Mata? Mata is one of the LoL players who achieved the greatest triumph early in his career. In 2014, he won the LoL World Championship with the team “Samsung White” and $1 million. He had essentially reached his goal at just 20 years old.
He then spent two years in China. At that time, half of Korea was playing in China: that was where the big money was to be made. His career then took off again at the end of 2016 when he returned to Korea and joined KT Rolster: they won the LCK.
In 2019, he played with SKT1 alongside Faker but was only a substitute in the end. At the 2019 Worlds, Mata made only a few appearances and could not prevent SKT1’s elimination in the semifinals against G2 Esports.
6 years as a LoL pro changed Mata’s mindset
Mata had his great time in a phase when LoL was still at its tactical beginning. He and Hong “Madlife” Min-gi invented modern support play in LoL and showed how to gain vision and thus control over the map through Wards.
Back then, Mata could have a significant influence on the outcome of a LoL match as an individual player. However, in an interview with Inven, he says that LoL has changed significantly since that time:
“Back then I talked a lot and made calls. But I learned that the better way is for every player to know their role. Especially since eSports in LoL is much more developed today. All players need to be good, not just one. If just one player falls behind compared to the other 9, it makes a huge difference.”
Mata
Mata says he used to talk more. Only later in his career did he learn that it was better to listen to others.
Mata becomes head coach of RNG and aims for the title
What comes next for Mata? Right now, many LoL pros from the “glorious early days of LoL” are retiring, and Mata is also ending his active playing career. He says he planned to learn English, go to the USA, and continue playing – that’s what other former champs from Korea have been doing for years. But Mata’s progress in learning English has reportedly not gone as well.
However, since Mata has always been known as a tactically-minded player and a leader, he has received offers for some time now to continue as a coach. Initially, Mata always rejected these offers because he thought that coaches were not treated well in LoL:
“LoL is a team game. The players, the coaches, the support are all a team. But some think that if a team performs well, it’s because of the players. If a team performs poorly, it’s because of the coaches. I found that unfair.”
Mata
Nevertheless, Mata has now decided to become the head coach of his old team RNG. He is going back to China. His role model here? Zinedine Zidane, the footballer. He won the Champions League in his first year as head coach, after being a former champion. Mata says:
“There is no player who has won the LoL Worlds as both a player and a head coach. I want to be the first.”
Mata
