In April 2022, the then 18-year-old Kyle “Danny” Sakamki finally became a star in the US League of Legends. In the finals of the LCS Spring Split, he broke two records and played an amazing series. Half a year later, the ADC seems to be in a crisis and is taking a break – just before the next finals in LoL.
What makes Danny special?
- Danny is an exceptional talent in North America: The region is notorious for hardly producing strong young players at home, preferring to import seasoned stars from South Korea, China, or Europe.
- But Danny was able to hit the ground running in the LCS and dominated games at times from the bot lane.
- He seemed unfazed by pressure: His strongest game came in the finals, where he broke records for kills in the playoffs and pentakills.
Danny excels in the regular season
Here’s how it went in the following season: One might think that such a young player would experience a drop in performance after a championship. But the ADC kept going strong in the summer:
- Danny played strongly in the season and achieved the most kills in the league with 88 (via oracleselixir).
- He had a KDA of 7.5, with only teammate Vulcan and mid lane legend Bjergsen standing higher after 18 games.
The LoL meta currently favors ADCs and Danny went all out.
Teams focus on Danny in the bot lane
What is the problem now? In the playoffs, things are not going well for Danny. The opposing teams are focusing their play on specifically taking Danny out of the game. This, in turn, seems to unsettle Danny and leads to mistakes.
In the playoffs, his stats collapsed:
- He already has 35 deaths, which is 9 more than in the entire regular season.
- Against Team Liquid, he racked up 11 deaths. As Dot Esports reports, this was due to “poor decisions and positional play.”
- His KDA has now fallen to 3.5 after 14 games.
Despite everything, Evil Geniuses qualified for the finals of the Summer Split because the other lanes stepped up, especially jungler Inspired delivered.
Many characters from the Netflix series on LoL, Arcane, can also be played in the game:
This is the decision now: As his team Evil Geniuses announces, Danny will sit out the finals. He is focusing on his “mental health”. It is said that it takes “a great deal of courage and self-awareness” to make such a decision, especially since Danny means so much to his teammates.
It is said:
Kyle is part of our family and we will support him in every possible way while he takes a break. We look forward to welcoming him back when he is ready. To the fans of the LCS community, we say: Please show Kyle nothing but unwavering support and the empathy he deserves from all of us.
Evil Geniuses
What’s behind this: It is truly a courageous decision from both the player and the organization to “protect” their probably most valuable player now. It is also a wise decision:
- Apparently, every team they encounter has now aimed to take Danny out of the game by any means necessary and are using all their resources to prevent him from shining.
- While this is an advantage for the other lanes, it is certainly a huge burden for the 18-year-old to be in the spotlight and to have to process so many negative experiences in a game.
Rather than risk a career that started off so brightly hitting a bump, it is certainly sensible for Danny to take a break to gain a different perspective.
For Evil Geniuses, the season is still long, as they have already qualified for Worlds 2022. And then, completely different calibers await the 18-year-old in the bot lane, such as Viper:
LoL has 2 bosses at the Worlds that no one has been able to defeat yet
