Two words come to mind when the name Dopa (Or Apdo) comes up: "mysterious", and "controversial". Why the former, you may ask. Well, take my word for it, looking for information about him is like trying to find a friendly player in a ranked queue, this guy certainly doesn't like to talk about himself.
When it comes to controversies -- well, let's just say that there are reasons he is often referred to as an "Evil Faker". Despite being compared to the famous Esports player, Dopa isn't exactly a typical one, especially because, well... he is not exactly an Esports player.
Interested? Why wait then, lets's dive into the life of Jeong "Apdo" Sang-gil, or at least this part of it which he allows us to see.
Legend has it that Dopa was born with a mouse in one hand and a keyboard in the other. As for now, this piece of intel was not yet confirmed, and the only thing we know about his birth is the date (1993), and the place (South Korea). Let's then fast-forward a little bit to Dopa's first encounter with Riot Games' first production.
We don't know the exact date he started playing League of Legends but it can be assumed to be around 2011. Playing under the alias Apdo in Season 2, he was also an active Inven poster (Korean version of 4chan). He mainly posted guides to League of Legends.
In Season 3 (February 1, 2013 - Nov. 11, 2013) he already managed to be ranked 1 in SoloQ on the Korean server. What is more impressive is that he didn't stick to only one position but rather tried to be a jack of all trades, and a master of all of them.
Back then he already excelled in elements of the game he is known for today. His deep knowledge of the game combined with a huge commitment to details made him widely considered to be the king of macro play. It allowed him to play his favorite champions, like Twisted Fate, even when they weren't part of the meta.
It was also the time of his first encounter with the harsh reality of the Korean obligatory military service as in the summer of 2013 he was 20, which made him eligible to fulfill his patriotic duty.
Fans were already saying goodbye and trying to cope with the reality of 2 Dopaless years; Dopa himself even hosted a good-bye stream. Luckily to his viewers, however, he came back to them three days later. He postponed his service and could enjoy a few more years of freedom from it. At the moment he was way too busy to join the military.
What a player like him could exactly be busy with? He wasn't an active part of the professional Esports scene but still had to make a living somehow, and he did, by Elo-boosting. Dopa was getting paid to achieve certain ranks in accounts that didn't belong to him. It was a dream job — he did what he loved, and what he was good at. There is no surprise that he saw no need to enter any kind of professional tournament.
“In Korea, professional players do not have much. This is not very attractive to me, hence I did not choose to be a pro player.” (Apdo in an interview for game.china.com)
Although at the beginning of his career, Apdo declined numerous offers from professional teams, after Faker's success at the Worlds, at the end of 2014, he decided it was time for a change.
It remains unknown for what reasons exactly Dopa, League of Legends booster, wanted to leave the profitable business he had in the Korean solo queue. Maybe it was the vision of more money (doubtful, considering how expensive boosting is), or maybe it was about taking up a new challenge on the pro scene, which is more likely.
Dopa saved the spot on mid-lane for himself, cast the rest of the roster with other high Elo players from the Korean solo queue, and created Team Dark, which was going to take part in Pandora Champions Winter 2013-2014. It was all going great until it wasn't.
A girl, whose name remains unknown, came forward and offered proof of Apdo's previous trade. It was a bold accusation, as both smurfing and Elo boosting were (and still are) strictly condemned by Riot Games. However, she knew about it first-hand. Not only her account was previously boosted, but she was also part of the same community as Dopa.
When Riot was presented with this case they had no other choice (or they did but wanted to teach others a lesson) and punished the mid-lander, destroying his hope to participate in their first offline tournament.
Dopa was forbidden to play professionally for 2 years. They didn't spare his main account too, it remains banned to this day, with more than 989 years still on the clock.
The rest of Team Dark did not take it lightly. Their hopes and dreams were shattered. They felt like they couldn't compete against other pro teams without their leader, so, they decided to get some fun out of it, and what better way to do it than by paying tribute to Cloud Templar’s Retirement?
Apdo and the Tragedy of League's Shortest Professional Game - YouTube
Samsung Ozone couldn't help but be surprised when presented with the view of the enemy team full of junglers. Nevertheless, they quickly got out of awe and managed to win the game in 8 minutes and 20 seconds. Thus, making history by playing the shortest game ever (their record was later beaten in LTL 2019 Opening).
The sense of humor of Team Dark players was not appreciated by KeSPA and OGN. They heartlessly disqualified them three days later for intentionally throwing the game.
We haven't heard anything from the rest of Team Dark but Dopa certainly did not break down as hard as them. Instead, he pushed on and created more and more accounts (Riot kept banning them) which quickly made it to the top of the Korean League of Legends solo queue ladder. It wasn't all just for fun though, all of his doings were streamed on platforms such as AfreecaTV, Douyu TV, and YY TV.
The skill to quickly achieve high ranks on brand-new smurf accounts proved to be useful when he was awarded 500,000 Yuan for getting to the very top of the Challenger ladder. The Chinese challenge not only provided him with quite a lot of money (right now equivalent to roughly $73,000) but also allowed him to gain even more recognition worldwide. All in all, how many players are able to achieve such a thing in under a month?
Here's a more detailed timeline of the said challenge:
September 9th — Dopa begins streaming from the Solo Queue of the Chinese server
September 23rd — Master Tier
September 25th — Challenger 466 LP
September 26th — Challenger 750 LP
September 27th — Challenger 828 LP
September 28th — Challenger 1000 LP
September 29th — Challenger 1130 LP
September 30— Challenger 1293 LP = No 1 rank
This made people appreciate him even more. However, hailed as the greatest League of Legends player, Dopa became a bit toxic and mean, not only in his words. He had no problem with losing games on purpose when he thought that someone deserved it. His boosting business was also still in bloom. Just in case you were wondering why he was called "Evil Faker", he was kind of full of himself.
At the end of 2015, in October Dopa pointed out that he had been kind of a butthead, and apologized for everything people could hold against him including the Elo-boosting, and the toxicity.
"I apologize to everyone I have directly or indirectly affected [...]. I was happy to get so much attention because of my skills in the game, acquired by chance. I wanted more attention and did controversial things during my streams, like eloboost, verbal abuse, getting out of matches and trolling. When I look at my past, I can say that a lot of those things were childish and immature, which makes me feel ashamed" (Said Apdo, in his statement)
Despite the apology, he still remained banned from the Korean Server and therefore had to hide under different nicknames or play on the Chinese Server. This forced guerilla warfare didn't stop him from being constantly listed among the most impactful players of LoL.
From Season 3 up until Season 8 he was the player ranked one. Despite other players trolling him and attempting to help him lose, he did not bow down. He kept his confidence through the years and his emotions in check until the famous video of October 16th, 2021.
"Up until season 8, I didn’t really care what anybody said about the methods I used to reclaim the rank one seat. The spot was mine, and always mine. Everything else I did was just a way to reduce the time needed to reclaim the throne. I didn’t avoid certain circumstances because I thought I would lose, but because it would take more time to claim the rank 1 spot. I knew that I was the rank one player, so anything anybody else said was irrelevant. I would claim the spot once every season to prove that it still belonged to me, and I preferred doing it in less time." (Dopa in his youtube video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JES1fVizgSM
This only goes to show his tremendous determination and commitment. He continued to play and dominate on different servers, always striving to improve his gameplay and prove his worth as one of the greatest LoL players of all time, up to a point in 2022.
In August, the obligatory military service came to haunt Dopa just like some wicked ghost of Christmas future. The first rumors of his inevitable leave of absence started to pour in.
What to say? It all turned out to be true, and so on August 15th, 2022, Dopa said goodbye to his fans, during his last live stream up to now. A lot of kind words were said, and a lot of tears were shed when the Korean streamer thanked his viewers for being with him throughout the years. He bowed down and even kneeled while expressing his gratitude, and tried to cope with the thought of not returning for at least two years.
Dopa's gone for now but it doesn't stop his fans and people who want to be like him from continuously analyzing his gameplay. Honestly, they may just finish in time for his return. The number of calculations he must have gone through on daily basis was insane. Because of them, he was not only able to kill but also to remain alive.
His playstyle was like no other. With a combination of calculated aggression and strategies far from unorthodox, he carved out a niche for himself, leaving their opponents scratching their heads. Were they furious, full of admiration, shocked? — Yes. After all, one can go through all kinds of emotions as their opponent can predict the outcome of the game based on their seemingly meaningless action — something that you wouldn't even consider to be a mistake.
One of the most famous instances of his genius will be long remembered as "Apdo Punish". It was a small thing he said during an analysis of a game he played more than 6 years ago.
It was after 1 minute and 30 seconds after the start of the game when he knew he was going to dominate it (and he was right). And no, it wasn't some game in Bronze V, the Fizz player was a Challenger 650LP Mid main. FF 1:30 next time, I guess.
That's not all though, otherwise, we would be simply calling him a human calculator. He didn't just stick to his lane and endlessly try to calculate a proper moment to attack minions. He heavily relied on roaming and looking for kills pretty much whenever it was possible.
He wasn't running around like a headless chicken though; Dopa's deaths were rare and attempts to kill — effective. His undeniable intuition made him an uncontested master of applying pressure and dominating lanes early in the game. He wasn't getting his win streaks of 30+ from nothing.
Everyone has weak points, right? Guess then what happened when the enemy mid-lane picked a counter to his famous Twisted Fate, Kassadin, or Corki. That's right, they lost (at least in the majority of cases anyway). His weak point must have been elsewhere because playing disadvantageous match-ups was definitively his thing. Even OPTs tend to lose or even dodge games when something doesn't go as they planned, match-up-wise. For Dopa, reaching a 70-80% win rate on a champion wasn't really a reason to break a sweat.
His percentage of victories was legendary. He didn't even need a whole season to get to rank 1! Sometimes he would just wait until the last month and just get there before the season's end. You know, just for fun.
It's hard to even imagine the stress he had to put on himself but it wasn't something that one could see. Dopa's approach to the game remained mostly level-headed (regardless of his infamous moments of weakness) and self-improvement oriented. There was no blaming the others, no screams and tears. Instead, he tried to get as much as he could, especially from the games lost.
"Back in the day, I was famous for my Kassadin. Did I develop the build? No, I didn’t. I was crushed by a famous Kassadin player, and I stole his build. And then I perfected it. There was a period when I didn’t play much TF because I didn’t think it was a very good champion. Then I found this TF one-trick on the chinese super server, and learned how to play unsealed spellbook TF by watching his replays. I never created the concepts myself, but stole them from other players. I was always better than the original players because I kept on thinking about the reasons, the causes instead of just playing." (Dopa on League concepts, during one of his last livestreams)
What Dopa did on Summoner's Rift was overwhelming, which seems to correspond well with his original nickname — Apdo (압도) (which means exactly that, "to overwhelm") but the above is also something that most of the LoL players should try to mimic, besides his builds and picks.
Regardless of the exact reasons though, his name, be it Dopa or Apdo, won't soon cease to be a synonym for greatness on the Summoner's Rift.
It's impossible to talk about Dopa without mentioning the T1's mid-laner and while it's true that Dopa and Faker are two of the most famous mid-laners in League of Legends history in some prospects, it's basically like comparing apples to oranges. While they share some similarities, there are key differences in both, their playstyle and focus.
There's their versatility, for example. Unlike Faker, Dopa is known for being able to play multiple roles at a high level, including mid, jungle, top lane, and ADC, while Faker is primarily known for his dominance in the mid lane. He has shown us that he knows his way around the jungle too, but if any points were to be given out, this one would, without a shadow of a doubt, go to Dopa.
Dopa likes to have every element of the gameplay thought-through. He doesn't often die or coin-flip, instead, he calculates. This style is very different from Faker's, who is known for his mechanical prowess and ability to dominate his lane opponents early on.
You can clearly see this tendency in the choice of champions — Dopa is best known for his Twisted Fate, a character that requires knowledge of all of the aspects of the game, including map awareness. At the same time, Faker has been known to mainly pick those in which mechanics and quick thinking are the key, like Zed and LeBlanc.
One similarity between the two players is their success in the Korean solo queue. Despite Dopa's lack of professional experience, both of them have dominated the Challenger ladder, which is composed almost exclusively of professional and semi-professional players. However, while Dopa is known for putting together massive winning streaks and climbing accounts in record time, Faker is known for his consistency and ability to maintain a high win rate over a longer period of time.
Regardless of all this, people love to argue which one of the is the second-best mid-laner in Korea, and well... It's beneficial for them both as well as the viewers. It allows them and us to learn more and more about the same game, and let's be frank — it's interesting. Rarely ever does a situation as tense as the two best players meeting each other happen.
Hopefully, the debate will be continued as soon as Dopa comes back home and will climb the ladder of the Solo Queue yet again.
