The jungle position will be packed at the 2020 World Championship, with world-class junglers attending from every region. While he proved a big part of his team's success domestically, how will FlyQuest jungler Lucas “Santorin” Larsen do against this sort competition?
The Danish jungler will have to face great opponents right from the group stage, with Top Esports Hung “Karsa” Hao-Hsuan and DragonX Hong “Pyosik” Chang-hyeon placed in the same group.
Santorin has been considered the best jungler in the LCS throughout the summer split by many fans and experts, but keeping up with these top junglers from the LPL and LCK will be a much harder task.
It has been five years since Santorin last played on the Worlds stage. He participated at the 2015 World Championship with Team SoloMid, but was knocked out of the group stage with only one win. Santorin is now back at Worlds to prove himself, but once again, his team is in a difficult group.
While Santorin will play against other junglers that might be stronger than him on paper, the Worlds meta could suit him very well. He has shown in the LCS that he can play carry junglers such as Graves and Hecarim to great effect, while Sett and Volibear are also solid picks for him.
The most important part of FlyQuest’s play will be its jungle and mid lane synergy, where Santorin and Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage have shown that they can work well together. This will be important against Top Esports and DRX especially, since their mid laners are considered the two best at the tournament: TES' Zhuo “Knight” Ding and DRX's Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon
Santorin will likely be met with high tempo and aggression from both Karsa and Pyosik, but as a stable and consistent jungler he might be able to ride out that storm and impact the map in other ways. Santorin has proven to be great in team fights and could set up his team for success in the later stages of each game.
Santorin led FlyQuest to two consecutive LCS finals, will he lead them at Worlds?
Until 2020, FlyQuest had never made a deep run in the LCS playoffs. This changed in the spring when the team made it all the way to the LCS final before losing to a dominant Cloud9 squad. Many fans thought that it was a one-time performance, but FlyQuest kept improving through the summer split. That consistency granted them another shot at the LCS trophy, but this time it was TSM who stood in their way in the final.
Even though FlyQuest is yet to win a trophy, the team has proven itself and shouldn’t be underestimated. Santorin has been a big part of this success as one of the longest-standing members on the team.
Santorin had a great regular summer split, with the second-best KDA among all LCS junglers at 6.4. He was also by far the best player at securing first blood, with a first-blood rate at a whopping 61%. With early game skirmishes expected to play a role at Worlds, grabbing first blood could prove a huge boost in confidence to Santorin and his teammates.
The Danish jungler will soon face the toughest competition of his career, but he will be ready for it after a successful year. FlyQuest is still considered a heavy underdog in its group, but that is usually when the team performs best.
