I was watching the LCK tonight. I was convinced the first match of the night would be the highlight of the night as T1 vs GenG is what I would presume it'd not be controversial to call the battle between the second- and third-best teams in the LCK, with the winning team being second right now and the losing team being third, with Damwon, the world champions, obviously being first.
It delivered the high-quality battle of greats start to finish, where the teams were neck and neck all three games and the fact that there were three games is proof enough of how closely the teams were matched to one another.
After it, I was exhausted, but I wanted to stay up to watch Damwon against BRO, because I like Damwon (I've liked them ever since their challenger promotion series and have watched them ever since as my favorite LCK team) and I love how they've earned their spot as world champions by being the best and I love watching their matches.
And I also like to watch them stomp, since they often do.
However.
I got an entirely different experience in this pretty textbook David vs Goliath matchup. I like Damwon, and I still think they're the best team in the LCK, and I still love watching their games, and yes I do think tonight was an anomaly and in the future I will continue to root for Damwon, but let me just say.
I was expecting to root for Damwon tonight and to cheer them on as they stomp.
I ended up rooting for BRO before the end of the first game, and was rooting for them the entirety of the second game.
BRO are probably still at or near the bottom of the barrel of the LCK, and while Damwon will probably catch some heavy flak for the fluke of tonight, they shouldn't feel ashamed in my opinion due to it being exactly that, because I do believe BRO is indeed that low normally.
But from now, even if they end up being 2-0'd in every single match for the rest of the split...I will be rooting for BRO in all of their future games because when a team does what they did tonight and you get to see their faces as they realize what they've done...it actually brought me to happy-tears. Rare is the times where a league team captures my heart like that, even rarer when they do it while facing a team I already like and would normally cheer for.