GOAT means Greatest of All Time in slang for many sports, including esports, and it is very hard to determine the GOAT in any discipline. Sometimes, when a region gives birth to many talented players, it is hard to pick one that applies only to that particular region. However, although everyone has their own candidates, when I say that Western League of Legends GOAT is Danish mid laner Rasmus “caPs” Winther, not many could argue with that.

Like many, caPs’ career started from the lower leagues, but believe me when I say that it was only because of his young age to be eligible to play in EU LCS, currently LEC. Even when he was a newbie, you could ask anyone from the LoL community and they would tell you that caPs (Caps then) was about to be the next superstar of the game. Let’s follow the steps of caPs throughout his career.

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European regional leagues and first championship at Dark Passage

Before his professional career, Caps was known as a one trick Aurelion Sol player, meaning his only expertise was playing Aurelion Sol. This iconic game boosted Caps’ popularity in Europe.

After spending some time at European teams, Caps joined Dark Passage just before the last week of TCL 2016 Summer, replacing their mid laner Abaria and joining another European prodigy, Xerxe. Dark Passage was a successful local team those days, representing Turkey at international events a few times. However, they were about to be surpassed by the Winter champions SuperMassive once again, and Caps joined forces with the team to stop them.

Until the playoffs, Caps had little time to show his talent for DP and Turkish fans. However, especially at the Grand Final, Caps delivered a magnificent performance, demolishing Turkish star Naru and bringing the trophy to Dark Passage. Unfortunately, together with Xerxe, they couldn’t participate in the Wildcard where DP was eliminated by Brazil’s INTZ, after replacing Xerxe/Caps with Kirei/CozQ. The team and the players knew about this situation where their ages wouldn’t allow them to play at an international event.

The fans and analysts were right about him though, Caps joined Fnatic right after he left Dark Passage.

Baby Faker: Caps’ spell at Fnatic

A young player becoming the new mid laner of Fnatic was shocking news, to be honest. Fnatic were still the giants of the EU, and it showed that their trust in Caps was huge. Although G2 Esports with Perkz outperformed Fnatic twice, Caps was able to showcase his abilities and even adopted the nickname Baby Faker. Relive this amazing moment with us:

2018 was Fnatic’s year, with Caps reaching his peak and Rekkles becoming a machine. They didn’t have any struggle at EU LCS, but were eliminated by RNG 3-0 at MSI 2018 semifinals as well as back in Worlds 2017. After another successful split, Fnatic made it to Worlds 2018 finals, the best achievement any EU team had after Fnatic’s Season 1 Worlds championship. However, Invictus Gaming bested them 3-0, and Caps underperformed all tournament long, being called “Claps” for some time.

Joining G2 Esports and becoming caPs

Citing some problems within Fnatic, Caps decided to leave the team after such a successful year, and joined G2 Esports as their new mid laner, while Perkz transitioned to bot lane. In the meantime, Caps won All Star 2018 1v1 championship, defeating famous players like Uzi and Maple. Caps’ public perception also changed drastically at G2, showing his humorous and fun side more as the team’s general attire allowed it.

At G2 Esports, Caps brought another incredible moment to the European community; winning MSI 2019 to become the first European team to achieve such a feat. While defeating Team Liquid in the finals, they also made the fastest international best of five record, spending only 70 minutes and 14 seconds to finish the series.

Caps once again played Worlds finals with his team that year, only to be defeated by FunPlus Phoenix this time, and just like Fnatic, they were outperformed by every single player at FPX. G2 Esports owned LEC until the end of 2020, winning everything and playing an extra Worlds semifinals at Worlds 2020, where they were eliminated by the monsters called DAMWON Gaming.

At this point, Caps established himself as the best mid laner of all time in the West, but Perkz wanted to go back to mid lane. They changed roles during the Spring Split, but Caps made it clear that he wasn’t comfortable playing the bot lane, which led to Perkz keeping his promise and leaving the mid lane once again. However, Perkz left the team at the end of the year, only to be replaced by the one of the greatest ADC of all time in the West, Rekkles.

Rekkles joined, Caps won’t choke this time, everything will be fine! Well, not exactly. 2021 was a nightmare for G2 Esports, where their performance was unstable and this led to Caps getting eleventh place for most of the stats amongst mid laners at some point in Summer Season. The team just didn’t work without Perkz and with Rekkles, Caps’ performance dropped immensely. Larssen and Humanoid easily conquered Caps and his team, leaving the golden boy under the shadows.

For 2022, G2 decided to keep Jankos and Caps and rebuild around them. At LEC Week 1, they didn’t look too bad, but there are better teams at LEC for sure. It will be a treat to see how Caps will handle things this time around. He also changed his nickname from Caps to caPs at the start of the season, he likes to tweak his nickname a lot.

Some stats from caPs’ career

Since the TCL 2016 Summer Season, caPs has won seven league titles and added an MSI 2019 championship to that list. He has won a 1v1 tournament at All-Star 2018, representing EU LCS, and he has played in two Worlds finals. One of the most decorated players of Europe, he is probably behind Perkz achievement-wise, but it is a fact that caPs is the best player of all time in the West.

Throughout his career, caPs’ most played champion was Syndra with 44, followed by 40 games of LeBlanc. His KDA at Syndra is 4.15 and has a 68.2% win rate with the champion. His overall KDA is 3.76, with 4.41 kills, 2.66 deaths and 5.59 assists per game. In total, he has 2076 kills, 1254 deaths, 2633 assists in 471 professional League of Legends games. He has won 301 of these games, accounting for a 63.9% win rate overall.

The champion that didn’t work out for caPs was definitely Azir, although he plays the champion very well. caPs has a 36.8% win rate with Azir, the lowest of any champion he has played more than five times. Still, caPs played champions like Vayne and Kayn and won his games, showcasing his ability to surprise his opponents and providing flexibility for his team.

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Journey of the Baby Faker: caPs