PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Tournament Solo Part Winner Only Got 4 Kills

Korean Kyo-min Koo, also known by his nickname Evermore, won the third-person solo portion of the first official PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds tournament in Cologne on Wednesday while taking just four kills in three rounds.

In PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, it can pay off to play aggressively as well as passively. However, based on the relatively low amount of points that participants get for kills, Evermore decided to avoid conflict with its competitors as much as possible. He bet that the points he earned by being one of the longest surviving players each time would earn him the ultimate victory. In comparison, TSM_BreaK, the eventual No. 2, made 16 kills in total.

In the first of the three rounds, Evermore decided to travel to starting island, the island in the corner of the map where everyone spawns before the match starts and has time to load the game. The risky thing about this is that that playing zone in the game shrinks rapidly and players outside that zone are constantly taking damage. Evermore eventually went down on this zone too, but not before making a single kill. He finished twentieth out of 71 players.

In the second round, Evermore repeated the strategy of avoiding conflict, but this time he kept himself neatly within the playing zone. He finished first but ultimately only got two kills in this round.

In the final round, Evermore managed to hold out for a long time, despite getting stuck even outside the playing zone. After going back to starting island, he had to travel to another island, on the other side of the map. Although he narrowly stayed ahead of the shrinking play zone on this long journey, he got stuck between some rocks on the coast of the other island. Evermore used the medicine he had collected as much as he could to compensate for the damage from going outside the play zone. He succeeded in this to the extent that he finished ninth in this final round with 1 kill.

Although Evermore only made 4 kills in total, his passive playing style managed to survive for so long that he was the highest scorer of the tournament at the bottom of the line, according to the organization’s standards. He had a score of 790, of which 20 points came from his kills.

The high-profile win brings the South Korean $15,000 in prize money. At the award ceremony, according to VG247, he said he was simply taking advantage of the fact that the scoring system puts so much weight on where a player finishes and so light on how many kills he gets. His actions also demonstrate the feasibility of staying out of the playing zone.

The PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds tournament continues through Saturday, with first-person, third-person, duo, and squads of four events. The event can be followed on Twitch. The vods from Wednesday’s rounds, which Evermore played, are linked in a topic on Reddit.

Shot of Evermore’s perspective in round 3 – from 23:10 he’s stuck