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tol2

Name: Haruki Shibata
Birthday: October 17, 2002
Role: top lane

tol2 started his journey on AXIZ’ Academy team in 2021. Despite not finding much success that year, due to the main team’s struggle in early 2022 Spring he was quickly subbed in, replacing the streamer-turned-pro, YellowYoshi.
His LJL debut cemented himself as the “Marksmen top laner”, known for his Akshan and Draven top. Once again not finding much success with the team (even on meta top laners later) YellowYoshi ended up finishing the season with a disappointing 7th place finish.
Leaving the team, he shortly after joined DFM’s Academy team for the 2022 Academy season, where his champion pool finally didn’t only consist of pocket picks (despite his occasional Tristana top still being present).
With DFM star top laner, Evi’s departure, the team took a big risk on tol2, and announced he will be a starter for 2023. During the 2023 Spring season, with Ceros’ guidance, he quickly became a stable LJL top laner, and he’s ready to show his skills on the international stage.

Running storylines with tol2

As the newest member of the team, tol2 is often in the center of jokes, coming mainly from the biggest jokesters, Steal, Yutapon and Gismo.

DFM analyst Gismo, would often joke about tol2’s performance on Twitter, namely one time about counting that tol2 missed 2 Cannon Minions during the first 6 waves of a game. Later though, tol2 confirmed, that he indeed was upset with his CS performance and spent more than 4 hours in Practice Tool, until he was able to last hit all minions.

As a top laner, it’s a running joke in DFM that he’s a “top laner”, doing “top laner things”. Gismo one time shared a photo of tol2 with the caption “He started suddenly re-lacing his shoes. He’s a top laner”. Steal later in an interview said that tol2 is “weird, like a typical top laner” after he saw the new member meditating.

Ceros was named as one of the main reasons behind tol2’s growth in 2023, but that also meant he was strict with the rookie. Steal later jokingly reinforced that Ceros indeed will have a few things to say, even after a great performance.

One of the more recent jokes is revolving around his missed Malphite ultimates in his Semifinals game versus SHG. When asked about it in a pre-Finals interview, both Yutapon and Steal mentioned the missed ults as one of the most memorable moments of the match. Yutapon even added “It was funny… it wasn’t funny during the match, but afterwards it was funny”.

Despite all the jokes, his season was nothing short of amazing so far, from a rookie with a big baggage on his back, to a top laner ready for MSI. Ceros was his biggest mentor both inside and outside the game, and maybe the biggest praise a player can get, Steal in his last interview said that “tol2’s Malphite in the Finals was not perfect, but good enough”.

Featured content with tol2 in 2023