Jinsh · @JinshLoL
21st Aug 2017 from TwitLonger
My ups and downs experiences in amateur/semi-pro scene
My ups and downs experiences in amateur/semi-pro scene
This Post is split into various parts, it is going to be a long post so feel free to skip to a certain part.
Social Media / Stream :
www.twitter.com/JinshLoL
www.twitch.tv/jinsh
I am a pretty irrelevant player right now, but I have been through a lot in eSports , and would like to share my experience it with everyone.
I actually wanted to post this some time last year but didnt do it so the some months-younger me might have written some pathetic and frustrating stuff.
EDIT : "eMonkeyz" part added in February 2017
EDIT : "Comeback" part added in August 2017
"Galatasaray and finishing High school" in August 2017
"Trying to get into the 2nd Spanish League" in August 2017
1. Introduction
2. League of Legends
3. Redbull gets you Wings
4. Dimegio
5. Summer 2014
6. End of 2014
7. A new Start
8. Mouse e-sports
9. Promotion Tournament against Gambit
10. Last Attempt with Mouz
11. eMonkeyz
12. Comeback
13. Galatasaray and finishing High School
13. What did I learn?
14. My advice to you
15. THE FINAL
1. Introduction
Hi i am Chen "Jinsh" Gilles.
I was born in Luxembourg and still currently reside in Luxembourg.
I am the only Luxembourgish player who ever got to play competitively. ( NOT BRAGGING)
I am 20 years old and have been playing LoL since December 2010.
I have been sort of involved with e-sports since 2014 and been on Ups and Downs.
I still go to school and will finish high school this year
2. League of Legends
Right away I got obsessed with League of Legends, spending entire Days playing and trying to explore all the Champions and learning their skills. Going Pro was something like a Dream and just a Fantasy for me. I liked to watch the Pro Matches, what really got me going was when M5 appeared and their intense Battles with CLG EU.
At the End of Season 1 I started to pick up on Ranked and got 1200~ Elo. Through out the next Seasons I managed to slowly climb my way up, reaching 1900 Elo in Season 2 and reaching Diamond 1 in Season 3. Season 3 was kind of a grind, i was stuck in Diamond 1 for the entire Season after reaching it. I was maining Top Lane at that Time.
In Season 4 I quickly got back to Diamond 1 where I struggled to climb again. That is when i decided to just create a new Account and play Mid Lane only. Surprisingly I got up to Diamond 1 80LP~ in a relative short Time. There I struggled once again for some Weeks but managed to break through that Barrier and get myself into the BO5 for Challenger and win it. (http://prntscr.com/c40u09)
So there I was in Challenger, I have been at the Doorstep for Hundreds of Games and couldnt ever imagine to be at the Top. The first Weeks were a struggle to maintain a Challenger Position , since atleast 300 Points were needed to be safe in Challenger. So the first Weeks was me dropping out, getting back in, dropping out and getting back in. Fortunately I managed to hit 500 LP and got myself a safe Place in Challenger.
In Season 5 I got Challenger again and stayed Challenger from´February to ~June/July.
3. Redbull gets you Wings
I got contacted by someone called vANEZ when i was Challenger in Season 4. He was interested in me joining his Team which at that Time was called Inferno esports, an italian organization. They were Challenger in Team Ranked and I remember being really impressed at seeing that (Even though I know now that it really is not hard to get Challenger in 5v5s).
The team consisted of : Top - vANEZ
Jungle - Candyfloss (later Rafa)
ADC - bonny
Support - Touch (went to Worlds as Wild Card with Dark Passage 2014)
Back then our goal was to go for the Challenger Series, to do so we had to reach Top 10( not sure) in the 5v5 Ranked Ladder to qualify for the Qualifications. Before everything started I have been in contact with a Manager who I got in contact with through another player. Right away I am going to tell you that this Manager was a huge Scam. Me and the Teamleader bonny talked a lot with this Manager and he was basically telling us that he works for Red Bull and is looking to sponsor a Team in League of Legends. He promised us that we were going to get a monthly salary of 500 Euro's and Hardware support. He often got into Teamspeak with us and even asked us to tell him whatever we wished for as Hardware and he would get it for us. I remember shopping with the other Teammates on various websites and sending it to him. Ultimatively he was telling us that we were going to get Alienware Laptops, and that he had already ordered them for us.
He also got us contracts, and when I looked back I realised how stupid we all were.
The first Time where I got the Contract I instantly noticed spelling mistakes and false use of Grammar. I don't know why I didn't ask the Manager about that. It's impossible that a huge Company like Red Bull would have such a poor contract. We all read through the Contract. Aside from the Grammar and Spelling mistakes, it looked okay. We signed it and send them back to the Manager. We were all happy and this is where I think that we were thinking more about the things we would get than about the actual game. We played for about 3 Months under the name of "Redbull gets you Wings" and got mocked by other Teams because of our Manager who is supposed to be a Scam. So we also started to get annoyed and suspicious of him. In the end we failed to get Top 10 due to internal issues (We got 11th Place). Obviously we never saw anything, no salary, no hardware only empty promises. Apparently he has already scammed lots of Teams before us , Forellenl0rd was also affected by this shady Manager once. To this day I ask myself how he wanted to benefit from this situation other than ruining young ambitious players , and crushing their motivation. The contract wasn't valid because we never got the signed contract from anyone else besides our own signature. So after we failed to qualify, there was only another thing we could do. Promotion Tournament.
LCS expanded its spots from 8 to 10. But everyone got so demotivated and down from the Scam that we decided to disband. And if I am truly honest, I think we could have won the Promotion Tournament. I remember that we managed to snack some games against UOL and were better than Giants in all of our Teamranked Games. In the end these 2 Teams managed to get into LCS and I was teamless.
4. Dimegio
So when I first hit Challenger I had played several Go4LoL Tournaments and one of them was with a Spanish Support player "dax". Since we had a nice run at the Tournament he later contacted me to join his Spanish Team "Dimegio" who were competing at a Online Group Phase Tournament, later the top 8 Teams would go and compete at an Offline Tournament in Spain,Madrid. I didn't think twice about it and agreed. We had 2-3 Games left to play in the Group Phase. Here you can find a VoD of the first "competitive" Game I have played , where I had a pretty good performance on Nidalee (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxln8Js8qzU).
We went on and swept the rest of the Games of the Group Phase. So in June I left Luxembourg to go for Spain, the plane Tickets were paid by Dimegio, so that already felt really special for me, even though it is something natural to do by an Organisation. We went into this Tournament without any practice. At the first Day of the Event I saw the whole original G2 Line-Up when Ocelote was still playing and trying to reach LCS. Also I saw Araneae. I wasn't really a big fan but seeing those people that you usually see on your screen was something special to me and I was happy to experience this. Unfortunately on the first Day we lost 2-0 against Dragons (Werlyb,Frederic and Adryh from 2015 Spring Giants). We did not get stomped. It really showed that we lost because of our lack of practice and Teamplay.
Atleast I made a play that I am still proud of : https://youtu.be/JVGzZwX4crQ?t=38m
I felt a bit disappointed but it was fine. Afterwards we just chilled on the Event and watched the rest of the Games throughout the Weekend. On a side note I want do thank Pepiinero for coming to me after our loss and being really cool & friendly.
The Last day of the Event we played for 5th/6th place backstage. We won and this netted us a price money of 150~ Euros per player. Afaik even after those 2 Years none of us has seen that Money even though we were promised to get them and having complained the first year. Dimegio blamed the Tournaments Organisation to be at Wrong. I'm not sure about that.
The Day before I left, me and Dax decided to create a Team ourselves, since he knew an AD Carry we all know nowadays : "Steeelback"
Him and Dax used to play a lot during Season 4 and Dax convinced me that Steeelback was really really good. So I head back to Luxembourg and get ready for my new adventure.
Oh and ALL of this was happening during me being on "Redbull gets you Wings". Shortly after I got back to Luxembourg and we failed to qualify for the Challenger Series Qualifications, "Redbull gets you Wings" disbanded.
5. Summer 2014
Now it was Time to get a fantastic Team and become good. Me, dax and Steelback.
This part is going to be shorter than the others.
After a lot of failures to find the right Top and Jungler, I got demotivated.
Steelback knew this but still wanted to play with me but I wasn't sure so I decided to just stop tryharding and finding the right players.
Steelback went onto SK Prime with dax later on. (The roster was beansu, taikki , perkz , steelback , dax) I did sub 1 Week for them at some point in August.
So I didn't really know what to do with League anymore during August and I was this guy who thought : Just fuck it I'm just going to keep going to the Gym and enjoy Real Life, I tried myself in e-sports and it didn't work out. Shit Happens. So then I proceeded to half-heartedly play League and "enjoy Real Life" more for the rest of the Summer vacation.
6. End of 2014
In October I became more active in League again and proceeded to play in a Tournament in Luxembourg which I won, but yeah it wasn't too hard since there's literally minus 0 competition in Luxembourg. http://prntscr.com/c41juj
Why is there this unnecessary part? Well I just want to cover everything that I have done League related.
7. A new Start
So in 2015 I got to Challenger again. Meanwhile Giants and UOL made it into the LCS. My old Teammate "bonny" from Redbull gets you Wings contacted me and asked if I wanted to play for an italian organisation. Nothing too serious. I Agreed. After playing for only 1 or 2 Weeks we met mousesports in our 5v5 Team Ranked Games.
At that Time their players were :
beansu
xoynuzi
xioh
sedrion
mountain
Even though our Team wasn't the best we managed to win pretty convincingly and I had beaten their Midlaner. So I proceeded with this Team until one Day, some Days before I was going to get contracted with the italian organisation, beansu added me and asked if I would like to tryout for mousesports since they weren't satisfied with their mid laner. I agreed. My old friend "bonny" got mad and couldn't understand that this was a big opportunity for me. We haven't talked since.
8. Mouse e-sports
So it's 2015. End of March. I start tryouting for Mouz. Xoynuzi got removed and Dan got back into Mouz. For the first Time, this felt like something really serious and the opportunity of my life-time. The tryouts went really well and I remember asking after about 15 Games if I was in the Team now or not and Mountain responding : We can't say for sure yet but for now it looks really good.
When I joined I think Mouz was at 200 LP in Challenger 5v5. Our objective was, once again, to reach the Top 5? to qualify for the Qualifcations for the Challenger Series. And I must say our climb was rather clean and we were definetly one of the best Teams, if not the best, competing for the Top Spots. With me on the Roster we reached 800/900 LP on Challenger which was just outside the top 5. Until here everything was flawless, I don't remember us having stumbled at all during the climb. I'm not sure anymore but i think 1 to 2 Months have passed since I "tryouted" for Mouz. And you would think, so did I that I am part of the Team now and that we would play together until we fail. No. So during our climb ,Sedrion and Mountain and the former Midlaner "Xioh" were playing in the EPS (the german Scene). They had to play with Xioh since you need 3 Germans on your Team to be able to participate. They won the EPS with Xioh who had a good perfomance on Azir during the Games who was slowly becoming Meta at that Time. I didn't consider playing Azir yet, also not Cassiopeia who became Meta because I didn't realize that yet. Neither did anyone on the Team tell me to practice those Champions and were also not complaining about my current Champion Pool which was mostly TF,Orianna,Varus,Ahri,Leblanc and some others.
But then the Day that pretty much was my deepest down had occured. It seemed like just another Day where we grinded the Ladder. We played 3 Games in a row against "godbr0s" team, and we lost all those Games. I admit that I didn't perform well that day, BUT neither did the rest of the Team. After we had our talks on TS after that bad training session, Dan wrote me that they were going to play with Xioh during the weekend and then decide on who they would take for the Challenger Series. 2 Months, Practice nearly every Day, Countless Hours of 5v5. And then you get this Message. Not even telling you when everyone was on TS. Just a quick message. What could I do? I was told that the TEAM decided that they wanted to sub Xioh in for the Weekend. When did that occur? Probably just after I Left TS. Okay, so now I'm basically on thin ice. This Weekend would literally decide if I had wasted my last 2-3 Months or not. There were only 1 or 2 Weeks left until the Qualifications for Challenger Series started.
So they start playing with Xioh and won some Games in a row (Which we also did during our climb!) I didn't even have anyone contact me after the Weekend, I had to ask Dan myself if we could talk on TS. So when I was on TS after their Training and Xioh left, I asked them if they were going to keep playing with Xioh. Apparently the decision was already made and they couldn't even come to me and tell me about it. I had to ask them. Writing this makes me feel how I felt at that point again. You just feel betrayed and I said to myself : "So you played 2-3 Months with these people and gave everything you had , to be treated this way? Meanwhile you are failing at School because you're spending 100% of your Time in LoL to end up here?"
On TS I was told things such as the following :
- It feels like we only have one carry in our Team
- You can only play assassins and this is control mage Meta
- Xioh is just better at this Meta than you
- Maybe if the Meta goes back to Assassins we can take you
So suddenly I'm just a bad player? All this Time I had played with them, no one EVER told me anything , I was open to everything, if anyone had told me about these issues I would have loved to fix them. But no, I guess they just invented reasons to tell me.
But this is not when I would give up. I asked them if I could get another Chance and I would prove them in a Scrim that I am good and the right fit and DESERVE to get this Chance at Challenger Series. They agreed that after the Ladder Lock I would get a Chance to prove myself at a Scrim Session. The next Day I started my training. My objective was to spam the shit out of the Meta Champs at that Time. Azir and Cassiopeia. I could play the other Champions pretty well already so it was time for me to give everything for this second Chance.
I spammed 10+ Games EVERYDAY playing mainly Azir & Cassiopeia and actually climbing the ladder to 800LP Challenger and having good Winrates on Azir & Cassiopeia. I felt super confident I would perform on Scrims and show them that I deserve this, that I put hard work into this and that I will do my best. Funnily when I asked the Coach/Manager when I would get a set of scrims he responded : "Sorry I have talked to the rest of the Team and they are not willing to give you a set of scrims"
So again after extensive training and investing all my Time , there was a TEAM decision made without me. Not one of my fellow Teammates would be friendly enough to approach me themselves and tell me. I was just left in the dark and it was up to me again to ask for an opportunity only to be denied. Mousesports go on to the Challenger Series and played several Offline Tournaments , Challenger Series Games and finally the Challenger Series Final where they lost 3-2 against Dignitas EU (now Splyce). During this Time I had no choice but to spend my remaining Time until the Summer vacation to try and save my School year which I fortunately managed to do. And yes, I was really mad at everyone from Mouz.
9. Promotion Tournament against Gambit
I was completely done with League of Legends. Now that I have passed my Year I decided that I will just proceed with Life and leave League of Legends behind me. I went to China with a friend of mine to visit my Family over there and just to relax and enjoy the summer vacation. The last Week we often found ourselves not knowing what to do at Evenings since we literally drank so much the first weeks that we were disgusted by alcohol. So we decided to go to a PC Bang and played League Of Legends. I was back at it again. Also one Night I told him everything that happened to me with Mouz and watched how Mouz won against G2 in the Semi-Finals on the Stream while we were in the PC Bang. All I thought was : All of this could be me. I have to remind you that all these Months I haven't seen a penny from anywhere. And to be honest I didn't mind. I just wanted to get into the Challenger Series and compete. My Friend kept motivating me and told me that I should just keep trying. It really made me think again. So the next Week we got back to Luxembourg and I started playing again. I was definetly bad right when I resumed since I haven't played for nearly 3 Months. But I was motivated again. The same Week I watched the CS Finals between Mouz and Dignitas EU.
With how the first Game started I thought that Mouz is going to win this BO5. I was really shocked when misspositioning from Xioh lost Mouz their first Game. I'm trying not to flame Xioh, we have never talked before but I am confident that I wouldn't have made that Mistake.
And after all Xioh was also just going with the Flow of the Situation like I had to. I replaced him first and then 2-3 Months After I got replaced by him again. Quite strange.
So unfortunately Mouz lost and now have to face against an LCS Team to fight for a Spot.
To my surprise, after I was back into League for 2 Weeks, our Coach Nick "Inero" Smith contacted me (Not the same coach who told me that the Team wouldn't give me another Chance). He wanted to spectate my Ranked Games and wanted me to participate in Scrims so they could decide if they want me or Xioh for the promotion Tournament. They were allowed to do this since I was still a sub for Mouz. I'm glad that I applied as a sub. So we start scrimming and I left my conflicts with my Teammates aside. Even though I still slightly damn them today for it. To my surprise they took me over Xioh who they were scrimming with simultaneously aswell. So now Xioh is out again and I am back in. Better Love Story than Twilight. I remember having played against Giants & UOL in scrims , but mostly we played against the Chiefs from OCE who were training for the Wildcard Tournament. Shoutout to Chiefs btw, they're cool lads. So the Scrims didn't go so bad and we managed to win vs Giants in Scrims and have good performances against UOL aswell. But I still wasn't as good as I was earlier in 2015. So then we headed to the Boot Camp and we had a main issue which followed us until the Promotion Day. We would in 90% of our Scrims get a Lead on Kills/Objectives early and then Lose games in the Mid to Late game, no matter how big our Leads were. The day before the Promotion Tournament we scrimmed G2 at the LCS Studio and it still occurred. But okay these are scrims we can still win. I truly believed in it. If we just won the first Game we would win the series for sure. The Next day we lost. The first Game was the only game where we could have won, and also the most important one. I just wasn't as good as I was earlier. I was only back for 3-4 Weeks. So now we lost and everyone heads back home. At the Talk we had in our Hotel Room everyone agreed that they would be interested to stay together as a Team.
10. Last Attempt with Mouz
So now it is September, the Off-Season. Sometimes we would meet up in Teamspeak to talk about the future of our Team and who would want to stay. Obviously I wanted to stay and become good again. Well I'm not going thoroughly through this part but pretty much I got kicked from the Team later that Year without any notice from Mouz as an Organisation and without any notice from my Teammates (again HEH!). Whatever happened to me after all of this isn't really relevant so I won't further bother you all.
11. eMonkeyz (this part was added, I planned on posting this some long time ago but didnt do it)
So in October 2016 I joined eMonkeyz, a Team who were struggling in their regional league (LVP) in Spain. I kind of knew that this would probably be my last attempt at anything related for eSports since I am in my last year of high school and it takes alot of time away from me. I had to manage between going to gym, practising with the Team, studying and playing soloQ. Unfortunately this was impossible to do so I kind of sacrificed the soloQ part during my stay at eMonkeyz. Surprisingly , I still did well but unfortunately the new eMonkeyz roster still was struggling and we ended up 9th in the League(out of 10) and lost Relegations.
During my stay at eMonkeyz , I attempted 2 Lans with them, one in October and one in December. Unfortunately we didnt win a single game but I actually enjoyed my time even though I was in a team with 4 spanish people, but they did a great effort to try to speak English with me and also the organisation. I feel like im already too old for League of Legends, I met all these younger talents during my stay at eMonkeyz and I dont feel like that I can get back to my form from 2015 January - June. So after we lost Relegations which was about 1 month ago, I have decided to "retire" to finish my high school. Maybe I will return in June if I pass the exams to give it one final try.
12. Comeback
Soo I have been gone for some months, having 2 Accounts both of them were hovering Diamond 5 for some months and i played maybe 1 or 2 games a week. I was in my last year in highschool so I tried to focus on that. My marks were FINE (not great haha) and I was just trying to finally get my high school diploma and focus on League. That changed when I got to April and we had a 3 week long easter break. I am not the kind of guy to go out everyday and enjoy it, I like being home. My parents had gone into vacation so that the House was pretty much left up to me. Feeling really bored at Times but also not really wanting to go out (If I go out 95% of the Time I have to consume Alcohol but I dont really like it), I decided to start playing League of Legends again. So I logged into one of my accounts that was Diamond 5 with a Winrate inbetween 60%-80% and just started spamming games. For some reason, me transitioning after a longer break into LoL again was really smooth and I managed to climb rapidly. Unfortunately I cant show you any pics.. I am of the humble kind and deleted a Tweet I made about my climb, because I thought people would think I was being really arrogant or something. OH and also I totally forgot to tell you that I broke my pinky finger in end of March! Happened during school sports when I caught the ball wrong. So my pinky finger was wrapped up and the climb happened after an estimated 2weeks after I broke my pinky finger. So it was kind of hard to play since I couldn't use my pinky and my ring finger was also affected by the restricted movement. I still managed to find an OKAY position on QWERDF to play on, but my wrist would get really sore & hurt after 3-4 Hours. So I was climbing and the climb never stagnated, I would creep up Division by Division, reaching Master with around 75% winrate in a matter of days. The climb did not stop there, I don't wanna brag about it, but I was rather shocked my self. I ended up being in Challenger with 70% Winrate and having insane KDA's all over the board. All of this in 9 Days. My climb would go until 600LP~ but unfortunately stop there. I didn't manage to keep up this level, so I kept dropping out of Challenger and getting back in it for about 1-2 Weeks. Unfortunately school was about to start again, and the time would come where I thought : " Cmon dude. One. Last. Effort. and you will finally have your highschool diploma and finish school which has always been a nuisance to your league career (if I ever had one lul) ".
So I had to drastically reduce my Time spent playing the game and eventually dropped to Diamond I and kept hovering between Diamond I and Master ~100LP.
13. Galatasaray and finishing High school.
So during my Climb I got to make new friendships with some Challenger League of Legends players. One of them was "Gilleteabdi" who was a top 20 jungler around that Time. All of the following happened between the period of End-April and End-June of 2017.
Me and a challenger Toplaner "Fl4mer" wanted to play together, and if possibly we wanted to play in the German National League. So we set up a team together to play one of the Qualifiers. We asked Gilleteabdi to help us out for the Qualifiers and he agreed. The thing is, that these Qualifiers were also seen as "Tryouts" from the Team called AeQ, they wanted to see us play since they needed a new roster for their EPS(German league) spot. So we tried our best and pretty much stomped through the qualifiers and I was pretty proud of my own experience aswell. As per usual, I didnt even get contacted by AeQ the following days or weeks, and had to get the information from my Top Laner who told me that they were already considering other Mid-Laners. To be honest I did not really care about that , I just wanted to play with Fl4mer but I just thought it was really unprofessional by AeQ to not say a word about it to me. Also my priorities were with school at that time. I obviously kept contact with GilleteAbdi and Fl4mer. Getting to know GilleteAbdi was a blessing. He was getting offers from Turkey, TCS and TCL ones and I asked him if he maybe could recommend me to some of those Teams. He asked if I wanted to tryout for Galatasaray, a Team he would certainly join. Without hesitation I agreed to that. It was like a dream come true, playing for a Football Club, especially a big one. So we played the tryouts, which went pretty well and I thought that the spot was to be mine. I had a lot of talks with the manager and he seemed to really trust me and Gilleteabdi, and really wanted us to succeed.
But unfortunately there were some minor problems. Galatasaray would want me to move to Istanbul to their Gaming place, but I couldnt yet since I was in my last month of school and had to face 8 Exams soon. Also I would go to vacation in Spain with a bunch of people who were also in their last year of High school (Its common in Luxembourg). I told the manager all of this and he said it wouldnt be a problem. But of course it was a problem. So I signed, and got the signed contract back in some weeks which I really really had to fight for since my spot in Galatasaray wasnt safe yet, but I dont want to go into Details. To my usual misfortune, after the first Week of Games where we lost both games, but having a decent performance, I heard rumours about another midlaner replacing me. RIGHT after the Games on the same day, I asked my manager if it were true, and yes, he had already contacted the other midlaner and was also looking to replace the jungler. All this talk about really trusting in me, and also not being the reason why we lost, just made me realize again how little job security you have as a League of Legends player. I did not tell anyone besides one or two close friends that these Things happened with Galatasaray, because I thought it was embarassing to get benched after 1 Week of Play. Well, atleast I had a nice vacation in Spain and managed to pass my year and FINALLY be done with High School!
14. Trying to get into the 2nd Spanish League
So the Days passed on, I celebrated our High School finish with some Friends, but eventually wanted to get back to League. End of July I got contacted by a former eMonkeyz analyst and he asked me if I wanted to play the qualifications for the 2nd Spanish League, in which the intend was to sell the spot to an Organisation, and I was told I could earn 2-3k Euro from that. So ofcourse I first asked for the Roster and it seemed alright, so I decided to join them in this journey. First scrims were rough but surprisingly we managed to have pretty good macro gameplay, winning our games in 25 minutes with huge leads in scrims against people who were about the same elo as us. Also the atmosphere in the Team was really nice, I liked each one of them. No one was toxic, everyone accepted what the others had to say. So the format was kinda exhausting. It would be a 1 Week Tournament where we would have to play a BO3 each day. Funnily enough we first got a Bye into the next round, and then 2 of our ennemies didnt show up. So we pretty much wasted our time everyday waiting in the lobby but it was fine. We would easily get into the finals and also win the finals, but we were still far away from getting the Spot.
We first had to play a BO5 against the Winners of the FIRST Qualifiers and then play against the Team that was supposed to drop out of the 2nd Spanish League (K1CK). The First BO5 ended in a 3-1. We lost the first game because we couldnt handle Zac engages and Twitch even tho we had a 10k Gold lead after 20minutes. Adjusting our bans and banning Zac, we went on the stomp the next games. I felt really confident that we would also win against K1CK and get the spot, but here is where I tell you that every National League is kind of well "shady". There are set rules by the LVP(Spanish Organisation that manages the League) for example that atleast 3 out of the 5 players have to be in Spain to play the Promotion, and that they would only be able to change a certain amount of players. Right after our first BO5 we were told that these rules were all changed(..?) and that K1CKs entire Roster was allowed to play from Portugal, and they were also allowed to get 3 or more new players. So in the End they had a FULL Portugese Team that would play for their 2nd SPANISH League spot while being in Portugal. Sounds funny right? Well I still was pretty confident that we would win them easily, because our macro so far just seemed to work out really really well. Unfortunately we lost 3-0 to K1CK , not being able to handle their playstyle where they just focused on putting the ADC on a hypercarry and having him carry the game with an ardent support. I was sad but also happy to have been part of this journey. The Team was great and I really enjoyed my time with them because everyone was so chill with each other.
So now I am here, trying to figure out what to do as a next step. (20.08.2017)
15. What have I learned?
I have learned a lot from this journey. The most important thing I have learnt is to be a good Teammate, give people a chance, and let them know about issues in advance.
No one likes to be abruptly cut off from something they are dedicated to.
I have learned that consistent dedication to something is really important. What I mean by that is consistent hard working. I had several breaks, and often it was because of motivational issues with my family/school or just being demotivated because of the things that happened to me. If I look at Steelback and Mikyx, two Players I have played with, I can only say that they truly deserve it , never stopping and always playing until they get what they deserve.
16. My advice to you
Those things that I have learned are also valuable in various other parts of life.
If you want to get involved in e-sports I recommend you to be smart. At the beginning of your career you shouldn't worry too much about money, you have the right to ask and look for it but until you're established as a player i wouldn't recommend you to be influenced by the money you get / don't get. If you truly want to go pro you have to stay consistent. Don't be like me and stop playing for some weeks /months and come back and regretting having done a break. It might be too late for me now but I will try again now.
If you work hard, AND if you are good at what you do, you will get what you want. Even if it takes years. AFAIK Mikyx was playing in Challenger for 2 Years or something before he got picked up by Splyce. Look where he is at now.
Be smart when you get approached by Organisations that aren't well known. Do you research, ask around, and try to find out if the one who reached out of you is legit and actually belongs to that Organisation. But most important is to be friendly to your Teammates and be a pleasant person to play with. You obviously can be a dick and still get into LCS but I seriously would prefer to not be that person.
17. THE FINAL
I'm happy and sad about these years. I'm happy that I could play at the LCS Studio. I'm sad that I was fucked over. I'm glad that I could meet awesome people. I'm disappointed at my lack of consistency.
I want to shout out to Nick "Inero" Smith who has been a really good Coach and a good Friend
http://prntscr.com/c42nri since he contacted me to play the Promotion Tournament, trying to find me a Team after I got dumped by Mouz at the end of 2015.
Update : Congratz to Nick "Inero" Smith who has been working really hard, to finally get picked up by a Team where he does not have to worry about shady movements from the Org. (Echo Fox)
This was a really long post. Sorry not sorry.
PEACE OUT
Some pictures : https://www.flickr.com/photos/147112464@N05 (There are actually much more but I am lazy as fk.)