Lol turns scrawny gamers into sports stars – turns a recluse into a total ramp hog

On April 26, 2022By Garmin Philip

In League of Legends, the finals of the US league LCS took place in the USA. It’s impressive how Riot Games stages such a competition as an e-sports event, believes MeinMMO author Schuhmann. He is particularly impressed that Riot is making such a stage pig out of the twitch streamer Tyler1, who is known as the hermit.

What event was that staged? It was the final series of the 2022 LCS Spring Playoffs.

There were 2 teams facing each other:

100 Thieves for the German Felix “Abbedagge” Braun. They surprisingly became champions last year and fought their way back to the final. Not a single North American plays in the team: only legionnaires, such as the South Korean Ssumday or the somewhat loud-mouthed Turkish jungler Closer.
Evil Geniuses were the underdogs in the final. They have also strengthened in Europe and Asia: the Polish youngster Inspired was already extremely strong in Europe, the South Korean Impact has been playing a solid top plane in the USA for ages. But the other 3 positions were actually occupied by young North Americans, a rarity in LoL.

Even if the staging was epic and a “fantastic series over 5 games” was talked up, the series was not particularly exciting. The match was indeed one-sided. Evil Geniuses were overwhelmingly superior and won the series 3-0. A young US botlaner made the game of his life:

LoL: 18-year-old celebrates the weekend of his life, breaks 2 records, decides the championship

1st live event since March 2020 is staged on a gigantic scale

What was impressive? The great thing about the event was the staging.

After 2 years with Covid, the LoL final was the first live event since March 2020: It took place at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas: This is a football stadium with a closable roof, officially it can hold up to 80,000 people. Corona conditions prevailed during the event.

Even before the actual show began, an opening ceremony was shown:

Here, Twitch streamer Tyler1 introduced the players of the two teams individually. He presented himself as a classic boxing match announcer like Michael Buffer and the players as global sports stars.

then the German Felix Braun suddenly became “DER KARMA-KING”, because Braun is known for playing the heroine “Karma” preferentially
a rather lackluster player like Victor “FBI” Huan Lost became the “AD-CARRY FROM DOWN UNDER” that makes “kids” look like “amateurs”.

South Korean veteran Impact played in a strong team alongside Faker in Korea 2013. For almost 10 years now, he has been paying royally for his fame in the USA. He becomes the “most victorious top planer” in the history of the LCS
the Polish jungler Inspired is immediately upgraded to “GIANT”.

The show proper then began with a bombastic live performance from Tyler1, who strode onto the stage and yelled, “Houston, we have a bit of a problem,” before sounding like he was about to challenge The Rock to a match at Wrestlemania.

Twitch streamer lives in isolation all year round, becomes a ramp pig on stage

Who is the announcer? The presenter who is a master at doing this is Twitch streamer Tyler1. He seems as if he does nothing else every day than standing on stage in front of ten thousand people, shouting, posing and hyping the event.

Tyler1 lives in seclusion with his girlfriend in the country all year round, hardly ever receives visitors and rarely goes away. His main contact with reality is the camera when he plays LoL for tens of hours every day and fluffs up. Such a live performance should actually be something completely different and unfamiliar to him.

But on stage he shows nothing of it.

“Bad boy” image for shy teenagers

This is behind it: LoL is years ahead of all other titles in esports.

They stage teenagers and gamers in their 20s like superstars, establishing a “bad boy” image and letting them pose in power poses while the fans celebrate them with chants and banners.

It should be noted that in the 8 minutes of the staging almost no player speaks, the whole load is on the twitch streamer Tyler1.

lol-tyler1-abbedagge — Tyler1 looks a little like he’s been let out of the cage.

The staging as “tough macho stars” sometimes seems inappropriate, because the players don’t exactly have the stature of top athletes.

Especially the later star of the series, Danny, seemed more like an intimidated teenager who was terribly embarrassed by the chanting and less than an ice-cold killer. He quickly bowed to his opponent and seemed glad to be back out of the limelight.