Frederik NoWay
Hinteregger (32), a well-known German Twitch streamer, is currently experiencing a remarkable comeback in League of Legends. After a six-year hiatus from competitive LoL, he is achieving great success on Twitch in 2025 and receiving a lot of recognition for his performances.
This is NoWay’s career: NoWay started his career in LoL in 2012. He peaked in his career in 2018 when he won the ESL Championship with EURONICS and actually ended his career in 2020 after his last games for AD Hoc Gaming.
At that time, he had long since laid to rest the dream of a major professional career in the international LoL scene. He never played in the LEC.
Instead, starting in 2018, he focused on his Twitch career, streaming at least 2,000 hours a year. In recent years, he has become the most successful German LoL streamer.
The Retired Team
and the Surprising Rise
This is how he got back into e-sports: In 2022, NoWay returned to the e-sports scene – but only for fun.
Together with four other streamers, he formed the Retired Team
NNO, which entered the second league without training or a coach. Surprisingly, the team performed so well that NNO made a miracle run in the playoffs, defied all odds to win, and even got promoted to the first league. The retired team outsmarted many promising up-and-coming talents with clever gameplay and backdoor plays
. There was massive interest in the team on Twitch.
However, for business reasons, NoWay could not play in the first league the following year: A renewed professional career would have conflicted with his job as a streamer. Instead, the streamers hired other players and lost a small fortune in the process.
This play brought NNO into the first league:
NoWay makes a comeback in 2025 after a 6-year break
This is how things are going for him now: In 2025, the situation looks different: Riot Games now allows streamers to play in regional leagues and broadcast their own matches. NoWay has set himself a lot of goals and has joined a team in the regional league NCL, where former LEC professionals play.
At 32 years old, he is seven years older than his youngest teammate, but that doesn’t seem to hold him back. His team NordEsports has only lost one game so far – against the favorite Los Ratones.
In the first playoff round, his team defeated the opponent 2:0. While former world-class players like Perkz and Jankos lost their first playoff games and now have to fight in the Loser’s Bracket, NoWay’s team is headed toward an exciting duel with Los Ratones.
Things are also going well for NoWay on Twitch: He has an average of 13,500 viewers and with 3.4 million (+56% in the last month) viewer hours, he is the third-largest Twitch streamer in Germany in January 2025, on par with Papaplatte.
NoWay excels in solo queue in LoL
This is what he says himself: NoWay is also very satisfied with his development. On Twitter he wrote: Washedup4u is back!
– a reference to the fact that former pros his age are usually considered washed up.
But NoWay proves with a screenshot that he has significantly improved in recent weeks: After previously being stuck in a mediocre rank, he has now reached the highest rank Challenger
in LoL.
Twitch streamer Chefstrobel jokingly commented: Not bad retiree, did zooming the symbols to 200% help?
Things are going well for NoWay, but it looks bad for Perkz
This is what’s behind it: It posed a risk for NoWay to play in a team and establish himself in competitive LoL again. However, for NoWay, it apparently represented the right motivation to take on new challenges and further develop his gaming skills.
The idea that former pros play for content again after their careers seems to be a win-win situation for Los Ratones as well.
In the meantime, NoWay showed signs of the strain of playing so much LoL again and training hard in boot camps while streaming for many hours, but he evidently enjoys this competitive mode for himself.
However, examples like Perkz, who lost his first playoff game in the regional league, also show the risk of such a comeback. Perkz, once an absolute star and one of the best players in Europe, has seemed out of sorts for years and has lost much of his former shine.
In contrast, NoWay presents himself stronger at 32 than during his actual professional days. He even won against LoL superstar Faker: LoL: Twitch streamer steps in for sick friend, defeats world champion Faker, immediately ends career
