In League of Legends, Doublelift (Team Liquid, USA) and Perkz (G2 Esports, Europe) are regarded as the best the West has to offer. Before the LoL Worlds, however, they are having fun and playing together in a rather foolish way. The fans enjoy it.
Who are the two players? Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng (26) is the bot laner for Team Liquid, which is currently the strongest team in the USA by far. Doublelift is considered a key player here.
He is a controversial figure: Doublelift says things that others do not dare to say. He once announced in an interview that he wants to “destroy his former team, TSM” now. They had replaced him.
Doublelift has already achieved great success with Counter Logic Gaming (CLC) and Team SoloMid, and is considered an outstanding player in the USA and a LoL legend. He has been playing since 2011 and is somehow still at the top level, even though he seemed to have been phased out.
Luka “PerkZ” Perkovic (20) is the bot laner for G2 Esports, the dominant team in Europe. They have won both splits in Europe this year and the Mid Season Invitational, where the top teams from Asia also compete.
Therefore, G2 Esports is considered one of the top favorites to win before the World Championship. The Croatian PerkZ is regarded as a key player for his team.
2 World-Class Bot Laners Get Ambushed
What are those 2 doing? Currently, the top players are preparing for the Worlds and are playing practice matches under serious conditions against each other. This is called “scrimmages.”
To relax and unwind, professional LoL players also play “regular” LoL in the “queue”, the public lobby of a country. This doesn’t always go as professionally and seriously. Last year, a world-class player was banned for feeding.
Doublelift streamed on Twitch: He was with PerkZ on the bot lane for an entertaining stream. When two such outstanding players come together, one would think something great happens. But somehow the opposite was true.
The clip shows: Doublelift was on level 5 with Sivir, his partner PerkZ on level 4, when their jungler came by for a gank on the bot lane. The two ADCs wanted to seize the opportunity and force a kill to make up for the 2:5 disadvantage they were already in.
But the opponents were near the tower. When Doublelift attempted to poke them, he was caught by the enemy Blitzcrank, who pulled him in with the hook. Doublelift was immediately in serious trouble and went down.
Now, however, PerkZ and the jungler have already engaged and want to catch the enemy Kai’Sa. They are preparing for a tower dive to salvage something from the failed action.
One shouts “I got him,” to which Doublelift asks: “Really?” Because Kai’Sa escapes at the last second. Ultimately, all three attackers go down, and none of the defenders dies. The gank completely fails.
Please, go next
How the stars react: During the action, Doublelift curses. He says: “I can’t believe I’m this fat,” referring to the fact that Blitzcrank’s hook actually passed by his slim Sivir but still hit him.
Then Doublelift sees how his two partners also mess up and can’t help but grin. After the fight, he says “Pls, go next” – which means something like “The game is lost; let’s quickly give up and start the next one.”
The two murmur something. Then they burst into laughter and say: “The hook was just good” – “Yeah, that was insane,” they agree, even though it actually missed.
PerkZ then adds: “European players are just so good,” as a jab that Doublelift, who plays his LoL in the USA, is probably not used to such quality.
What’s behind it: What you see here is the big difference between “serious LoL”, the eSport, and the “entertaining” LoL that players play in their free time or on Twitch. Here, it’s more about entertaining oneself or the viewers, being silly, having fun.
This stream on reddit is also viewed positively. It was incredibly entertaining to see how the two real rivals teased and mocked each other.
Many eSports players know that they cannot play at this level in League of Legends forever. Therefore, they want to use their time in the spotlight to build Twitch channels that they can use after their careers are over. For eSports players, Twitch is somewhat like a retirement plan.
Some of the most popular Twitch streamers were formerly eSports players like Ninja, Shroud, or half of the LoL elite like Imaqtpie.
