21-year-old Louis “BEAN” Schmitz is an up-and-coming player in League of Legends, on the verge of turning professional. He was able to travel to the LoL Worlds 2022 in Mexico with Fnatic, dominated the Champion’s Queue against the world’s best, but the World Championship is now over for him.
Who is this?
- BEAN is actually the bot laner for “Fnatic TQ”, Fnatic’s academy team: They play in the Spanish league, LVP SL, where they became champions in the spring.
- People heard of BEAN in the professional scene when he had to step in for Upset at the Worlds 2021, where he performed well, but Fnatic still got eliminated in the group stage.
- In 2022, Fnatic also took him to Mexico as a substitute player for the Play-Ins of the Worlds. However, BEAN did not get to substitute: Upset is fit and showing excellent stats.
What has BEAN accomplished? BEAN reached the number 1 spot in the Champion’s Queue leaderboard during his time in Mexico.
The Champion’s Queue is a special form of SoloQ that only selected players have access to. It was originally intended to provide a healthy environment for North American professionals to train.
While the Worlds take place in North America, the best players in the world compete there to create high-quality training opportunities: Even Faker has been spotted there.
Professionals train in the Champion’s Queue and try out different strategies. One professional had great success in the top lane with Teemo and had the awful idea to pick the hamster in his World Championship match as well. This earned him cheers and a public execution.
That BEAN managed to temporarily hold the number 1 spot here is definitely a significant achievement. He competed against world-class players and LoL legends such as Zven from Cloud9, Showmaker from DAMWON Gaming, and Zeus from T1.
Why does he have to leave now? But BEAN cannot remain in the Champion’s Queue to fight out who will ultimately finish as the victor in the Solo Queue in 33 days, as the World Championship is over for him.
While teams were allowed to nominate several substitute players for the group stage of the Worlds, each team is permitted to take only one substitute player into the group phase.
Fnatic has decided to take BEAN’s partner on the bot lane from Fnatic TQ, the Portuguese supporter Rhuckz: He was called up because the main supporter Hylissang was suffering from the coronavirus. Rhuckz also played the first 2 matches of the Worlds for Fnatic and showed strong performance.
For the young German, BEAN, the World Championship now comes to an end: Although temporarily ranked first in such a prominently populated Solo Queue, he has no World Championship participation.
For other players, the LoL Worlds 2022 have also come to an end – and that hurts:
