The eSports player Yilang “Doublelift” Peng is an exceptional figure in North America’s League of Legends. But the time around his 30th birthday was turbulent for the LoL pro: He flubbed a game, turned 30, gave an interview stating that age doesn’t matter, and was hospitalized with internal bleeding.
Who is Doublelift?
- Doublelift is the most colorful pro that the USA league LCS has to offer. He has shaped the league since 2011 like hardly anyone else, having won 8 titles.
- The man is not only known for his gameplay but also for his aggressive demeanor. He is known for the phrase: “Everyone else is garbage.” There is an anecdote that he was cut by TSM and then set out to show them, what a big mistake that was: He ultimately humiliated his former team with an outstanding performance and returned to them. After a dispute with his nemesis Reginald, he is finally out at TSM.
- By now, Doublelift is 30 years old and plays for 100 Thieves. At 30, he is the oldest LoL player in one of the major leagues and represents an exception in eSports. Hardly anyone plays for this long. For many pros, the career is already over at 24.
Although he has been around for so long, Faker is only 27 years old:
Pro fails match against the weakest team in the league
What was his worst match? Doublelift has had a tough time:
He played a horrendously bad LoL match 11 days ago. Doublelift performed terribly in the match with 2-6-1 on Kai’Sa. His team 100 Thieves lost 4–19 against Immortal, the worst team in the league (via reddit).
The Immortals are even at risk of losing their league spot because they have lost the league so often that an exception rule could allow Riot Games to revoke their spot in the league (via dotesports).
After the match, Doublelift apologized on Twitter:
- He totally flubbed it
- He felt dizzy and nauseous, almost threw up during the match
- But that’s no excuse; he has to pull himself together now
Doublelift celebrates 30th birthday, says in interview: “Age doesn’t matter”
How did he deal with it? After the match, Doublelift turned 30, and this was extensively celebrated by the league.
He cheekily declared: “Who wants to lose to a 30-year-old in LoL?”
He even gave an interview stating that age doesn’t matter in LoL: He can compensate for weaker reflexes with better game understanding. Reflexes are overestimated and are not that important in LoL.
A strong player like Ruler, Faker, or himself can still keep up even at an older age.
It could only be the case that with increasing age, the distractions of real life increase, and other things become more important (via dexerto).
Shortly after the 30th birthday, pictures suddenly show Doublelift in the clinic
And what was with the hospital? The dizziness, nausea, and bad match apparently had underlying reasons.
On July 23, unexpected pictures of Doublelift in a clinic appeared with the comment “Tough week” on his Twitter account.
As his girlfriend, Leena Xu, reports, he was found to have gastrointestinal bleeding: “Unfortunately a debuff,” she says. The pro has apparently been suffering from internal bleeding for about a week, which had gone undetected until then.
A Twitch streamer comments in the remarks: He himself had been downing energy drinks on an empty stomach for months – that caused problems for him. It hurts a hell of a lot.
Since then, the community has been waiting for new updates on his health status.
eSports players and Twitch streamers should pay attention to their health, even if they are relatively young. The lifestyle with so much time spent in front of the PC seems to be taking its toll.
This was also noticed by a Twitch streamer who suffered a heart attack live on camera, and the chat found it incredibly funny:
MMORPG streamer suffers heart attack live on Twitch, his chat keeps making jokes for minutes
