In Taiwan, a group of 4 men and one woman aged between 62 and 69 participated in an e-sport tournament in League of Legends. This was initiated by a university in Taichung. The news warms the hearts of the otherwise hardened LoL players during the holidays.
Why is this special?
- Players competing in LoL tournaments are usually extremely young: between 16 and perhaps 25 years old. When talking about a “senior team” in LoL, it refers to players who are over 25 years old.
- When the streamer team “NNO” started in the second league in Germany, they called themselves the “senior team,” the players were between 24 and 31 years old. In the USA, there are currently jokes that 100 Thieves will be such a senior team because they are recruiting veterans Bjergsen (26) and Doublelift (29). Both had actually ended their professional careers.
- The team that played in Taiwan is indeed a phenomenon at ages 62 to 69.
How did this come about? The team was founded by Huang Jianji, director of the “Multimedia Game Development and Application” department at Hungkuang University.
He is 26 and wants to stay in the game for at least another 3 years, Faker:
65-Year-Old Plays 5 Hours a Week to Prepare for Tournaments
One of the players says: The 65-year-old Chiang Yi-Shun explains that a year ago, she knew nothing about computers and never thought she would get involved with them, as she prefers interacting with people. But when she started playing LoL, she felt it was good for her brain and especially good for her hands, as one needs to develop skill.
She now plays about 5 hours of LoL a week and travels an hour by train to the university for this purpose. There, she prepared for the tournament in class.
The player says one needs a certain will and must develop the mindset: “I don’t want to lose. I’ve been living for a while now, and I shouldn’t let that hold me back. And I will overcome it.”
The team’s coach says: The team is coached by Ego Hsu. She says the seniors focus less on killing, as other players do in LoL. For the coach, it is particularly important that her protégés do not die so often in LoL:
I think it could lead to depression if their characters die all the time. If their champs go down quickly, I blame myself for not preparing them better.
Ultimately, the team was unable to win the tournament, but that was probably never the goal.
News Brings Warm Feelings Before New Year’s Eve
What is the reaction to the news? Just before New Year’s Eve, this was a real feel-good story for the otherwise tough LoL players. The commentator Goldenboy shared this on English Twitter:
- Goldenboy’s post was viewed 3.7 million times, achieving 7000 retweets and 60,000 likes
Everywhere, the comments are very positive and come down to: “Hopefully, I’ll be in such good shape when I’m older.”
