A 13-year-old is the new star on Twitch. The young “General Sniper” has great success with League of Legends, recognized as an excellent player with Riven – just like his older brother. Now the US team “Cloud9” wanted to sign him, but the dream of living as a LoL streamer fell apart.
Who is General Sniper? Raya “General Sniper” Shoura is only 13 years old. He is Canadian with roots in Syria. The teenager is the younger brother of the LoL player V1per, who is with the professional team Dignitas.
Both brothers share a preference for the LoL champ Riven. This is their favorite champ, and they master her on the top lane like few others. As the site Inven notes, General Sniper has won the last 27 games in a row when playing in a duo with V1per.
General Sniper is currently at the highest rank in the solo queue of LoL, he is Challenger with 1011 LP. This places him at rank 39 in the USA.
On Twitch, he has nearly 69,000 followers, and an average of 840 people watch him.
He is somewhat like the “rising star.” For US fans of LoL, such a teenager is especially interesting, as the LCS league lacks incoming players who can actually play:
- At the LoL Worlds 2020, the USA suffered a setback.
- The former world champion Doinb criticized from China that US players are too old, and too few new players are rising up.
Pro team signs teenager, then cancels contract
How the dream fell apart: It sounded like a wonderful story when the US pro team Cloud9 announced on November 3 that they had signed “General Sniper” as a streamer and given him a professional contract.
But shortly after, they had to take down the announcement and cancel the contract with the boy.
The contract violates the rules of the LCS, it was now stated: An LCS team may only sign a contract with someone who is at least 15 years old. No matter if it is a professional player, a streamer, or another employee.
The rule was apparently not clear to everyone beforehand.
How the boy reacted: He seems a bit dejected. He was apparently looking forward to the opportunity. Now he speaks of “very sad news.” However, he wants to come back even stronger next year. In November 2021 he will turn 15. Until then, he will likely have to wait.
What the team says: Cloud9 seems to find the whole situation awkward. They call the situation “unfortunate.” Apparently, they thought the age limit applied only to professional players, but not to streamers. They had different requirements for streamers than for professionals, and the rules specifically only mentioned players. They were only informed about the precise purpose of the rule after they announced the signing of the teenager.
This all is still a new field and not clearly communicated.
At Cloud9, they believe General Sniper has an exciting future ahead and hope to be able to work with him in the future.
For many LoL players, it is a dream to receive a contract with a professional team and turn the hobby into a profession. However, very few actually become a real LoL professional; for many, it remains a dream.
And even those who become professionals are not necessarily successful LoL professionals, as US star Doublelift explains:
US star says: You only become a pro in LoL if you play selfishly – It backfires
