The 23-year-old Dane Kasper “Kobbe” Kobberup has tried to establish himself in the USA after strong years in European League of Legends and ended up in the top team Team Solo Mid. But everything went wrong, as the bot laner now recounts. Nothing fit in the team, and the Corona pandemic added to the trouble. For this LoL nightmare, he had sacrificed his life.
This is how Kobbe ended up at Team Solo Mid: Kobbe, like some current top players of League of Legends, hails from Denmark. Strangely enough, this small Nordic country seems to produce first-class LoL players who somehow end up in the USA, such as Bjergsen, Zven, or Broxah.
Kobbe played as a bot laner for the European team Splyce for 4 years. Especially in 2019, he was successful: Kobbe brought Splyce to Worlds 2019 and was considered one of the top ADCs in Europe.
But at Splyce, Kobbe felt after 2019 that he was stagnating. As he says in an interview with Inven , he felt that Splyce kept assembling a new team every few years.
Kobbe did not feel before 2020 that they really had a chance against European heavyweights G2 Esports and Fnatic. He didn’t want to be at Splyce just to compete with a new group of rookies.
So Kobbe decided it was time for a change. Since he didn’t receive good offers in Europe, but plenty from the USA, he joined Team Solo Mid. There he replaced his countryman Zven as ADC and played alongside the Dane Bjergsen (Mid Lane).
TSM had a fantastic team on paper and Kobbe was sure they would contest the top 3 of the LCS and book a spot at Worlds.
At TSM, they even joked in November 2019 about what a strange preference they had developed for Danes. Kobbe was the 6th Dane that TSM had signed:
This is how the season went: The good mood was quickly gone. Already in January 2020, a truly terrible match against Immortal showed that it would be a tough half year for TSM.
Team Solo Mid had a mixed Spring Split with a 9-9 record and finished only in 5th place. They were eliminated in the playoffs already in round 2 against FLYQuest with a 2:3.
Screaming in Voice – Discussions about Philosophy
What went wrong at TSM as a team: Kobbe says TSM did not mesh at all. While all players were really good, the communication did not work at all. There were significant differences in philosophy regarding how to play LoL:
- Mid laner Bjergsen and top laner Brokenblade, a German, were incredibly loud in voice chat and almost yelled into the microphone
- If Kobbe wanted anything, he had to yell even louder than them – which was not to his liking at all
- He also did not get along with his support Biofrost. It was unclear who would make the calls and how much information should be communicated
- Moreover, TSM ended up playing only through the top lane, making them predictable
This is how it was for Kobbe personally: The 23-year-old Dane says he sacrificed everything to come to the USA, leaving friends, family, and everything else in Europe behind. The first 3 weeks looked good, and TSM had fun as a team, but then started to argue internally and Covid-19 came along.
All his sacrifices would only have been meaningful if they brought success, Kobbe says. But when Team Solo Mid lost, Kobbe felt like he had given everything “in vain” and that his life was meaningless.
Kobbe says that when he was benched, he felt like his teammates wanted nothing to do with him anymore. He stayed up until 4 a.m. to be able to talk with his friends and family in Europe.
Girlfriend gone, job gone – and lockdown
This was the low point: After being eliminated from the playoffs against FlyQuest, Kobbe learned that Team Solo Mid planned to sign the LoL star Doublelift, a former player of the team. Kobbe found that simply unfair.
This made me sad. I gave up my life to be with Team Solo Mid in North America, I did my best and I really don’t believe I was the reason it didn’t work as a team. Honestly, it really hurt.
Kobbe after hearing that he was replaced by Doublelift
Kobbe says the month after was the worst of his life. The pandemic hit hard, so he was locked up in his apartment. His girlfriend had gone back to Europe, he had lost his job and was alone 24 hours a day.
What’s next: The suffering in the USA has come to an end. Kobbe is back in Europe and plays for the team Misfits.
He says he is so glad to be back in Europe and to spend time with his teammates here. Kobbe thanks his fans from Europe who had sent him many positive messages during his hard time. He is very grateful for that.
His replacement “Doublelift” has already had problems at Team Solo Mid. He had announced that in the first match against Team Liquid, he would turn it up and annihilate them because they had treated him poorly. But it ended catastrophically:
LoL star vows revenge, wants to annihilate ex-team, fails miserably
