NoWay is the biggest German Twitch streamer for LoL. At 33 years old, he is finding it increasingly difficult to be among the best.
This is what is currently happening with NoWay: The Twitch streamer is currently preparing for a trip to Korea to compete against the best LoL streamers in the world on the Korean servers during the MSI. The Korean SoloQ is known to be extremely demanding: Among LoL players, it is almost a challenge to travel there and achieve the highest rank, Challenger.
However, NoWay does not have any special event planned: He says the server is his nemesis because players there play at a very high mechanical level, and that is exactly his weakness. He just wants to play better again. After all, he is now old, and he has to see how he can continuously challenge himself. People from his generation, who have been playing for 16 years, are now stuck in the ranks of Diamond or Master – and that doesn’t necessarily have to do with the fact that skills suddenly diminish with the age of 30 (source: NoWay via YouTube).
“As soon as you start having leisure time, you can’t be a Challenger player”
This is the dilemma: As NoWay explains, it is not just that in your thirties you no longer have the reflexes of a teenager; rather, the mindset plays a role as well. Because to really play at Challenger level in LoL, you must hardly have a life outside of the game. “As soon as you start having leisure time, you can’t be a Challenger player. It just doesn’t work,” says NoWay.
In the past, it was not a problem to play SoloQ for 20 hours a day. However, as he gets older, the 33-year-old finds it harder to sacrifice so much for the rank. There are so many other things in life that feel nicer and more valuable.
The real challenge of the Challenger rank, according to NoWay, is not only the gaming skill but also maintaining the motivation, not losing your bite, and continuously pushing yourself. There is no such thing as a casual Challenger, says the streamer.
In addition, NoWay has an extra limitation: as a streamer, it is also more difficult to play at a professional level because you sacrifice your gaming progress for the entertainment of the fans. However, he prefers to be a streamer rather than a professional player, says NoWay.
At the same time, the streamer warns against going down this path and subordinating everything to the game. It is often very young people without significant commitments who grind so hard. If it doesn’t work out with a career as a gamer or streamer, many find themselves with no professional or academic training.
What was your highest rank in League of Legends, and do you think you could achieve it again today? Feel free to let us know in the comments what gaming achievement you are particularly proud of!
In fact, NoWay has already decided that he does not want to make these sacrifices permanently in the future. Through his participation in the WoW event Sauercrowd, he realized how much fun he had getting to know other games instead of just grinding LoL. In February, the streamer talked about when he wants to stop with LoL.
Your opinion is important to us!
Do you like the article? Then let us know!