22-year-old Heo “PawN” Won-seok is considered one of the best mid laners of all time in League of Legends. In 2014, he became world champion. Now he is ending his career: An obsession is forcing him to give up. He could only play LoL for a long time because he perfectly arranged his place with a ruler – even that was no longer possible in 2019.
Who is PawN? PawN was a world-class mid laner for years:
- PawN was a LoL pro for 7 years, including for KT Rolster (Korea) and EDward Gaming (China).
- He won the LoL World Championship in 2014 with Samsung White and players like imp and Mata, who also ended their careers in 2019.
- PawN was regarded as one of the few who could compete with the LoL superstar Faker in the mid lane. Faker and PawN were known as “The Eternal Rivals,” as reported by the Korean site Inven.
However, now PawN has unexpectedly announced his retirement at the age of 22. He has withdrawn from his team and is currently not planning to play LoL professionally anymore.
It was known that PawN had medical issues and therefore could play less League of Legends in recent years. He took longer breaks and pauses. But only with the retirement did PawN himself reveal that he suffered from an obsession.
Now he explains in an interview with Inven the extent his obsession took.
PawN could only play with a ruler
This is how the disorder developed: PawN explains that the obsession appeared when he moved to China at the end of 2014. Here, the ruler became an important tool. PawN would measure the height of the monitor before the start of a match and then adjust his keyboard accordingly:
When I wasn’t in China, I didn’t need a ruler to prepare for matches. I think I set up my equipment like other players did.
Perhaps it was my desire to play better, but my obsession became heavier when I returned to Korea in 2017. The symptoms occurred when I set up my monitor, but it was okay when I used the ruler.
PawN
But by 2018, the problems had worsened; now he also had to adjust his chair perfectly. PawN took a break in 2018 to recover.
Afterwards, he found “different solutions” for his problem, as he says, and was able to rank up again in the solo queue of LoL. PawN attempted a fresh start with the Korean team Kingzone.
New monitor sizes lead to crisis
This was the breaking point: In spring 2019, the problems arose again. Then a change came, after which PawN could no longer play LoL:
The size of the tournament monitors was changed from 24 inches to 25 inches. I had found a method to set up a 24-inch monitor, but that didn’t work with the new ones.
PawN
With the new monitors, PawN had the impression that he could only play LoL as well as a “Gold” player.
Nothing worked anymore. This led to frustration and even depression.
This is how PawN is doing: The player has announced his retirement from professional LoL and has turned down all offers from new teams because he cannot play with the obsession anymore.
However, he hopes that he can get his disorder under control and make a fresh start again. Then he would play professionally in LoL again. If that doesn’t work, he wants to end his career for good.
PawN believes that his perfectionism and the unwavering will to win led to the development of the obsession.
