The German Twitch streamer Fredrik “NoWay” Hinteregger wanted to shine during the World Championship in League of Legends in South Korea and rise to Challenger in the solo queue. It went well for a while, but then “despair, self-hatred, and depression” set in, as the LoL streamer says.
What was his goal? The former LoL pro NoWay (31) is a strong midlaner in LoL. He aimed to regularly play in the South Korean solo queue during the Worlds:
- The solo queue is “pimped up” by the many professional players in the country: Even regular players show their best side with so much prominence.
- He wanted to get as high as possible – perhaps Grandmaster or even reach the rank of Challenger, which is reserved for only the 300 best players in South Korea.
- At a high rank, he wanted to compete against some of the strongest players in the world, who were also playing in South Korea because of the Worlds.
The Worlds are currently running in LoL. It is a huge event with its own anthem:
Twitch streamer started solidly in South Korea and was in a good mood
This is how it went: For NoWay, his time in South Korea mostly went solidly, not as extremely strong as his jungle friend Agurin, who is considered one of the best solo queue players in the world, but solid.
NoWay had good days and bad days, but slowly climbed towards “Master” and was generally satisfied with himself.
In the first days in South Korea, he proudly posted his impressive win statistics.
On a hell day in South Korea, NoWay loses “everything”
What went wrong? On November 12th, NoWay had a hell day in South Korea.
Of the first 5 games, he lost 3 in the “first 5 minutes,” as he says (via youtube). The team members messed up the start of the matches, quickly writing in the chat “Surrender at 15” and then gave up the matches after 15 minutes.
With this start, NoWay says he also fell into a “bad mindset” and messed up one game after another. In just a few hours, every chance of at least reaching the Grandmaster rank was lost, as his rating continued to plummet with each defeat:
I had such great ambitions. I worked very hard for it that week and now they obviously failed and that sucks. That sucks quite a bit. But that’s okay. I will obviously survive this. It’s not the end of the world.
At the end of the day, he had lost about 230 or 250 LP. Since he had only about a week left in South Korea – the World Championship final is on November 19th – NoWay decided to give up his “grind” in South Korea and enjoy the rest of his time there.
He saw no way to achieve his goals anymore. Not even Grandmaster was in reach. He said he would now cry himself to sleep and then consider how to proceed.
“Korea breaks you – piece by piece”
This is what he says about the run: NoWay is now 31, has experienced some successes and some failures and consistently shows a rational attitude towards himself and his feelings. However, the whole story is taking a toll on him, as he explains to the Twitch chat in response to inquiries:
It’s always like this in Korea: Every Korea trip has gone exactly the same so far. You’ve got practically: It’s going great, you have great games, great atmosphere, great hype – complete disaster, despair, self-hatred, give up, depression, therapy. It’s always the same: Korea breaks you slowly. Piece by piece, it breaks you.
NoWay is actually in good company: even LoL beast Tyler1 failed in South Korea: he was so toxic in the end that the South Koreans sabotaged him on purpose.
2nd place in German Twitch, even if it went poorly
What can be a consolation? Even if the last week has been rather poor for NoWay, he can comfort himself that he has fully taken off on Twitch:
- In the last week, NoWay was live for 77 hours and had an average of 10.96 viewers
- Overall, he reached 844,262 hours of watch time, placing him second in Germany. Only Minecraft streamer BastiGHG is ahead of him
So there should be money for therapy and the next Korea trip. But for now, relaxation is on the agenda. NoWay says he will now enjoy his time in South Korea and attend the World Championship final in person with Faker.
Moreover, NoWay has a real highlight to look forward to in December, as perhaps he, along with his friends, will get to face the current world champion:
LoL: 2 adult men are as excited as children when they can finally reveal the surprise on Twitch
