The 25-year-old Simon “Baus” Hofverberg has been a cult figure in League of Legends as a Twitch streamer TheBausffs
for many years. But hardly anyone took the Swede seriously in LoL. When he joined the streamer team “Los Ratones”, many considered him the weak link of the team, which was well-staffed with former professionals. But he proved everyone wrong and won the EMEA Masters 2025 Winter in his first professional split.
That’s how TheBausffs became known: For years, TheBausffs was known for a special style in LoL, the Inting Sion
:
He only played the melee champ Sion. His passive ability only activates when he dies. Sion then roams around as a zombie trying to kill opponents.
Baus played Sion in a kamikaze style, taking extremely high risks. It seemed as if he wanted to die as often as possible. In 2021, he died so frequently in LoL with his strategy that Riot Games banned him, because the automatic system assumed he was trolling his teammates: he would inten
, playing intentionally bad. Before the ban, TheBausffs had stats of 4 kills/15 deaths/0 assists and 4/10/3 – very poor statistics.
However, Riot Games unbanned him at that time, stating that the automatic Int Detection
misfired, it was wrong. But there were also voices saying: The ban was justified and TheBausffs deserved a ban for the way he played, because he ruined the game for his teammates.
The playing style of TheBausffs was entertaining, but not exactly effective. TheBausffs was more of a meme than someone to take seriously. He was actually considered a troll.
Troll suddenly becomes a pro, but still no one takes him seriously
That was the plan: This Baus wanted to play “proper” LoL now, in a competition against others. He joined the streamer team of Caedrel, Los Ratones, and played his first professional split in the NLC regional league in 2025 at the age of 25.
The signing of Baus caused general shaking of heads: Many observers considered TheBausffs quite a joke and clearly the weak link in Los Ratones, who otherwise had 3 former professionals and a promising rookie with serious
players.
But TheBausffs was self-confident: He didn’t think much of professional top laners. He said many were anyway boosted and really bad. He claimed to be much better than “many top laners” in the LEC.
Even there, many dismissed it as “troll talk”.
TheBausffs even defeats former professionals on the way to the title
This is how it really went: Los Ratones with TheBausffs in the top lane showed everyone. They won the “European Masters” tournament, becoming the new European champions. Among all European teams not playing in the LEC, they are the best.
They only lost one match against IciJapon Corp. Esports, a team with the German Sertuss in the mid lane. However, they managed to qualify for the final through the Loser’s Bracket, where they defeated IciJapon 3-0.
TheBausffs faced a few tough challenges along the way. Especially in a match against a former LEC pro, the Turk Armut, TheBausffs had to push himself to his limits. Here, Los Ratones were already at risk of elimination with a score of 1-2, but managed to win the match 3-2.
Many on reddit are now surprised by TheBaus’s performance:
- “Baus just wins the EU-Masters in his first pro-split. If someone had predicted this half a year ago, we would have called him crazy”
- “Armut was the biggest challenge for his team”
- “Baus is the rookie of the tournament – What crazy times we live in”
TheBaus sees himself – modest as always – as the greatest and explains that professionals should learn from him:
Almost 300,000 watch the victory of Los Ratones
This is what can still be said about the tournament: Especially the jungler of the team, the previously unknown player Velja (23), is praised as an important factor of the team. Fans expect that he might even receive offers from the LEC.
The other 3 members of Los Ratones are all seasoned former professionals at the end of their careers, who have shown again what they are capable of.
The run of “Los Ratones” was a massive success, especially on Twitch. The Twitch streamer and coach of the team, Caedrel, had nearly 290,000 concurrent viewers at the peak: LoL is the No. 1 game on Twitch, sacrificing competitive integrity to stay that way
