The Esports Prodigy that Quit for the Army | A League of Legends Documentary

[Music] becoming an esports pro is a dream career for plenty of people all across the globe the idea of being able to play your favorite video game professionally while also making millions of dollars in the process is almost too good to be true but the reality is nowadays that's a totally viable career path for the most talented players in a game plenty find themselves enjoying long careers with healthy salaries and a chance to leave behind an impressive legacy it's hard to imagine someone who wouldn't choose to go down this path in life if given the chance but that's the story we have for you today in league of legends one of the greatest western prodigies of all time had one of the shortest careers we've ever seen he was a top laner who had the talent to build a decade-long legacy for himself but instead chose to walk away from the game right as he was entering his prime this is a story that includes roster implosions lcs disqualifications and the greatest super team that never was and it all goes back to a kid who would rather join the military then play league of legends this is the story of zorro zero this video is brought to you by surf shark vpn now you guys know surf shark at this point they're a vpn provider who's been a continued partner on our channel for a while they have a vpn service that's pretty much unmatched in terms of features when it comes to being stacked up against their competitors but they really mean a lot more to me these days since their service is something i find myself genuinely using more and more frequently you guys know i have carpal tunnel syndrome which has been preventing me from playing many video games in my free time which means i've been spending more and more time doing stuff like trying to learn languages which has never been easier since surf sharks of vpn allows me to see all the local region locked content from pretty much any country in the world i want for the videos i'm making i can often find myself on some old sketchy websites trying to dig up resources from gaming history which can be a bit scary at times but thanks to surf shark i get an extra layer of encryption to help protect me from something as complex as trying to ensure privacy not letting your isp spy on what you're browsing to something as simple as just wanting to watch your favorite tv show that's on a different region's netflix surf shark really does provide a lot and if you sign up using my code today you can get a pretty sweet deal just click the link in the description down below and use code gba 99 at checkout to get 83 off your order plus three months free the best deal that they currently offer it helps support me obviously but surf shark really does have a seriously great product so i highly recommend you give them a shot one of the most eventful years in league of legends history was 2013 when riot games first started the lcs in north america and europe gone were the days of independent tournaments scattered across the year with inconsistent rule sets and qualifying structures from now on league of legends would aim to be more like a real sport official leagues would pop up all over the world with regular seasons and playoff structures that hoped to mimic what you see in traditional athletic competition it was an exciting time as most fans back then just wanted a more sustainable and viable ecosystem for their favorite players and teams to survive in but not all teams were up to the task of competition if i were to describe the first year of lcs in just a phrase i would use two words dynasties and disappointments the level of quality from team to team within lcs leagues varied pretty wildly at first some teams made winning look easy and started dynasties that last even to this day while others played so poorly it looked like they wouldn't be able to win a game to save their lives this is why we had promotion and relegation for the first five seasons of competition if you were a team who finished poorly at the end of a split then you would have to play through a relegation series against the best teams coming from the amateur scene winner got a spot in lcs this system worked pretty well at first as it allowed new talented players to constantly filter into the lcs whenever a poorly placing team wasn't up to snuff anymore but as time went on fewer and fewer amateur teams were really able to compete even some of the best amateur stars with future lcs talent on their roster couldn't make a dent against some of the worst professional teams imaginable it should go without saying the challengers in these scenarios do have the odds stacked against them pretty heavily however bad an lcs team was they were still a multi-million dollar brand who could spend loads of cash on players and coaches amateur teams by comparison were normally just five solo queue players who came together and invented a goofy name if you were an amateur team you would have to have a seriously large amount of talent to knock off a professional lcs squad and make it to the show yourself but every once in a while a team was talented enough to do just that sinners never sleep taken down against all authority and earning their place in the european lcs after the very first split of lcs we saw a somewhat legendary organization in against all authority get completely overpowered by a random amateur squad who played under the name sinners never sleep this team who eventually rebranded two lemon dogs was the brainchild of coach and manager inner flame a bright mind in the league scene who still works as an analyst for sk gaming today the roster was made up of almost all new faces to the pro scene but had proved themselves in a few amateur events prior to this in fact the team finished top two in every single tournament they had entered up until this point apart from one where they forfeited after their roster wasn't able to make it to their game league fans from europe probably know a lot of the faces on this team as a few modern day stars first got their professional careers kickstarted here tabs nuke duck mithy and dexter were all talented players that would go on to have long careers some of which are still playing or working in the scene today but amongst all this talent there was one player who stood out the top laner for lemon dogs was an 18 year old danish kid who went by the name zorro zero real name morton rosenquist zorro didn't seem like much of a standout compared to the rest of his peers at first the entirety of the lemon dogs roster worked together as a cohesive unit to win promotion into the lcs and once in lcs these rookies experienced some growing pains together as in their first few games they struggled a bit adjusting to the new level of talent they were now facing while the team was able to win some games they understandably lost more and after three weeks into their first split they had put together a relatively mediocre four and six record falling pretty far down the standings but that's when something clicked right now he's being gained by dexter yeah he's actually gonna try and go he's away from this one and he is gonna pull up here but chance of escape not gonna happen for him first blood coming down there and he was caught took the wrong turn comes in they do manage to get their belly slammed down but look at the damage already turning back around he's just hit he's gone down like roadkill diamond though will be a slippery but he does manage to get the hell about but look at that nixon just comes in he's to be burning down the cannon gets on towards alex easily will he be knocked neither crescendo comes across it's a double kill for dexter he's going to go towards darker as well it should be another kill i don't know honestly i'm impressed i'm struggling to find any answers right now so where this lemon dogs team has come from lemon dogs had figured something out and were quickly rising on a trajectory that would go on to place them as one of the best teams in all of europe shortly into the split the team realized that their top laner zorro zero was so talented he could mostly be left to fend for himself zoro would seemingly always win his own lane in dominating fashion and even had enough time left over to go and win his teammates lanes for them as well especially with the blue buff he loves to push as much as possible with ninja tower but zoroz is coming from the back they're trying to go for a kill on him they do manage to put the death mark down it will pop him where he stands his passive was not available and just like that they wiped anivia off the map all of lemon dog's roster was talented and able to build advantages for themselves and kills and cs but few saw such dominating performances as 0 did top lane even with the rough start to begin the year zoro would finish the split above two-thirds kill participation getting the highest cs per minute and the highest average goal share of any top laner in the eu lcs stats can be a fickle thing in league of legends so maybe it's more impressive to just say that zorro was the star player who helped carry his team to a first place finish in lemondog's very first split a rookie team having this kind of explosive success was pretty uncanny they were bound to see some level of come down which came in the form of a second place finish in the following playoffs but this still marked the birth of a new dynasty led by a talented top lane prodigy who still had so much more to show the world the second place finish in playoffs qualified lemon dogs for that year's world championship which was an achievement unto itself i don't think i have to tell you that for anyone to go from the amateur scene at the start of the year to worlds the very next fall well that's insanely impressive the team would experience many highs and lows at that world championship most of the highs being credited to zoro himself leading up to the event when all teams competing moved to north america to practice and participate zoro would get challenger on the north american servers faster than anyone else getting better records and a better win loss ratio than even faker himself the actual event of worlds didn't go quite as well for the team although that might have not been entirely their fault that year's world championship had a fairly strange structure to it that included a group stage consisting of two groups of five although lemon dogs finished third in their group that would still be enough to send them home as just the top two teams made it out lemon dogs got the short end of the stick here as they had two powerhouse teams in their group who were all but predestined to finish in standings ahead of them even so this was a valuable experience for the team as it provided international practice for a roster that was still made up of almost all rookies during most of the games played 00 was able to successfully go toe-to-toe against world-class top laners which included a few games where he outright carried his team to victories the same way he did back in europe things were looking up for the squad as their superstar top was developing well and they would likely be favorites to win in europe next split the future couldn't be brighter for the org which made the headlines we all saw the next day incredibly stunning less than a year after forming officially lemon dogs decided to split up this decision seemed to come from discord in their roster as apparently a few players believed they could accomplish more apart than they ever could together specifically the team's jungler dexter would leave to go play for the legendary north american organization clg after he expressed discontent having to play in a super supportive play style around mid lane lemon dog sadie kerry tabs would also move on playing for alliance in europe which was a pretty impressive org and move in its own right the remaining players would stay together and continue competing as a unit although it wouldn't be on lemon dogs as there was something interesting going on behind the scenes at the time shortly after worlds a major deal would occur between the lemon dogs roster and another eu lcs team ninjas in pajamas nip was coming off a disappointing summer performance that sent them into a relegation series but they were still a pretty large and rich organization who had a foothold in other esports like counter-strike being the influential esports org that they were they hoped to use some of their financial success to find a solution this resulted in nip buying out what remained of the lemon dog's roster signing zorro zero nuke duck mithy and the team substitute mr rales this created a bit of confusion amongst fans who thought that nip was buying the lemon dogs organization itself but that wasn't the case these remain two separate teams which meant that nip after their previous poor performance would still have to play through their promotion relegation series with a newly acquired roster consisting of many first-place finishers from the previous split everyone thought it was basically a formality for nip to re-qualify they would end up facing an all-polish roster named kyadish miyam team almost all national teams like this have very rarely had any success against multinational squads in europe throughout league of legends history and couple that with the raw talent and super stardom nip had not many people gave kmt a chance but and they're just gonna catch it double kill by nidalee this could be it d man well ninjas in pajamas suddenly turned this game on its head and kmt drive through their base it was nip that were looking but it was kmt that found them and this is ninjas in pajamas going out of the lts we have ourselves a second new team ladies and gentlemen it is kmt in what might have been the greatest upset of season 3 nip got swept three games to zero by kmt this polish squad actually turned out to be much better than people gave them credit for as they were led by young superstars vander and yankos who of course would go on to have massive success in eu even to this day but in 2014 nobody saw this coming it felt like a tragedy to see the former first place finishers sent down to the amateur circuit but it turns out they would still get a second chance while all of this was going on lemon dogs was busy making some pretty big mistakes in how they handled the start of 2014 after their original roster was released the team would put together a new roster to compete this team was featured at the battle of the atlantic 2013 between north america and europe but performed pretty poorly so around this time rumors started floating that management might be looking to sell i don't believe this has ever been confirmed but the rumor was lemon dogs wanted out and were looking to sell the organization along with the lcs spot and if true that might explain what happened next leading up to the 2014 spring split lemon dogs wouldn't submit proper paperwork to register their new lineup for the team they would be hounded by riot multiple times to do so but simply never did possibly because they were so focused on selling the organization they didn't think they'd be around to compete anyway but because they missed out on a few deadlines lemon dogs would be forcibly removed from the eu lcs entirely this meant that there was one opening left and the three losing squads from the previous promotion stage would be given a second shot in a one-time only play-in nip were now given a chance where on january 11th they were slated to kick off this event and with just a few victories they could still qualify for lcs but by the time their first game rolled around they didn't show up when it was their time to play nip couldn't field a full lineup this wasn't a live event but rather was played online with players competing from their home computers and it turned out that 0 hadn't updated his client in a while he was waiting for a patch to download which took so long that it disqualified nip from this event the team would now be sent back down to the amateur scene this was obviously a huge disappointment for the squad but they'd sold iran and continue working towards improvement and re-qualification the extra time in amateur might have been a blessing in disguise especially for their top laner zorro who immediately redeemed himself for that faux pas see this was the period of time in league history when top lane first switched metas up until this point top had been pretty exclusively a carry roll where bruiser specialists like hotshot gg and wicked could single-handedly take over a game as well as mage mains like shushe or expec a lot of the players from this time period are fondly remembered even to this day for how talented they were in their ability to carry games but season 4 brought all of that to an end a series of balance changes took place over the year that resulted in carry champions becoming less viable in favor of tanks suddenly these hard carry specialists had to completely reinvent and adjust their playstyles if they wanted to remain relevant which a lot of them couldn't this marked the decline and eventual downfall of many early season stars which resulted in a lot of these guys retiring but not 0. somehow zoro became even better than he was before in this new tank meta he was able to seamlessly transition the way he applied pressure with carry oriented bruisers and mages into doing the exact same thing with tanks in a time when most top laners were getting worse zorro got better suggesting that his best play was yet to come nip would go on to win almost everything they entered in the 2014 spring amateur circuit only not getting first place in a few events when the team did come up short 0-0 was still a shining beacon of talon even winning his lane in these lost games he was growing as a person and as a player reaching new heights that left a lot of people excited to continue watching his career with interest by the end of spring nip had easily cruised to qualify for promotion as the number one team coming from amateur meaning they would be going up against the last place team from the lcs's previous split millennium nip's victory seemed all but predestined after a complete stop in game one that saw zoro zero getting a perfect kda with nearly perfect play game 2 was headed in the same direction signifying we might be in store for a clean 3-0 sweep but this time millennium was able to stall the game out even though nip had a 20k gold lead for most of the game they couldn't close the match out until the 71 minute mark when they made a mistake they should mean the tower for millennium yeah they are going to throw in that damage coming up towards kevin they dive in towards the back side this is mitty that's right in the middle of them he may just go down he will fall freezes the half hp 0-0 has gone down as well it's now a five versus three this is surely it for millennium nib has to flash away a millennium after 72 minutes then what feels like an eternity hiding inside their base turn it around and pick up games this may have rattled the team a bit as they would end up dropping the next game as well but they would still rebound in a dominating fashion to win game 4 tying the series up and getting momentum back on their side 0 had crushed his lane in pretty much every single one of these games for what it's worth even though his top lane counterpart was getting to pick way more useful late game scaling champions like jax and ryze he was doing a really good job of shutting him down for as long as possible and still being as useful as he possibly could be still his fate along with the rest of nips would rest in the hands of this single game five he's still inside of that brush and here they are they're gonna come in they've managed to land the dog fighting on towards mithy they're to force him to flash her surely or will he just go down one more also attack will do it and it's the first one coming in for irelia meanwhile nixon this is bad news for jerry of course uses flash in that last encounter mickey going to come into this one throw down the ultimate doesn't even need to jerry just go down in the end and call it from freeze from going back the chain's actually missing ultimate here to get a bit more damage down there's the dive in death not going to go up but i think knuckles gonna die slow comes already gone down millennium pick that one up are they gonna look for the fight there is actually the jumping i'm not sure that missy really wants that one they're going to blow into pieces it's jay rita gets a kill in the end the inhibitor goes down to half they're going to go towards creating there is the damage coming in good black shield and now zoro zero has to back away car next down to less than half alberto he's gonna be able to walk up but now zero zero flashes he's gonna fall he's now five versus four millennium go on to the nexus turrets new dog does come across he's gonna go for creation but he's dead as aura zoo against that is going to be game here four millennium they get another kill the nexus joints are already down there's a shutdown coming in for kevin at the end and only the nexus stands and there it is millennium win the game three to two and secure their spot in the lcs following the disappointing performance nip would release most of their roster including zoro zero although he was a part of a team that had just failed to qualify for the eu lcs twice his future still seemed incredibly bright as the greater league of legends community was able to immediately recognize how good he had become both casual fans as well as other pro players recognized that he could very well be one of the best western top laners in the scene right now shortly after becoming a free agent wicked who was one of the best top laners in europe up until that point was quoted as saying if i was forced to step down and had to find a replacement for myself i would want 0-0 he's the toughest player i've ever faced and i'm saying that while having competed at ogn and worlds it seemed all but inevitable that zoro would soon be on another team as a few rumors started floating around about where exactly he might land before long it was all but confirmed that zoro would be forming a super team with clg counter logic gaming had an impressive history up until that point and was coming off a third place finish in the nalcs but had one glaring flaw in top lane the team had a storied history with hotshot gg previously being their top laner who at one point was arguably the best top in the world but after he retired from dealing with the tank meta the team was floundering a bit with the position they had most recently roll swapped an 80 carry player named nien tonso to top lane and had been playing with him for a while yen had shown some promise in the role and had a lot of great games but he was also starting to suffer from the tank meta and wasn't performing up to the quality of the rest of the team an upgrade like zoro zero would create a team that would immediately become championship contenders in north america as he might be the missing puzzle piece this move made sense for other reasons as well like zoro would be able to reunite with his old lemon dog's buddy dexter who of course had joined the team earlier and had been playing jungle for them ever since to reunite with his old friend join one of the biggest brands in the world and finally get to compete in a top league again that was a very sweet deal being offered it seemed all but confirmed that zoro would be headed over to north america especially after a few teasing tweets suggesting that he was going off to a new exciting opportunity everyone's hype train was blasting full steam ahead when suddenly news broke that the deal was cancelled 0 wasn't only not joining clg but he was taking a break from competitive league of legends this was announced by ongamers.com which had an interview with zoro that detailed the multitude of reasons for his decision amongst the many listed 00 wanted to go back to school as he was one year off from graduating he also said that he believed moving to north america would lead him to miss family and friends and stated that clg's larger-than-life brand didn't tempt him as much as others had thought zoro would conclude the interview by saying that he's not done for good and floated the idea of returning to the scene after his studying concluded as disappointing as this was it still generated a bit of excitement for when he'd come back and which team he would end up joining fans didn't have to wait long before getting excited as after about six months of studying zoro started making a tentative return to league he started by streaming a climb back up to challenger on twitch where everyone in the community quickly remembered his talent as he rocketed up the solo queue ladder incredibly fast proving he hadn't lost much luster and his best years were still ahead other pros built further on this hype like wicked who repeated in another ama zoro zero is still the best top laner that i had the most problems laning against it always felt like i was fighting uphill before long lcs teams began floating offers to zoro leaving the community to wait and see where he'd choose to go first elements in europe made a bid to try and pick him up which seemed like the most likely candidate to sign him this was a team that consisted of the remnants of alliance who had won an lcs split not long ago and had a pretty stacked roster it seemed like a perfect fit for zoro specifically as once again he would be able to reunite with old teammates dexter and tabs who were playing for the squad at the time but then a brazilian team named paynegaming came in out of nowhere and apparently outbid elements soon news outlets were reporting that 00 would be continuing his career by moving off to brazil which seemed to be confirmed by zoro himself in a tweet that came out shortly after the news broke but then it turned out this move to brazil was only an offer but 0 had turned it down zorro in fact was not making a return this tweet in retrospect was simply mocking the reporting of this supposed move rather than confirming it and sadly this was the last we've heard of him after this tweet zoro wouldn't ever post on his twitter again he wouldn't stream or interact with the community in any way he ghosted everyone leaving fellow pros and fans in the dark wondering what he was up to and we wouldn't get an answer to that for a while a few fans believe that there might still be a shot he could return and recapture some of his old magic that is until esports journalist thorin interviewed his old teammate nuke duck who let us all know that he wasn't coming back is there a a reason do you like do you think we'll ever see zoro zero as a pro player again no is it surprising he's just never come back no he will never come back he's in the army now and he's like living real life like he he barely even plays other games too anymore like it will be a miracle if you see him like a christmas christmas miracle looking back on it now it was incredibly strange to see how all this unfolded one of the best players in league history who many called the next great top lane prodigy walked away from the game right when he was playing at his peak and when league was gaining more relevancy and opportunity than ever we can only guess why he chose to do so on the one hand there's something funny to be said that a prodigy league player would rather join the military than play league of legends professionally but on the other hand i think it's genuinely sad to see a great pro's potential never get realized nevertheless one thing we can say is it's certainly admirable to see someone give up fame riches and glory for what he probably saw on as just a more honest life thanks for watching

Channel: Gbay99

Views: 165,734

Keywords: League of Legends, esports, lolesports, Lemondogs, Zorozero, top lane, top laner, documentary, esports documentary, gbay99, gbay, EU LCS, LEC, 2021, lol esports, esports talk, lec 2021, lcs 2021, nukeduck, mithy, tabzz, lol, LoL, leagueoflegends, history of league, league of legends history, documentary league of legends, pro, league

Id: LADY2BjHxyM

Length: 28min 14sec (1694 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 28 2021