The Kid That Climbed From Poverty To Worlds | A League of Legends Documentary

the following story was originally made known to the world by danny two dogs a writer who detailed these events in an lpl player stories article on weibo it was then translated into english a number of times most notably by eye crystallization for medium.com this video is nothing more than an attempt to further spread this incredible heartbreaking story so please give credit where it's due to the original authors in the links down below [Music] was born on may 20th 2001 and from that moment onward he would lead one of the most difficult lives imaginable his parents raised him in dongjing a port city in the guangxi region of china but before long at a time when he was only 12 years old huang fun was abandoned by his parents for the next three years he'd have to learn how to take care of himself while living completely on his own how to prepare his own meals make sure he finishes his school work get enough sleep every night he was completely left to fend for himself before he had even become a teenager but luckily for him he managed to find a way to survive and eventually the world did show his life a little kindness he'd make a few friends at school who'd help him get through some of his worst days as well as meeting some good teachers who also helped guide him in life when he faced tough decisions even the port city he grew up in took care of him in a sense as any time his life got too stressful or frustrating he'd always be nearby a beach where he could go and hear the crashing of the ocean waves letting them wash his problems away but maybe the greatest stroke of luck he had came in the form of a computer that his father left behind in his room before moving out which he mainly used to play league of legends and in spite of all the odds and all the hardship he faced one day this 12 year old kid would grow up to become one of the best ad carries in the world myself a computer a school a classmate that's enough i can go on just like that is like the future of the lp in my opinion he is going to be like a jackie love in the future like this guy i think is so individually talented it's insane imagine for a moment you're a kid again and all throughout your childhood your mom constantly asks you if your father and i separated who would you choose to be with that was the reality of tong huang fun's childhood his parents would constantly fight and bring him into their arguments asking the poor kid impossible questions that nobody in his situation would ever be able to answer he'd try to hide in his room playing games to get away from their disagreements but the walls of the small home they all shared were paper-thin and could never really do much as time went on things would eventually get worse and worse until it all came to an irreversible head one day while tong and his mother were living together when his father was off away living with his own extended family one day his mother came home packed up her suitcase and left without saying a word from that moment on huang fun had to learn how to take care of himself while still just in his second semester of middle school the only outside support he'd received from family was in the form of 201 that his father would send him about twice a month for reference 201 is the equivalent of around 29 us dollars tong still kept in loose contact with his father over the years which one year in particular resulted in his dad taking him to a family gathering to celebrate the upcoming new year tong had never felt at home with his father's extended family so during the celebration he'd sneak away with two of his cousins to a nearby internet cafe the place was emptied due to the holiday so the three of them decided to stay there all night long grinding league of legends each one of the trio playing one of the three demacian bruiser champions a popular strategy at the time chinese fans called the bromance of demacia when the sun finally rose and it was time to head back to the party the three of them trudged along a trail making conversation until one of them remarked off the cuff let's go pro one day they all agreed to do so although it's questionable how possible that feat really was at the time the three of them were just in platinum a long ways off from being anywhere near a professional level in league but eventually huang fun took those words to heart and began working on improving his play every hour he could each morning he'd wake up at 5am just to play a game of solo queue before heading off to school where he'd participate in class until his two-hour lunch break which he used as another opportunity to bike home quickly play a few more games of solo queue and then return to school again while in class he'd work extra hard to finish all of his work avoiding anything having to be done at home so when he got back home he could get back to grinding out matches until around 11 in the evening before going to bed and repeating the process again the following day all of this while being the sole head of his small household by the time his school year came to an end huang fun had climbed all the way up to diamond 1 soon moving to the chinese super server and then hit masters hovering around 200 to 300 lp amazingly enough throughout all of this huangpun was also excelling as a student he reached the top of his class was eventually placed in honors programs and had a really bright future in his education if he chose to pursue it but eventually he came to know what future he really wanted for himself and halfway through his first year of high school he'd drop out deciding now was the time to go pro in league upon deciding to pursue professional law huang fun immediately began sending his resume off to any and all pro teams he could find but the responses he received were fairly demoralizing he'd simply not hear back from most orgs whereas the ones that did bother to respond only told him he wasn't high enough ranked to join their rosters and to come back when he was better but eventually he did catch a bit of a break an internet cafe in yingshon ninja had an owner that was interested in starting his own pro league of legends team and floated an offer for huang fun to be the team's starting ad carry the salary was 3 000 won a month and with it being his only option he accepted now ying chuan is more than 2 600 kilometers almost directly north of huang fen's hometown of dongjing basically on the opposite side of china it was a serious distance to move but this was a serious life decision that had his full confidence before tong left his father told him if you're gonna go pro then do this properly if it doesn't work out come back and join the military his time on the internet cafe team was a fairly bittersweet experience on reflection huang fun was happy that he was finally able to compete in a semi-professional setting but he was still caught in a very rough living situation the team house he now resided in was somehow worse than his old home back in dongjing the shower head was broken it was small and dirty and there was no place for anyone to wash their clothes and on top of all of this his teammates weren't always super encouraging at one point a former lpl player joined the team and had a discussion with huang fun where he told him straight up you can't make it into the lpl only a dozen or so people in this world can make it there so why would it be you as demoralizing as all this must have been huang fun seemed to take it in stride happy to be getting his shot at a competitive environment and it seemed as though he was about to start his climb to becoming an lpl 80 carry here although there was a little bit of a hiccup at the start of 2018 china was beginning a new competitive league the ldl or lol development league this tier of competition was meant to be an academy league below china's lpl that could be used to develop future stars of the game and qualifiers to compete in one of its four regional groups were open to all well huang fun and his internet cafe team practiced and practiced for these qualifiers and after a lot of grinding they managed to play well enough to qualify for the 2018 opening spring season seemingly as if to celebrate the team then moved into a fancy new villa that was a much better living situation than what they had before however it would later be revealed that the owner of this team sold their ldl spot to another organization for cash that he used to move the team into their new living quarters when he learned of this huang fun left the team and headed back home this must have been heartbreaking obviously for the young ad carey but he did now have the experience of competition and had proven to himself as well as others that he was good enough to play in the ldl so before the start of 2018's summer split an old friend of huang fans named leon was jungling for a team that needed a marksman that team was woo do the sister team of snake esports upon seeing wong thing's potential they offered a starting spot for him on the team which he eagerly accepted and was now in a position to finally play on stage after all these years and all this hardship huang fun would finally be able to make a competitive debut in front of everyone as a real professional player and as luck would have it he'd get to play his main champion in his opening season game [Music] draven foreign at the end of his first competitive match huang fun finished six three and five on draven picking up a win although sadly wu do would lose their best of series dropping the next two games still they'd pick themselves back up as the season went on improving a ton and finishing the year with a 9-5 record getting third place in the western region standings unfortunately because they didn't play in the spring season they didn't have enough qualifying points to make it to the playoffs and ended their season on a somewhat somber note when all was said and done though huang fun had a fairly good split for his first competitive season on stage he'd contribute to one of the more successful teams racking up plenty of playing time and a 60 win rate overall while playing in a role that's valued very highly in the region with tons of competition out there that being said he did have some issues in his play that he would need to work on namely he ended the split with some of the lowest cs per minute among ad carries in his region as his mechanics weren't as good as they could be on top of this he also had way higher than average deaths per game ratios compared to other 80 carries out there as he was prone to occasionally getting caught out and dying in poor ways with bad positioning and other errors but he was determined to try and fix any and all problems in his gameplay and began endlessly grinding matches in solo queue to do so over the years he had developed a bit of a habit of working himself to the bone on improving sleeping less than five hours some nights just so he could squeeze in more practice at this point on woo do he began turning his attention to climbing the solo queue ladder on the korean server a server whose solo queue environment is known for being the most competitive in the world almost akin to pro level scrimmages by the end of the year huang fun would eventually see the fruits of his labor as he was promoted to challenger in korea that very same day he hit challenger wu do cut him from their team the end of 2018 saw china winning its very first league of legends world championship in the form of invictus gaming triumphing over europe's fanatic three games to zero that following offseason their ldl academy squad ig young was trying to build a sort of super team in china's secondary league they had recently acquired a jungler who they believed to be an up-and-coming future superstar that they wanted to build a team who could play around him who was none other than leon from woo do once again as this team was building their roster leon asked that they consider huang fun for a.d carey igy agreed and they would end up reuniting the duo the following spring split the team was put under a lot of pressure to perform as the coaching staff adopted a strict almost militaristic approach to training each player had goals that were set for them by the team that they were expected to achieve by the end of the split and although they started off the year strong finishing 17-7 and fourth overall in the regular season perhaps it was that added pressure that players were under that contributed to a disappointing early exit in the spring playoffs that followed as an individual player huang fun did manage to improve his mechanics a lot in this period of time his cs per minute rose to become one of the highest in the region but maybe more importantly his deaths fell to become one of the lowest as he developed much cleaner gameplay making fewer mistakes overall but there was still one area of his play that needed improving he was shy growing up having to take care of himself completely alone and being unable to trust or rely on anyone else that resulted in tong growing up as a very quiet kid as smart as he was he would rarely share his opinions with strangers which extended to not really sharing his opinions with teammates in league of legends which could certainly be a bit of a problem at times in a professional setting but thankfully an unexpected savior would come into tong's life that helped shepherd him to an incredibly bright future that savior was a new coach named gokui igy's management was really unhappy with their spring results so much so to a point where they ditched their old militaristic approach instead bringing in a new younger coach that worked on a more emotional level with the players that coach was goku a former ldl top laner who was recently playing on oh my dream just that previous split goku was interesting in the way that he approached managing the team in that he really worked on building up players spirits more so than their mechanics he'd constantly try to remind the players that this wasn't a job that they were in because they fell into it or anything because friends or family wanted it it was because they had drive and ambition and this was something they wanted to do for themselves the focus of goku's coaching seemed to be on building the team's ambition communication and teamwork above all else he was known to encourage team bonding exercises outside of league of legends doing stuff like escape rooms to try and help build trust and communication skills between players this sort of thing had never really happened with this group of guys before and occasionally they would find themselves freezing up if they got stuck on a particularly hard escape room or something but goku would always encourage them and use the opportunity to draw parallels with league it's okay this is a team game you have to believe in your teammates we can do this this player-focused coaching style he employed was a gigantic success and in particular allowed him to make pretty close connections with huang fun gokui was almost astounded at how hard he found huang fun working recalling stories of times that the team would be going out to dinner together everyone excited to have a meal except for huang fung who would decide to stay behind because he believed his mechanics weren't good enough last week so he wanted to grind an extra two solo queue games of practice instead he is the person who worked hardest on the team no one else could compare before long huang fun continued improving at a drastic rate quickly developing the mechanics that could easily turn him into the next great lpl marksman at this point he just needed to prove himself in the next ldl split to get a shot and right before the season began he would be given a little extra motivation to do so at the midpoint between splits leon was promoted to invictus gaming's main roster at the time huangfun couldn't help but feel a little bit of envy for his old friend who seemingly kept on moving on to greener pastures before himself but he'd quickly turn that envy into a very healthy motivation i'll catch up to leon i'll carry him i can't let him carry me all the time before the start of the summer ldl split huang fun went to gokui with a request have the team play around me i'll be the carry he said and boy was he right [Music] so [Music] igy would finish the summer ldl split with an 18-6 record getting second in the regular season and shortly after that crushed the following playoffs to win the summer split huang fun in a matter of a few splits went from one of the most underappreciated 80 carries struggling to find an opportunity on the outside looking in to an ldl champion the next step was to find an opportunity on an lpl team in china's top league where huang fun could finally prove himself against the best in the world and maybe even make it to international competition one day but that would be a lot easier said than done shortly after winning the ldl huangfun was given a tryout with jd gaming who at the time was a middle of the pack lpl team that had recently missed out on playoffs and was looking for a new marksman the stress and the nervousness he felt during this tryout though resulted in him playing pretty subpar and jdg ultimately passed on signing him deciding instead to pick up the korean import loken it seemed as though this rejection was the straw that broke the camel's back for a moment huang fun told his coach afterwards that he didn't want to do any more tryouts period he felt like he was trash he was done all of the stress and the anger and frustration from all the experiences he'd been put through these past few years just came to a head but thankfully goku didn't let him give up after a lot of bickering and arguing he eventually convinced huang fun to keep trying out after taking a short break to visit his hometown which he did but upon returning afterwards the rest of his tryouts went equally as terribly as almost every single lpl team rejected him but then right before the transfer window closed one team saw his potential for what it really was sooning a relatively new up-and-coming team in the lpl gave him a tryout liked what they saw and signed huang fun to be their starting 80 carry for 2020 sooning turned out to be one of the best possible landing spots for huang fun their top laner is binh another young up and coming rookie who was playing in the ldl throughout 2019 as well they share a lot of similarities the two players in that they're both young rising stars who are eager to prove themselves and whose usernames in game are also just taken from their real life names the jungler of the team sofm is vietnamese another happy coincidental connection when huang fun first met him he talked about how he could actually see vietnam from his hometown dongjing sits on the border with vietnam which is no more than a small river that separates the two nations sooning also made a very smart decision in pairing huang fun with a veteran support player bot lane in the likes of sword art coming from the legendary taiwanese team flash wolves sword art is a veteran of the competitive league of legends scene in every sense of the word he's been to five world championships making a quarterfinals in 2015 and in the era of korean dominance sword art and flash wolves managed to beat some of the best rosters korea ever constructed including the coup tigers king zone dragon x the afrika freaks and sk telecom t1 multiple times when these teams were all in their prime he's no stranger to big moments so to pair him with the young rookie huangfen was a smart idea in that he could provide a nice calming presence giving perspective and a partner for the young up-and-comer to rely on if he ever felt the pressure getting to him sword art would even later talk about how he intentionally lowered the level of mechanical intensity he played with so as to instead focus on communication to help with wangfun's development and ever since then they've developed a really nice sort of big brother little brother kind of bond with sword art always finding himself impressed at how hard his lane partner works he practices so much he's that kind of person who really puts his back into it and every time i see this i'll think about myself when i just started out as a pro player not wanting anything outside the game just thinking about playing better and here we are in 2020 some seven years after being abandoned by his parents and living alone growing up in poverty it seems like all of huang fun's hard work is finally paying off this past summer split sooning finished with the highest result the organization has ever had in the lpl reaching fourth place in the 17 team league and capping off their regular season by beating the defending world champions fpx in the final game in the final series of the 2020 summer split sooning show up absolutely ginormous huang fun led his team to not only a great summer split finish but was also able to lead them far enough in the playoffs and the regional finals to qualify as china's number three seed at the 2020 world championship a long way to come since his humble beginnings even today huang fun remains a fairly shy and introspective person he's known for sometimes taking a subway trip around wherever he is getting off at each spot and just wandering around a bit so he can have some time alone with his thoughts he craves that kind of time and opportunity to himself especially when his life is crazy and chaotic but no matter where he goes no place out there can calm him like the ocean side of his hometown after going pro whenever i'm feeling anxious as long as i go to any place related to the sea i'll feel at ease he remains one of the most incredible and inspiring stories that exists right now in the world of league of legends but one thing i think to take away from this story maybe more so than anything else is at the time of making this video he's still only 19 years old and likely has a lot more he'll accomplish in the future when danny two dogs finished his original article and posted it online huang fun reached out to him and said your story has an end but my esports story will only end when i become the best player in the world thank you very much for watching my documentary if you'd like to support my channel and see me make more of these videos in the future please consider pledging to my patreon but above all please again give credit to danny two dogs and i crystallization by supporting them on their social media accounts as well as with their articles in the links down below

Channel: Gbay99

Views: 579,317

Keywords: League of Legends, Worlds, Worlds 2020, League of Legends World Championship, LoL Esports, HuanFeng, ADC, Documentary, Esports, Suning, Huan, Feng, Gbay99, Gbay, Invictus Gaming, IG Young, IGY, LPL, LDL, WuDu, The Boy Arrived at the Seaside, Suning HuanFeng, HuanFeng Suning, HuanFeng Story, History

Id: WPj_GKJi2A8

Length: 24min 35sec (1475 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2020