Photo: LoL Esports
For Europeans who swear by the LEC, we like to refer to the NA region as a " retirement home ". It must be said that the LCS sometimes have difficulty bringing out local talent and that the leaders of the structures do not hesitate to take out the blue card to recruit foreign players, sometimes a little aging... It is therefore not rare to see former Korean glories finish their career in America, with a big salary at stake.
Even if the term retirement home can be misinterpreted by dint of mockery, it is however very precise for once. A European dinosaur has decided to stop his career as a player to join a technical staff, in LCS .
Nukeduck: the end of an era
Erlend " Nukeduck " Våtevik Holm is 26 years old, which puts him in the high average of players. But if some categorize him as a grandpa, it's mainly because he's been active since 2011! In Europe, he went through many stables: Lemondogs, NIP, Roccat, Team Vitality, Schalke 04, Origen, Astralis... He is part of the furniture and not seeing him in the European league next year will be funny . We don't really know if his choice to move towards a coaching position at 100 Thieves (assistant coach of the LCS team) is forced, but we imagine that at his age he must not have received a lot of offers. LEC teams, who prefer to bet on young talents.
But let's still take the time to point out that Nukeduck is not a weakling. In 2022 he's been pretty good with EXCEL Esports. Solid and reliable, he fully participated in qualifying the structure for its first two playoffs. Often criticized, this veteran still deserves a little respect and we could have imagined seeing him continue a little more to frame with his experience of young players.
A very European technical staff at 100 Thieves
To mentor young players, Nukeduck will now take on the role of assistant coach at 100 Thieves. He will not be the only former LEC among the thieves. The list is very long :
- Kaas (former MAD Lions) will be the head coach in LCS
- Dan Dan (former Misfits Gaming) will be the headcoach in LCS Academy
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Kirei (former Schalke 04) will be the assistant coach in LCS Academy)
With such a technical staff, we would not be surprised to see European players also land.
As budding trainers in the Paldea region know, finding secret spices isn't easy. However, a player has just shocked all fans of the license by recovering colossal and above all... very rare loot!
