Joey: From Dreamer to Gamer and Back Again

Growing up in the Bay area, Joey’s earliest memories as a gamer paint a picture of family bonding and sibling rivalry.

Joey’s first introduction to gaming was through his brother and though his initial gaming thirst was quenched via console gaming, Joey made the switch to PC early on. To this day he continues to remember games like Age of Empires and Modern Warfare II fondly. His favorite game, however, was Runescape. From running to the library after school to play Runescape together for hours, to races to see who could hit challenger first, Joey and his brother discovered gaming together. It was nice to always have his brother around, “all of my friends in middle school and high school just played console so I was just kind of alone on PC.”



Despite being each other’s partners in crime, Joey credits the competitive nature of their relationship as the motivation behind his initial push towards becoming a better gamer. “He beat me to Challenger the first time," Joey remarks. But again, his competitive nature strikes, "other than that he was always behind me. I held Challenger but he dropped out of it."

Progaming aspirations have been something Joey’s held onto for years now. Though the videos have long since been deleted and the account forgotten, Joey found his start in the industry through gaming related content creation. Making “really bad” Runescape pk commentary videos and uploading them to YouTube was the first time Joey felt a strong desire to work in gaming. Over the years he bounced from game to game, even once considering a career as a COD pro, before finally landing in Challenger and setting his sights on League. It was during his second year in Challenger Joey realized that he could become a pro if he set his mind to it. According to Joey, he didn’t really give it his all until he heard there was going to be another Scouting Grounds.

So, Joey "went for it."

In terms of the Academy League Joey was mostly positive. Despite saying there is always room for improvement he insists that players have a much easier time making the leap from Challenger to Academy, and eventually into the LCS now than they ever did before. He admits that some incumbent players are all but impossible to replace but has a positive outlook on his future in the LCS. Joey sought out TL not necessarily to steal someone’s starting spot, but rather because he feels like TL is the best place for him to learn as a player — be it from the main LCS squad, from his coach, or even from his teammates. Joey is working hard to ensure that he is remembered as much more than a blip in the history of League of Legends. He understands it could be a while before he stands on the Worlds’ stage, but wants to stand on it as a well-known adversary nonetheless.



Joey and the rest of TL Academy will be taking their first steps towards notoriety this Thursday against CLG Academy in the NA Academy League Semi-finals match so make sure to tune in at 3:00 PDT to support the team! According to Joey’s predictions, TL Academy will take the series 3-1 and face C9 Academy in the finals! Make sure to include your predictions in your tweets with the #LetsGoLiquid!