Caps is considered the Best Mid Laner to have ever touched European League of Legends. He is known for being the pride of the LEC and is often mentioned alongside the greatest names in League of Legends. He is seen as the happiest and most cheerful player in the LEC because he’s always seen wearing a big smile. He is beloved by the fans not only for his personality but also because of his weird League of Legends playstyle. Let’s discover the beginnings of Caps League of Legends career and how he became the superstar that everyone knows him to be today.
Caps League of Legends Beginnings
Caps began playing League of Legends at the young age of 15 with Enigma Esports at 2015. He first began taking an interest playing MOBA games after which his brother, Christopher “Ryze” Winther, play Dota 2 professionally. Caps was a solo queue star as he was seen as a mechanically gifted player who has yet to reach his peak. He, later on, began playing on different teams for short durations, trying to experiment on how far he can take his career playing League of Legends professionally.
Caps was seen as a gifted player but none of the European Organizations would invest on a player who can’t even play at Worlds yet because of how young he was. He and a bunch of other European Players who Bought Smurf Accounts In Turkey played in Turkey and caught the attention of a lot of teams. He eventually joined Dark Passage, a Turkish team, where he played professionally at the Turkish Championship League for the Summer Split.
Dark Passage won the Summer Split in a dominant fashion, a lot of it was thanks to what Caps brought to the table. Dark Passage qualified for Worlds at 2016 but because of the age restriction to compete internationally, Caps wasn’t able to attend and so neither did Dark Passage. Caps knew that he could finally compete at worlds when he was 17 so he only had to compete for 1 more year and win the Summer Playoffs another time. Although, he decided that his time at Turkey has come to an end.
The Introduction of Fnatic Caps
Fnatic was looking to rebuild its team in 2017 around their superstar AD Carry – Rekkles – after a very unsuccessful Summer Playoffs. sOAZ returned to the top lane, Broxah was promoted from Fnatic Academy, Jesiz was recruited from North America, and finally, Caps had to fill up the Mid Laner. For a young player like Caps, Fnatic was probably the best organization he could have joined considering how legendary their name was in European League of Legends history.
Caps League of Legends career suddenly took a sudden shift. He played really well during his first season at the EU LCS in 2017, where he quickly forced people to notice him. Rekkles and Caps carried Fnatic to the Spring Playoffs where they would eventually fall to G2 Esports in the Semifinals and win the 3rd Place Match. For Fnatic, placing 3rd was a sign that their rebuild wasn’t a complete failure and they’ll only come back stronger once they make it to the Summer Split.
Fnatic decided to keep their roster into the Summer Split, aside from the coaching staff, so that they won’t have to go through too many adjustments coming into the season. Surely enough, Fnatic managed to dominate the Summer Split and take 1st place in their group. Unfortunately, Misfits Gaming would humble Fnatic during the Playoffs to end their run at 3rd place again. Fnatic wouldn’t waste this chance though so they dominated the Regional Finals to secure a 3rd seed slot at Worlds.
Competing at Worlds was Caps League of Legends dream. They managed to cleanly get out of Play-ins but Groups was a different story altogether. Fnatic went 0-4 at the Group Stage but quickly gained traction at the 2nd Round Robin to win 2 games and put themselves in a 3-way tie in their group. Fnatic pulled off a miracle run as they beat both Gigabyte Marines and Immortals in the tiebreaker matches. Sadly, their miracle would be cut off as they would get defeated by Royal Never Give Up in the Quarterfinals.
Caps’ Story Continues…
Caps League of Legends career with Fnatic would continue in 2018 but the organization had to make more changes. The team introduced a rookie named Bwipo and Unicorns of Love superstar support – Hylissang – to replace sOAZ and Jesiz as starting players. This time, Fnatic was even more confident with their chances of competing both domestically and internationally. The players, organization, and fans were hopeful for 2018 and their wishes would later break their expectations.
The EU LCS 2018 Spring Split was Fnatic through and through. The team managed to dominate the region and place 1st with an 11-4 record. With Mithy and Zven leaving G2 Esports, the Playoffs was a breeze for Fnatic and they easily took down the rival organization 3-0. Caps would cement himself as a player who was considered as someone who was equal or even better than the great Perkz. Fnatic qualified for the Mid-Season Invitationals and Caps saw this as an opportunity to prove himself further.
The competition in MSI 2018 was fierce. Fnatic had to fight Team Liquid in a tiebreaker match to qualify for the Knockout Stage and won. Once again, however, Fnatic would get absolutely bodied by Royal Never Give Up, securing Uzi as the undisputed best AD Carry in the World. Caps and the rest of Fnatic went home but it wasn’t an outcome that left them hopeless for they needed to prepare for the true challenge which was Worlds.
In 2018, Fnatic was unrivaled and Caps stood at the helm. Rekkles had to take a hiatus from the scene because of the Marksman Update of 8.11 that killed marksmen in the bottom lane. It was up to Caps to carry Fnatic as their star player and sure enough, he managed to do it with flying colors and eventually won them the EU 1st Seed at Worlds. He even won MVP in both the regular season and the finals of the playoffs.
The Incredible Worlds 2018 Run
Fnatic looked absolutely unstoppable at 2018 and they were lucky enough to get an easy group with Invictus Gaming, 100 Thieves, and G-Rex in Group D. Needless to say, Fnatic took 1st place in that group and moved on to the Quarterfinals where they would face against EDward Gaming but defeated them 3-1. Fnatic would then face Cloud9 in the semifinals which would secure that at least 1 western team would finally make it to the finals since Season 1.
Cloud9 was beaten relatively easy so Fnatic and Caps only had to worry about the Finals. As Invictus Gaming beat G2 Esports 3-0 in the semifinals, the pressure was on for FNC to carry the European dream on their shoulders. Caps League of Legends career was at its peak and a series win could make his and Europe’s dreams come true. Fnatic thought that iG didn’t have the same drive as them to win that trophy. Unfortunately, Invictus Gaming poured their hearts and souls into the series and quickly swept Fnatic 3-0 to secure the first ever trophy for the LPL.
A Surprising Change
Caps League of Legends career had hit its peak with Fnatic so he thought that it was time for him to spread his wings even more. He left Fnatic to go to the most unexpected organization he could choose from – G2 Esports. Now, this was surprising because G2 Esports already had Perkz as a mid laner. As a bigger surprise to the fans, Perkz decided to make way for Caps to play as the starting Bot Laner for G2 Esports alongside their new support – Mikyx. Fortunately, mages and bruisers were still the meta in the bottom lane so they made it work.
G2 Esports with Caps managed to take 1st seed in the LEC. They undoubtedly the strongest team in the region during 2019. With Perkz down in the bottom lane, no other mid laner challenged Caps’ claim to be the best mid laner in Europe. 2019 was Caps League of Legends career peak. Fnatic didn’t make playoffs easy for G2 Esports as they took them to 5 games in both the Semifinals and Final Rounds but G2 and Caps managed to pull it off and secure a spot at MSI 2019.
MSI 2019: Europe’s Hopes and Dreams
G2 Esports were most certainly not the favorites coming into MSI 2019 with the SK Telecom T1 Superteam and defending champs, Invictus Gaming competing. Surprisingly, G2 Esports beat SK Telecom T1 in both games of the Group Stage but lost to iG and Vietnam’s Phong Vu Buffalos twice. G2 Esports managed to secure a spot in the MSI Knockout Stage and were up against SK Telecom T1. Even though they beat them in the Group Stage, the international fans know that Korea in a best-of-5 is a whole different beast.
SK Telecom T1 brought on the fire but G2 Esports finally came out on top in a 5-game series. On the other hand, Team Liquid surprisingly took down Invictus Gaming in the other side of the bracket which secured a Western Finals at Mid-Season Invitations. Even though G2 Esports were 1-1 against TL in the Group Stage, they managed to take the series 3-0 against the North Americans and took the trophy home for Europe. Needless to say, Caps was chosen as the Tournament MVP of MSI 2019.
Next Up: Worlds 2019!!!
With the Mid-Season Invitationals Trophy on-hand, G2 Esports became the tournament favorites. The western fans rallied behind G2 Esports and Caps was considered the best player in the tournament. G2 Esports managed to get out of groups as the 1st seed and beat both Damwon Gaming and SK Telecom T1 in the Knockout Stage where they would be called The Korean Slayers because of their recent record against Korean teams in 2019.
This was Caps 2nd Finals appearance and is one of two non-Korean players to have reached the Worlds Finals twice in a row (the other being Uzi). For this man, this was another chance and he had to make it right after failing at last year’s worlds. Unfortunately, Caps would again be denied by the Eastern Powerhouse of FunPlus Phoenix and was defeated again 0-3 in the finals. This made his World Finals record a total of 0-6, a record that would leave anyone in disdain.
Caps and the Future
Caps managed to secure himself and G2 Esports as the strongest in EU for the following years to come. 2020 was a difficult year for Esports because of the Covid-19 pandemic affecting the lives of both players and fans. Caps League of Legends career peaked in both 2018 and 2019 but a decline was seen in 2020, so much so that he played at the Bottom Lane temporarily in the Spring Season. They managed to win Spring 2020 but with no MSI that year, it was as far as he got.
G2 Esports won again in 2020 and competed at Worlds. However, they were eliminated by Damwon Gaming in the Semifinals. In Spring 2021, G2 Esports were seen as the favorites still but lost both to MAD Lions and Rogue which signaled the end of the G2 Esports & Fnatic supremacy in the LEC even though Rekkles rejoined him on G2. A lot of players are now questioning whether he has reached the end of the line or will continue being the best player in Europe still.
Why is Caps called Baby Faker?
In an interview, Caps said that solo queue players would call anyone who played good “Faker” but because of his age at the time (15 years old), he was instead called Baby Faker by everyone who knew him.