Player Profiles: The Doublelift Story

North America’s Doublelift is one of the most prominent professional League of Legends players in the world. Often referred to as the Main Protagonist of the LCS, this player has quite the Cinderella story in rising to glory and becoming the face of NA League of Legends. Even though DL far from being the best at where they are right now, he is still a popular figure among players all around the world. What is the Doublelift Story that brought him to the peak of international prominence for the years to come?

Doublelift Story: Early Career

Doublelift wasn’t always the AD Carry monster that we know him to be today. When he was first scouted to join Counter Logic Gaming by HotshotGG in 2011, he was a support main know for his insane Blitzcrank hooks. He spent quite some time in CLG before kicked out and invited by Dan Dinh and Epik Gamer to compete in their roster for the Season 1 World Championships. In Epik Gamer, the team managed to place 4th after losing to both Fnatic and Team SoloMid in the Top 8 Bracket.

It was only when he left Epik Gamer that he finally role-swapped to the AD Carry position. He joined UnRestricted Gaming, later known as Team Curse, to become their starting AD Carry and continued to show NA that he was a player to be watched. He later left Team Curse again to join his old team in Counter Logic Gaming to become their starting AD Carry after his long-time friend – Chauster – role-swapped to the Support position to give him the spot as ADC.

The First Tragedy

After arriving back home from the tournament, Doublelift encountered the first tragedy of his Pro-Gaming career, he was kicked out of his home by his parents who didn’t support his decision. He then proceeded to announce on reddit that he was homeless which garnered the support of many from the League of Legends community. In the end, it was Travis Gafford, who is a prominent LoL esports journalist that willingly gave him a temporary home to stay in until he could get back on his feet.

This incident may have broken a lot of other people out there, but that wasn’t the case for Doublelift and his career. The surge of players who came to his aid and stood behind him essentially became the backbone of Doublelift’s fanbase. The tragic Doublelift story of how he became homeless and rose above became the defining moment of his career. For the years to come, Doublelift was fated to become the most celebrated players in the world.

Everyone Else is Trash

In every Doublelift story, you’ll hear mentions of him whipping out the Trash Talk in every interview. This man knew how good he was at the game, and he wanted to let everyone else know about it. The iconic phrase: “Everyone Else is Trash” became associated with his in-game persona and he was then dubbed as the King of Trash Talk. Nobody really knows for sure if he did this to attract attention or he genuinely believed this fact.

This stunt didn’t go as negatively as everybody would think it would go. In fact, majority of the fanbase loved the confidence emanating from the star AD Carry. His persona as the King of Trash Talk made everybody watch him more to see whether he could prove himself or was just all talk. Unfortunately, most of his games ended in defeat and he didn’t really win a major tournament to prove that he really was the best player in NA.

The First Championship

Counter Logic Gaming, filled with all these star players, was desperate to make their roster work and finally win a tournament. As a final gambit, CLG went on to hire a professional esports coach to help them improve overall teamplay and performance. It worked. CLG would continue to dominate the LCS and eventually win the 2015 Summer Finals, defeating Team SoloMid 3-0 in a dominant fashion.

After 4 years of playing with CLG, Doublelift decided to leave the team and join TSM. The Doublelift story finally moves on to the next chapter as North America’s star AD Carry was paired with one of the best supports in the world in YellowStar. Unfortunately, Doublelift would proceed to lose against his former team in the 2016 Spring Finals. His replacement, Stixxay, carried CLG to victory which was probably a huge blow to DL’s ego.

The Doublelift Story in TSM

In a controversial move, Doublelift would move from CLG to their biggest rivals – TSM. In Spring 2016, TSM looked dominant in the regular season, making it all the way to the Spring Finals where they eventually fell to CLG 2-3. Despite having the strongest lineup of talent during their time, it wasn’t enough for the team to become the best of the best. In a risky move, Doublelift decided to get a support of his own choosing – Biofrost.

Biofrost was recruited from the Challenger Series to replace the much established YellowStar in the support position. He had incredibly large shoes to fill. Biofrost wasn’t a slouch, starting from the first game in the Summer Season he immediately showed how talented he was. TSM would nearly go undefeated with only 1 loss in the regular season. They also smurfed the Playoffs giving up only 1 game against Cloud9 before going 3-0 against CLG in the Grand Finals and finally go to Worlds.

Worlds wasn’t a new experience to Doublelift since he managed to compete here multiple times before. North America had such high hopes for TSM seeing how dominant they were throughout the entire season. Unfortunately, they would be placed in the Group of Death with Samsung White and Royal Never Give Up. Doublelift tasted what it means to be a true AD Carry god after facing RNG Uzi and losing to them for the Knockout Qualifier match.

The Worlds 2016 loss severely affected Doublelift. He announced that he would take a break from his active roster in TSM and focus on streaming for a while. During this time, he tried playing with Team Liquid at the end of the season to help them survive relegations. DL came back during the summer where TSM would once again dominate the LCS to compete in the World Stage. Team SoloMid managed to draw the easiest group but disappointingly lost to Misfits Gaming in a tie-breaker to end their run.

The Doublelift Story in Team Liquid

Worlds 2017 was the last straw for Doublelift. He already failed to make it out of the Group Stage twice in a row, he won’t let that happen again so he joined a potential superteam in Team Liquid. The departure of DL to TL would spark controversy once again. However, the most loyal of fans stuck beside the Doublelift story and wished him nothing but success no matter where he may find it.

Team Liquid wasn’t as dominant as they were in both splits of 2018, but they were consistent. Team Liquid managed to win the LCS Summer Finals and qualify for Worlds. Again, Doublelift would fail to make it out of the Group Stage having to face KT Rolster and Edward Gaming in the same group. At this point, DL getting out of groups transitioned from a dream to becoming the biggest meme associated with him.

In 2019, the Doublelift story would continue in Team Liquid as they established themselves as the NA powerhouse after signing Jensen in the Mid Lane and CoreJJ in the support position. Team Liquid ran through the competition in 2019, showing every other team that they had no equal and was so dominant that they were sure that this was the year DL would get out of Groups. TL would qualify for Worlds again, and for a 4th time in a row – DOUBLELIFT FAILED TO GET OUT OF GROUPS.

Perhaps it was achievement already for Doublelift to qualify for Worlds for 4 years straight but it was obvious that the frustration was building up. Being a pro-player who has been dubbed as the best AD Carry in the region, there is an expectation that you will at least carry North America out of the Group Stage. The weight of all his losses would take its toll on the LCS Superstar and that would pit himself against his inner demons.

Spring Doesn’t Matter

The once-dominant Team Liquid suddenly deteriorated in 2020. Losing games here and there to relatively easy teams even though they kept their roster from the previous year. Everybody pointed out the fault in the bottom lane where Doublelift was obviously underperforming and making mistakes often. He announced his grievances and why he was underperforming saying that Spring Split didn’t matter, which is probably why he felt like he didn’t need to play seriously.

This was met with dissatisfaction by the fanbase. Everybody was disgusted with DL’s attitude about the competition which sparked the biggest controversy in his career. Towards the end of the Spring Split, DL realized his mistake and came out to the fans to apologize for his behavior. However, he wasn’t easily forgiven and was essentially kicked out of Team Liquid to be replaced by his substitute – Tactical.

Return to Team SoloMid

Doublelift leaving Team Liquid isn’t necessarily a bad thing for his career. Team Liquid Owner, Steve Arhancet was supportive of Doublelift and assisted him transition to another team he wanted to go to. Doublelift ultimately chose to return to Team SoloMid where he would be reunited with Bjergsen and his support, Biofrost. Even though he reunited with TSM, there were no longer any hype surrounding Doublelift and his journey.

Summer 2020: The seemingly invincible Cloud9 and rejuvenated Team Liquid superteam are once again the favorites to win the entire tournament. The regular season started and surely, these two teams were performing as expected. Team SoloMid was performing okay, but wasn’ necessarily the strongest team in the region. Playoffs came, and surely TSM was able to qualify to compete in the Top 8.

The Fated Playoff

It’s time for Doublelift to prove that he’s the king of NA once again. The playoffs came and TSM went to fight Golden Guardians in the first round. TSM were the clear favorites in this matchup but they lost and were sent to the lower brackets. TSM easily swept Dignitas but a fated rematch against Golden Guardians made fans believe that TSM’s journey was over. Their rematch went all the way to Game 5, where they miraculously won against them.

After beating GG in the rematch, they had to face Cloud9 who were looking extremely dominant. This time, some fans had a strange feeling that TSM might actually be able to win the series and sure enough they did thanks to Time-Lord Bjergsen. After Cloud9, TSM had to fight against Team Liquid where Doublelift needs to beat his replacement and sure enough THEY DID. The Doublelift story redemption arc was almost complete, all they needed to do was beat FlyQuest in the finals AND. SURE. ENOUGH. THEY. DID.

Doublelift At Worlds Again

Worlds 2020 kicks off and Team SoloMid are the North American 1st seed. Doublelift and the rest of TSM will be facing against both Gen.G and Fnatic in Group C where they’re not necessarily favored to make it out again. But if we learned something this season, it’s to stop counting Doublelift out of contention. Every Doublelift fan that remains, and those that he had inspired anew all have the same feeling of faith that he will pull out a miracle once again from behind.

Doublelift’s Second Tragedy

At some point while he was at Team Liquid, Doublelift had to face news that his parents were attacked by his older brother. His mother died in the attack while his father was rushed to the hospital due to multiple stab wounds and eventually survived. Obviously living with the pain of such a tragedy in his heart, he took on a strong front and continued to play in the Playoff Finals where he led Team Liquid to another victory. Countless fans rallied behind him to show their sympathy and support.