After two years spent as University of British Columbia’s mid laner, BobqinXD made the decision to temporarily leave school to pursue his dreams to play League of Legends at a professional level. After spending time under organizations like APEX, Team Liquid and Cloud 9 Challenger, BobqinXD is now looking to prove his worth as a player and make the most of this new found commitment to League of Legends. Here we speak to him about his successful stint with UBC and why he has chosen to leave Collegiate and pursue professional play.
What is your average day as a Collegiate League of Legends player?
BobqinXD: Go to school come home play some league, finish homework, and finish the day with more League.
How did practices work with UBC? Did you guys meet up and arrange your schedules to make the team flourish?
BobqinXD: Our manager sets the time and we show up to scrims and we just play at home.
UBC found success in ULOL with two back to back championships to back it. Do you believe it was straight mechanics that got you those titles or was team play more important?
BobqinXD: Individuals mechanics mattered a lot in collegiate since the competition is weak sometimes just having strong mechanics can steamroll the enemy, but as we were playing harder and harder opponents team play becomes a lot more important and we were also good. at that.
In your twitlonger you stated that it was not really challenging to you playing in the Collegiate Scene. Where do you see these collegiate teams ranking against NACS or LCS?
BobqinXD: Skill difference is huge collegiate is not even close to NACS or LCS.
Do you believe that the collegiate scene is growing towards a path where Collegiate can be on the same level as NACS or maybe even a challenger team?
BobqinXD: Yes i do, but not for another few year.
What do you believe ULOL needs to improve on in order to get to that level? Is there anything you would like to see improved?
BobqinXD: It's gonna be hard because you have to manage school and league at the same time so you obviously can't put in as much time to be as good as the people who are doing league full time. In the future when they pick up players like ex pros to play for their team it might help a lot for them.
Going more on this aspect of time, you recently made the decision to put school on hold in order to pursue a career in League. What was the driving point behind you wanting to make this decision?
BobqinXD: Being a pro player is my only passion and dream at the moment, I know school will always be there for me when I decide to come back, but League won't.
As a midlaner, what do you think of the low number of NA mid laners in the LCS? Does it discourage you? Would you ever switch out of mid?
BobqinXD: I've thought about switching roles but since I've come so far playing mid I don't think I should quit. not quite sure why NA has such a small amount of midlaners to be honest.
When you did work with LCS organizations like Apex, C9 and Liquid, you stated you were able to learn so much. What is something you learned that led to a massive amount of growth with these teams?
BobqinXD: They have coaches, analysts and players who are very knowledgeable at the game. For an inexperienced player like me, it was very easy to notice the difference in gameplay. Therefore, I was able to quickly pick up a thing or two there.
The aforementioned names all have an LCS team as well as a challenger team. How different do you believe the growth would be if you were playing for a team like Dream Team or Nova?
BobqinXD: Would probably be still very significant.
Now that you have more time to play League of Legends, where can you see yourself rank among Mid Laners in North America by the end of the off season?
BobqinXD: Will be working as hard as I can to reach LCS level or top NACS level.
Do you have any final statements?
BobqinXD: I hope this path treats me well down the road, and thank you so much for the interview! I will be working my hardest every day with the goal of becoming a LCS tier mid laner.
Make sure to follow BobqinXD through his social media links to get consistent updates on the mid lane talent.