Hook
“If an LCS exec asked me to suck his dick to go pro, I’d do it without a second thought.”
I laughed, thinking he was trolling mid-League match in a random Discord call. He wasn’t.
Introduction
I wrote about T0WN once, but after living with that draft for a bit, I realized he deserves a post of his own. T0WN was a character—someone who didn’t really stop, someone who took obsession to an extreme few could match.
Obsession in Overdrive
Over the next few months, T0WN and I talked almost every day. I wanted to test my theory—was this just some troll persona? But the deeper I got, the more I realized: he was dead serious. He played more League than anybody I knew—probably more than anyone in North America. While I was proud of hitting Diamond, T0WN had already steamrolled through to Masters. And when I finally clawed my way into Masters, he was Rank 1—multiple times.
There were nights I logged off after a grueling 12‑hour session, red‑eyed and nauseous. I’d crash in bed, only to wake up and find him still queued. I checked his match history and saw days without sleep, nights without pause—years of straight‑up hustle.
I asked if he ever got tired, ever tilted, ever feared losing. He just shrugged: “Losing twenty games in a row after three days awake? I’ll just queue again.” A friend dubbed him “the Kobe Bryant of League of Legends,” and I can’t argue with that analogy. Pure brute force—no natural prodigy, just unrelenting commitment.
What Motivated Him?
I never got a clear answer. T0WN didn’t cloak himself in motivational speeches or share deeply personal backstories. Sometimes he’d say, “I just love the game.” Other times, he joked about pivoting to Harvard next. His fixation wasn’t about money or fame—it was conquest. That conquer-the-world mindset you see in startup founders, but dialed all the way up to eleven.
The Fadeout
Despite his insane drive, T0WN never made Worlds. A couple of semi‑pro debuts, some highlight-reel plays—and then radio silence. Maybe burnout finally caught up. Maybe the cards just didn’t fall right.
He never explicitly quit. He just... stopped. No farewell stream. One day the queue was empty, and I never saw him online again.
Lessons Learned
Watching T0WN taught me something crucial: relentless energy is a superpower—channeling even a fraction of that confidence can transform your approach to any challenge. But obsession without balance burns you out; rest, community, and sanity checks matter just as much as the grind. And perhaps most powerful of all is the mystery around him: the more unanswered questions about T0WN, the more potent his legend becomes.
Conclusion
Whenever I hit a wall—when I’m tempted to log off and say “fuck it”—I think about T0WN. If a kid half my age could play nonstop for years, shoot for the biggest stage, and endure loss after loss without blinking, then my excuses start to sound pretty weak.
T0WN didn’t stop. And that part of him lives on in every late-night grind session I choose to push through.
– Joe