Pros You Don't Know..Yet: Diamond 1 Jungler, Dañ

With E-Sports growing rapidly, with global interest increasing more and more over the last few years it really started to take off on a massive scale helped by companies willing to invest in teams and game studios throwing millions of dollars at it in the form of prize money. I think we can all appreciate what websites like Twitch have done to bring people their favourite players and stream some of the biggest tournaments right to your computer screen.

This being said every sport has its stars and E-Sports is by no means any exception, what really interested me is player loyalty to the individual as a player, that they almost feel like they have to defend their star player or team. It's the same for most sports.

I have friends that banter all the time and get pretty upset if their team loses or if someone says negative things about their favourite player in a team. This passion you have to admire and just as much as the pros the fans are the reason why E-Sports is getting so big outside of Asia!

This being said I wanted to take a nose drive away from all the top pro players & Twich.tv stars and speak to some of what I call "Pros you don't know". To me these are the players that are high ranked at Diamond 1 100 points and Challenger levels, some of these players also play for well-known teams but are the less known players.

When I started writing this blog I already had the perfect player in mind, simply known as the tag Dañ I caught up with him for a quick interview:

Whats up Dan, first off good name! It means "God is my judge" did you know that?

Dañ: Ha no but I do now!

Learning something new everyday good stuff! So Dan thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us. Can you tell us a bit about yourself, the role you play & your current favourite Champions?

Dañ: Sure. I'm Dan, I'm a Diamond 1 jungler and I now play on the EUW server, I am 16 years of age, soon to turn 17 in September. My goal is to reach the LCS in season 4 and I have a plan in place to achieve this. I started playing LOL about 2 and a half years ago on the North American server, I played casually at first but once I found my place in the jungle I decided to play competitively.

I created a team with Guitarasaurus ( he's now the Velocity manager) we achieved lots in this team but never really had what it took to make the next level of play, from here I decided to make the transfer to the EUW server to increase my chances of getting into a really strong team. I have played for a few organisations since I have been over here, some of them being Team Theory Gaming and Animate UK. I am rapidly improving at this point in my game and my best/ favourite champions at current are; Lee Sin, Xin Zhao and Jarvan. I also to try to bring something new and different to the jungle but these haven't been too successful as of yet.

So you're at the start of your E-Sports career and by the sounds of it doing a good job so far. So your playing with teams like Animate right now, they are a pretty well established team, what's it like to play along side some of these players.

Dañ: It's exciting to play on the level which I currently am and allows me to experience what the top-level of premades are actually like, there's far more communication and mechanical skill, also its that everyone wants to move forward as a unit and succeed putting egos and other things aside to benefit the team, having said that there are still many weakness' within these teams and that's why I decided to look elsewhere rather than settling with a team which had it's fair share of issues.

 

So Animate had some team issues at the time you played with them?

Dañ: There were tensions between a few of the players which lead to a bad atmosphere between the team and resulted in a lack of focus, which in turn lost us games and made it somewhat difficult to move forward at times.

 

So when playing in premade 5s have you made any big upsets (winning) with any current LCS teams.

Dañ: The most well-known team for me to face and win in premade 5s would probably be Evil Geniuses with Team Theory Gaming (TTG).

You said you try to bring something new and different to the jungle, what do you think of the current meta right now?

Dañ: I really like the current meta, it suits my play-style and my champion pool, I focus on winning the early game hard and snowballing my lanes through kills and objectives while trying to deny as much as possible from the enemy jungler. The way the jungle has been altered it puts a huge emphasis on buffs, so if you manage to control 3 of the 4 neutral buffs, the enemy jungler and their lanes can face a huge disadvantage, overall I feel the meta as a whole could be improved I have strategies I am experimenting with, but this is early days, but so far have had good results in diamond/challenger level of premade play.

 

So how about in solo queue, when you see a well-known pro player in game do you feel like you need to up your game?

Dañ: I don't feel I need to up my game and I always try my best, i won't adjust my play style just because I am against a "pro" at the end of the day they're playing at the same solo level as I am therefore I don't think I should play differently when facing them.

 

What do you think really turns a player into a fan favourite?

Dañ: A player becomes a fan favourite in my opinion for being themselves mainly, having a persona usually makes you look worse. Streaming and interacting with the fans is important to get a good and positive following. I also believe positive and constructive players will always be favourites as the fan/viewer always learns something that they can apply to their game no matter what level they are at.

 

You talk about streaming, you're referring to sites such Twitch.tv?

Dañ: Yes, and also Azubu tv and other Korean streaming sites.

 

What do you think your standing is right now in the community, streaming and among other players?

Dañ: I believe I am slowly getting a better standing within the higher elo community by playing consistently and being positive. I have started streaming and I am getting lots of support mainly through the Danish community.

 

Good, I feel that streaming is a massive part to making a pro player become a star player. So you say your focused on LCS for Season 4 what's the plan...

Dañ: My first goal is to get a team of players which are on the same wave length. I have multiple offers at current and plan to take the best one there is, once we are have an established roster we would put together a tight practice schedule to improve further while competing in top online tournaments and LANS to be recognised as a team. Its going to be a long and hard process, however there are many players that have the time and dedication to put into a project like this.

 

Now for my last question. Who's your favourite female Champion?

Dañ: Hmmm... wow so many! Would have to be Caitlyn.

 

Good Choice! Sounds like you got a solid plan! So we should to start to see lots more from you next year come Season 4. Thanks very much again for taking the time to talk to us & good luck! If you wish to check Dañ out you can find him over at Twitch.tv.

I would like to turn this into a series, speaking to the less known players on the start of there journeys to become star players. I will be keeping in touch with all the players I speak to in this series, so in the future we can do follow-up interviews to check how they are getting on. 

Regards

Nebe