In League of Legends, new times are dawning for Eintracht Spandau, the HandOfBlood team. Last year they brought in 25-year-old Johannes “Fun K3y” Werner, who was voted the Prime League’s most valuable player in the summer of 2023. With him, Eintracht became champions and European champions in LoL in 2024. But now Fun K3y has to go – he will be replaced by Daniel “Broeki” Broekmann. He’s 33, a Twitch streamer and actually far too old for the first league in German LoL, as he says himself.
What’s going on at Eintracht Spandau?
In 2024, the team from Berlin won what there was to win in Europe if you didn’t buy into the LEC: They even won the EU Masters and celebrated it wildly in Berlin.
Originally, Spandau actually wanted to do something with local players in the league, which they were carefully building up, but that only caused frustration for HandOfBlood and his people for years.
In 2024 they spent a lot of money and bought the best that the Prime League had to offer. For example, “PowerOfEvil”, Tristan Schrage, was brought into the team, a seasoned professional who had played for the top American team TSM and taken part in world championships. They also signed players like Johannes “Fun K3y” Werner from the Unicorns of Love, the best people in the league.
Eintracht Spandau has provided the players with apartments and has also hired a cook, a physio trainer and a coaching team including mental specialists. They have been given everything that professionals in League of Legends need to achieve top performance.
But the team’s analysis after such a successful season is now tough: sporting success is not worth it. Only reach and entertainment bring money.
Eintracht Spandau wants to stay in the first division, but relies on players who have actually already reached the end of their sporting career and want to build a second source of income through content creation.
Your new ADC Daniel Broekmann (33) fits in perfectly: Broeki used to be a professional, but has been a Twitch streamer for a long time and was a content creator for Eintracht Spandau: He played the caretaker in many videos or sometimes people who were hopeless stuck in LoL’s ELO hell (via YouTube).
Everything you need to know about the LoL team Eintracht Spandau – in 4 minutes
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Broeki’s goal: Don’t lose games alone
What does Broeki himself say about the opportunity? Broeki explains in a video on YouTube that he was surprised to become a LoL professional again at 33. Actually, he had long since ended his career. He won titles, he says with a wink, when many of the current players weren’t even born yet.
My record isn’t bad, but my record was more than 10 years ago. So in terms of titles, I’m doing well in the German scene. Nobody can take it from me either. I think it’s beautiful too. But very few players were born when I won the title.
When the offer came during dinner, he spit out the food and the whole restaurant stared at him, he says.
Although he was involved in the “Miracle Run” again in 2022 as part of the streamer team NNO and managed to get promoted from the 2nd league to the 1st league, but that was, according to Broeki, two years ago :
Today he is not 31 years old, but 33 years old and maybe he can’t handle it all anymore with the first league and will throw in the towel after a few months, but he promises to give the fans everything.
Broeki doesn’t have it easy as a Twitch streamer either, his girlfriend likes to make it as difficult as possible for him:
Broekmann says; he knows that he will probably be the worst player in the league. But his goal is to at least not lose games on his own. He will train really hard for this.
His new midlane partner, PowerOfEvil, is still one of the 3 best midlaners in the league, even with minimal training, and he can let the training slide. But he himself has to really get involved and will do that.
The probability that I’m the worst player is…probably pretty big. And being the worst player on the team isn’t a cool brand in a world where spectators can’t reflect.
Broeki knows that with “I’m going to be a professional again” he’s taking a big risk for his Twitch career. You can quickly get into a downward spiral if you keep losing. But he likes the project and wants to see it through and know again.
Fun K3y is currently looking for a new team:
What will become of NNO? Broeki finds it difficult to say goodbye to NNO. He played with NoWay for almost 10 years and it was important to him that he could always rely on him. An era is coming to an end.
Ultimately, Broeki says, he was a bit disappointed by how rarely NNO have played together in recent years. Everyone’s careers were headed towards streaming and there was little time for the joint project.
Broeki still wants to take part in the next Red Bull event, when it is again against T1, but then he will withdraw from NNO. He seems to recommend that his streamer colleagues replace him with Nico “Sola” Linke, who also plays Botlane and is a no-brainer.
E-sports are no longer worthwhile
This is what lies behind it: The hard analysis is that esports will change significantly in LoL 2025. There will be significantly lower salaries for LoL players. There will probably only be a few places for full-time professionals in LoL. On the one hand, players like Broeki earn money themselves by generating reach and will also have to make do with less salary and infrastructure.
But who will take players like Fun K3y when 33-year-old Twitch streamers are now taking the spots and many teams are withdrawing from e-sports entirely?
In North America, Riot Games will merge the leagues; in the USA, large organizations have already left the stage. The LoL expert NoWay also predicts something similar for Europe (via YouTube). Perhaps Eintracht Spandau will still play a good role in the Prime League, which will be significantly weaker in 2025, even with less commitment and training times and lower salaries, the Twitch streamer speculates.
Surprising to many: Eintracht Spandau, which has long been considered a showcase project in German e-sports, have now revealed that they too – despite the best possible sporting success – have not made a profit. It is therefore not as if the clubs have much choice if they now rely on Twitch streamers instead of full-time professionals who want to make a living from e-sports.
What’s next at Eintracht Spandau? Midlane and ADC are occupied by PowerOfEvil and Broeki. The other 3 positions are still open. As a “strong streamer” Agurin would be ideal for the jungle. This also seems to be a dream solution for Broeki. But nothing is certain here yet: Many consider a German to be the best SoloQ player in LoL – How does Agurin play?