In December 2020, German top laner Niklot “Tolkin” Stüber ended his professional career in League of Legends. The 24-year-old had played in 8 LoL teams since 2016, but never made it into the LEC. Tolkin started a job at the Berlin company “Freaks4U” as a caster and talent and started on Twitch. He had to quit the job in September 2022. He accidentally knocks on the door of the Prime League in LoL again with a hobby team.
How was Tolkin’s career?
How about the jump into the LEC? The problem for someone like Tolkin, who plays successfully in the lower leagues, is the extremely young average age of professional players in LoL: Mostly players come into the professional leagues at 18, 19, 20. For those who haven’t made the leap to the pros by then, the window is actually closed. Especially since many players are already thinking about retiring from the professional business at the age of 24 or 25. Faker, who is still playing at 26, is considered an exception.
Many young LoL players dream of a great career. Faker has already done that:
The Life of Faker – That’s why he’s a living legend
Tolkin takes off as a caster and twitch streamer
This is what he did afterwards: Tolkin stayed connected to LoL: He started at the German company “Freaks 4U Gaming”. The Berlin agency specializes in LoL and works with Riot Games to organize the German Prime League. On December 22, 2022, Tolkin announced he was starting there as a “content creator/influencer” (via twitter).
Tolkin was apparently ready to start a new chapter in his life and move from player to caster. As a “color commentator” he commented on the Prime League First Division games in 2022.
Tolkin had great success in his role as a content creator: On Twitch he became the second largest German LoL streamer, behind NoWay4u
LoL: 70,000 watch playoff game in which a German “retiree team” of the biggest Twitch streamers turns up the heat
Tolkin also plays LoL on a bar crew of sorts
This is the strange twist of fate: Although Tolkin had closed the chapter “professional LoL” for himself, he joined a team of German Twitch streamers in January 2021 to form a kind of hobby LoL team:
Tolkin had not counted on the success:
This team, which actually played without much ambition, managed against all odds to win the 2nd division in Germany in 2022 and is now, in September 2022, playing for promotion to the 1st division.
In the final of the 2nd division they beat Hertha BSC and googled their champion picks, which Botlaner Broeki couldn’t figure out:
Tolkin’s team is so popular with fans in 2022 that the 2nd division final drew a lot more viewers than the 1st division final.
Tolkin has to resign because he made the relegation
This is the consequence for Tolkin: Tolkin had to quit his job at Freaks 4U on September 1, 2022. Riot’s rules don’t allow him to be an employee of a company that works with Riot Games and play in Division 1 at the same time.
The rules for Division 1 are significantly stricter than those for Division 2; they expressly also apply to the relegation between league 1 and 2.
In any case, the 5 Twitch streamers from NNO seem to have a difficult decision to make:
Other members of the team have also noted that their current work on Twitch and in the LoL scene will soon no longer be compatible with the Riot Games rules:
The Twitch streamers hope that Riot Games will give in.
YouTuber HandOfBlood demonstrated the power the German LoL scene is developing at gamescom 2022:
LoL: HandOfBlood and his team are eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, but still celebrate gamescom and let themselves be carried away