Voyboy Celebrates the Red Bull AdrenaLAN Event

Gamers and esports fans from all walks of life have converged at the Red Bull AdrenaLAN event in Toronto this weekend for an action-packed series of tournaments and showcases. As a part of the event, retired League of Legends superstar and fan favorite Joedat "Voyboy" Esfahani took part in hosting and casting the League of Legends 1v1 tournament. We caught up with Voyboy to get his thoughts on the event and what he misses about being a pro player.

What brought you to Canada, to the Red Bull AdrenaLAN?

Recently NA played against EU at the Rift Rivals event, hosted by Riot at the NA LCS, and I kind of made a tongue-in-cheek joke on Twitter when the matches were happening and said, “If NA loses to EU at Rift Rivals, I’m going to leave NA forever and move to Canada.” Obviously it was a joke, Canada is a part of North America, but I thought it was funny and a lot of people agreed, it got a lot of chuckles online, but a lot of people were also really confused and were like “Hey dummy, Canada is NA”, but obviously I was just kidding and I never really intended for it to be too serious but after tweeting that out and having some fun with it, Europe actually did end up winning Rift Rivals.

They beat NA kind of embarrassingly, not a good time for us NA League of Legends fans, but the silver lining to come from that was that after I made that tweet, Red Bull actually reached out to me and said “Hey, we’re hosting this event, the Red Bull AdrenaLAN in Toronto, and we’re interested in having you come out for it”. After I heard about it and knowing a lot of the local League of Legends fans and audience would be coming out and showing their love for the game and competing in the tournament that I would get the chance to cast, it was just a really cool opportunity and I jumped at it. And I thought it was also really funny how after promising to move to Canada I got the opportunity to come out here and be a part of this great event with Red Bull. I’m stoked to be here, and I can’t wait to get things up and running and see the kind of North American talent that Canada has to offer.

EMG squad getting ready to organize the #RedBullAdrenaLAN League of Legends 1v1 competition hosted by @Voyboy!!

Let's do this Toronto!?️??https://t.co/gPNuT73fmX pic.twitter.com/BFf06ydEPh

— EMG @ #RedBullAdrenaLAN (@EvenMatchup) July 28, 2018

After leaving your former team, Delta Fox, what is the one thing you would say you miss the most from professional play?

Well, after I left Curse back in 2014, before they became Team Liquid, I became a full-time streamer and content creator. The Delta Fox thing was kind of just a bunch of friends who came together to have some fun in the NACS, and we played under the Echo Fox banner which was a really cool opportunity for me, Imaqtpie, Scarra, Dyrus, and Shiphtur. We didn’t have the most competitive success, but that was mainly due to the fact that we didn’t have the time in our schedule to practice, however we did have a lot of fun playing together and it reminded me of the good time playing competitive, especially because I had played on teams like Dignitas with some of these boys before, so that was really awesome. Some of the things I miss the most about competitive play are, just that sense of teamwork and comradery that you have, it’s not just like coworkers playing a game together, it’s really like a brother in arms thing.

Back in the day we would fly out to a foreign country and be plopped in the middle of Kiev or Germany, or we’d move to Korea and we’d just be playing these tournaments and compete and just have each other’s backs. That sense of brotherhood is something I never really had before, and I really enjoyed that. Being on a team and looking out for each other and trying to win. The other things that I miss are just that competitive drive, playing to be the best, just trying to absolutely dominate and take my play and my teams play to the next level all the time. That’s something that you don’t really get to do as much as a streamer or content creator. I mean you obviously can, but it’s just a different world between being a competitive LCS player and just being someone that’s engaging with the community and playing for the fans and trying to entertain. I really enjoy both aspects of those worlds but a part of me will always be a super competitive person and I’ll always miss the ability to play at the highest level, pushing myself and my team and just striving for success, trying to get to Worlds and performing there, as well as having a good time with my friends who are also my teammates. It’s something that you can’t really replicate anywhere else.

So, what would you say you like about the current Meta, and what would you like to change?

I don’t really have any problems with the current League Meta, Riot has taken some measures to reduce the effects of funneling which, while it was interesting when the strategy first emerged and I’ve always been a huge proponent of resource allocation and Gold / Level optimization because I feel that’s something that is often overlooked, even at the competitive level, the funneling strat just took it a little bit too far and kind of broke the game, giving Champions like Kai’Sa or Lucian the ability to 1v9 without much counter play. I think now that that’s kind of been taken away I don’t really have any problems with the Meta, just because of the fact that it’s very wide open to a lot of strong, viable Champions that you can play in every role. I really like the fact that Bot Lane is not just consisting of AD Carries now, you can play Heimerdinger, you can play Vlad, Irelia, Yasuo, all these interesting picks that open up lots of nuances in pick and ban and counter play. It makes the games a lot more strategic and pick and ban focused which I think is really cool.

As someone who has always prided himself of playing a lot of Champions, being a master of many, trying to always innovate and try out new counter-picks and stuff, even when I was a competitive player. I just think it’s awesome that we’re not locked in like “Oh, these are the only Champions that are viable, these are the only Champions you can play”, I really do think that that is the coolest way to play League of Legends when there’s lots of options and the freedom to kind of go out on your own and figure out what you think is strong, even bring that to the LCS stage. So, I actually am a fan of the state of the game these days.

If you’re in the Toronto area come to the #RedBullAdrenaLAN this Sat / Sunday to MEET ME and play live in the $5k 1v1 tournament I’m hosting on my stream. Gonna be a juicy time :) All Info + tickets here: https://t.co/XEb8TOuOJs pic.twitter.com/7r3AjGW52G

— Joedat (@Voyboy) July 26, 2018

For someone who was wanting to become a pro player, do you have any tips to reach that goal?

I would say, general tips for anyone looking to go pro, it’s very hard and it’s very competitive. There’s always a ton of super competitive players looking to go pro and get noticed by LCS teams. As it stands right now there are a few avenues that have been created by Riot to facilitate that process. I think Scouting Grounds is a really cool opportunity, if you maintain top 4 / 5 ELO for your role in the region then you’ll get noticed by Riot and flown out to the Scouting Grounds tournament, and if people like what they see then you’ll have a chance to make it onto an Academy team of an LCS team.

Aside from that, just trying to get the highest rank possible, perform really well, have a great attitude. Don’t create any reasons for people not to trust you or like you as a player, because there’s so many great players out there these days that you just have to be one of the best and always push yourself to try and be better than the next guy that’s trying to make it into the LCS team. Every year there’s only a handful of rookies that are going to break through, so you just have to push yourself, try to get noticed, get visibility somehow. Climb the ladder, be a good player and be a good person.

You can catch more from the Red Bull AdrenaLAN on their official website here.

(Header image via EvenMatchup Twitter)