We caught up with Cloud9’s League of Legends Challenger support Daerek “LemonNation” Hart and UK ADC Joe “Joekerism” Kent at i58’s League Fest last weekend.
Both played for Team Arcade at the League of Legends festival’s £15,000 Pro-Am tournament, which featuring both seasoned pros from North America and up and coming amateur players from across Europe.
For us as a publication it was great to see amateurs mixing together with veteran players. It gives those newer players an added spotlight and helps promote the local eSports scene to fans of the LCS and the pros.
As well as this, the matches were entertaining, plus the Pro-Am gave retired but much-loved players like Dyrus the chance to put in another big stage performance. For us, Pro-Ams are a win-win – and it’d be great to see more of them going forwards.
Speaking to eSports News UK after the Pro-Am (in which Team Arcade narrowly lost, right at the end), Joekerism said: “It was one of the first times I’d played on a stage that big. For me it was crazy playing in front of a massive crowd, especially in my home country.
“I think it helps to grow the scene in which the Pro-Am takes place. If the pros are advertising the link to the stream in the event, it’s obviously going to attract people. And it will help grow the scene quite a lot.
“It was an amazing event, I really enjoyed it.”
“I think it’d be cool [to see Pro-Am tournaments in other regions]. I’d do it again – it was fun.”
LemonNation
LemonNation added: “It was very fun. It was really close throughout the entire thing, there was a very big swing, they got a 160-point lead right away, then we took a big lead but ended up losing right at the end. It was very intense.
“I think it’d be cool [to see Pro-Am tournaments in other regions]. I’d do it again – it was fun.”
On laning together, LemonNation said: “It was fun, Joe’s a cool guy, it was nice playing with him.”
You could tell that as well as having fun, Joekerism really learnt from the experience. This kind of tournament can give a player the confidence to push themselves to the next level.
Joekerism (mini-LemonNation) commented: “Laning with Lemon was amazing. He knows what to do and tells me what to do as well. It was a great experience.
“I think I started off playing pretty terrible. I was kinda nervous playing on stage and playing against MapleStreet. But after the first day, I think we performed quite well. I’d say we were winning lane and had pressure on them. Especially in that last game, we 2v2ed them and killed them.”
On the upcoming ESL UK LoL Premiership split with exceL eSports, he added: “We’re hoping to practice hard after i-series and hopefully win the ESL UK Premiership.
“I guess I’ll just go back to being a UK random!”
You can check out our full interview (and British quiz) with LemonNation and Joekerism below:
The Pro-Am teams were as follows:
TEAM ARCADE
- Kev1n – top (Germany)
- TheOddOne – jungle (NA)
- Larssen – mid (Sweden)
- Joekerism – ADC (UK)
- LemonNation – support (NA)
TEAM PROJECT
- Dyrus – top (NA)
- Caelan – jungle (France)
- Voyboy – mid (NA)
- Maplestreet – ADC (NA)
- Rhuckz – support (Portugal)
See more from i58 including all the eSports winners here, plus Voyboy’s League Fest Pentakill here.
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
