Phurion joins Baskonia and reunites with former teammate XDSmiley

UK League of Legends jungler Luke “Phurion” Brammer has left eMonkeyz to join Baskonia.
In doing so, he has reunited with his former MnM Gaming teammate and ADC player Ludvig “XDSmiley” Granquist. The pair won the ESL Premiership together in the UK last year with MnM Gaming, but the roster unfortunately had problems around the Challenger Series qualifiers.
Following his departure from Spanish side eMonkeyz, who play in the LVP second division, Phurion will now be playing in the higher-tier LVP Superliga Orange Spanish league with Baskonia.
He will play his first match against Valencia and
It’s of course a step up from the UK scene. The Spanish League of Legends scene has more fans and followers, and Baskonia alone have 24,000 followers on Twitter.
Another ADC from the UK scene, Augustas “Toaster” Ruplys, also plays in the Spanish league but for KIYF eSports Club.
Phurion yesterday tweeted this, before Baskonia made an official announcement tweet:

Departing from eMz, thank you to the players and staff that helped me on the team, I wish them the best of luck! 🙂 https://t.co/4r4kifitze

— lucas (@PhurionEUW) March 12, 2017

OFICIAL | ¡Damos la bienvenida a nuestro nuevo jungla! WELCOME @PhurionEUW! ? https://t.co/ov3G00b6CI Debutará hoy en @LVPes. #GoBKN pic.twitter.com/38w2Y33FLi

— ThunderX3 Baskonia (@BKNesports) March 13, 2017

Baskonia released some more details on their website.
eMonkeyz thanked Phurion for being ‘a real primate’ in a heartfelt message.
They said in a (translated) statement on their website: “Although he’s barely been in the jungle [with us] for two months, from the first day he proved to be a real primate.
“Good humour, companionship and a healthy competitive attitude do not go unnoticed and along with his in-game skills, several teams have [approached] him.
“We think it may be good for Phurion’s development to compete in a superior division. We are confident that you will triumph in your new team and hope that our paths will cross again someday. Thanks very much Luke, show everybody how to reign on Summoner’s Rift!”
Phurion also previously played with ManaLight in the UK scene.
 

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We interviewed Phurion (right), XDSmiley (left) and MnM co-founder Kalvin Chung (centre) after their ESL Premiership UK & Ireland final victory last year. You can check it out here:

 
Image source: Scott Chouciño/ESL UK Flickr

Dom Sacco

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.