It’s been one year since 2021’s most heart-warming League of Legends solo queue story – and now it’s taken another positive turn.
British LEC caster and Excel Esports content creator Caedrel noticed a teammate facing difficulties in a solo queue game last year, and came to his aid.
A 17-year-old Master-tier top-laner known as Alfarouk (now going by the name of SHIHAN) said he was going to jump out of his window and uninstall the game, following news that his parents were getting divorced and selling their house. Turns out he had also lost 400lp partly due to having to play the game on a 40fps laptop.
Caedrel sent Alfarouk supportive messages in-game and, after they won, offered to buy him a new PC. They added one another as friends in League and we hadn’t heard much since, until now.
“I cannot express my gratitude and thank you enough. I promised you that I would go pro and make a good name for myself and that is exactly what I will do!”
SHIHAN
Now, at 18 years old and having adopted the gamer name SHIHAN, Alfarouk has posted an update. He sent Caedrel a message saying he joined a team in Division 3 of the Prime League (the European Regional League for the DACH region covering Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and that he is now at Challenger level – the highest possible rank in League of Legends.
Alfarouk, who’s apparently based in the UK, is playing with a team known as Divizon and has also changed his gamer name to SHIHAN as he looks to become a pro player.
“I cannot express my gratitude and thank you enough,” SHIHAN told Caedrel. “I promised you that I would go pro and make a good name for myself and that is exactly what I will do!”
Caedrel responded on Twitter saying “this is heart warming as hell”.
SHIHAN also posted an update earlier this year about hitting Challenger, and once again thanking Caedrel for his support.
His peak rank is 13 and he likes playing as Jax (pictured), Darius and Aatrox.
On his Prime League page, SHIHAN said he’s “extremely hardworking, can play most champions top mechanically and reliably well, is easy to work with and very easy to manage, and very hungry to show myself and prove my worth”.
Back in February, Caedrel returned to Excel Esports as a content creator, a role he’ll be balancing with his LEC casting. Speaking of which, he’ll be returning to the LEC desk when the Summer 2022 Season starts on June 17th.
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.
