Irish League of Legends top-laner David ‘ArcaneTeddy’ Kingston has won the Esports Balkan League (EBL) playoff grand finals live on stage in Serbia.
He beat Red Star Belgrade (aka Crvena Zvezda) 3-2 with his team, Valiance, and picked up his other first best-of-five wins at his very first LAN. In fact, it was a series of firsts for ArcaneTeddy, as it was also his first split in the EBL and a division 1 European Regional League (ERL).
Valiance pulled off a real upset, having finished the EBL regular Summer 2022 season in fourth place, before securing a LAN buff to beat Partizan Esports 3-0 and Diamant Esports 3-1 in the lower bracket.
By winning the summer playoffs, ArcaneTeddy will now be playing in the main stage of the upcoming EU Masters, joining other teams like NLC teams X7, JD XL and Dusty in the Summr 2022 EU Masters.
It’s clear he’s slotted in with his teammates well. They are kingggggg (Slovenian jungler), Diva (Croatian mid), Paladin (Croatian ADC) and Postkassen (Danish support).
“It feels amazing winning EBL,” ArcaneTeddy told Esports News UK. “Going into it I wanted the games to be close and exciting with us coming out on top. I felt it delivered. It was my first LAN event I ever had, so playing in front of such a large crowd was a new experience but I think I was able to put out a good performance in the series.
“I think historically EUM has always been hard for EBL teams and will stay difficult. But we will strive to put up a good fight against all the top Major ERL teams and show them what we are capable of.”
ArcaneTeddy on making a mark in the UK LoL scene to where he is now
ArcaneTeddy has only been with Valiance in the EBL since June 2022. Prior to that, he was with Rate Gaming in Division 2 of the NLC.
And his longest stint has been with UK org NOX Esports, who reached the UKEL Summer 2021 grand finals.
“I played UKEL in summer last year and then I played the reworked NLC calibrations with NOX later that year. We managed to promote to 2nd division NLC. NOX disbanded but I procceded to play NLC 2 in Spring this year under Rate Gaming. We had a strong team but chocked in the first round of playoffs.
“That’s where Valiance comes in.
“Overall I have played about five best-of-five series and I have never won one. So going into this lower bracket run with Valiance and taking down Partizan 3-0 was also me winning my first best-of-five. It has been a new experience for me having so much success in playoffs with Valiance.”
ArcaneTeddy, Valiance
So how has it compared playing in the Balkans League to UK leagues below division 1?
“It’s been exciting with the competition being higher [in the EBL] than in my previous leagues,” ArcaneTeddy said. “We were a middle of the pack team in the regular season, finishing fourth before playoffs. But we put a lot of effort into fixing our problems in-game and internally.
“EBL production is amazing and I feel the casting is top tier. But the main downside has been the fact that I don’t understand the language as I only played in English speaking leagues (UKEL, NLC2) prior to this.”
ArcaneTeddy fills the shoes of someone else who has played in the UK scene – experienced UK top-laner Rifty, who joined Valiance at the start of the year, a team that also had ADC Caltys on their roster.
There’s another UK link at Valiance, with Croatian mid-laner Diva having played for the likes of Barrage, London Esports, Munster Rugby Gaming in the UK LoL scene.
“I haven’t had much connection with Diva prior to this split,” said ArcaneTeddy. “But he has been an amazing teammate with the experience he provides. I found everyone in the team was working towards the same goal.”
There aren’t many Irish players at the top levels of League of Legends, so how does it feel as an Irish player winning an ERL? And what are his goals in League?
ArcaneTeddy answered:
“It is true that there really aren’t many successful Irish players representing top ERLs. I hope in the future that will change.”
“I am not sure how high I can go in the competitive esports scene. I just want to give it my best shot to see how far I can climb and make memories that will last forever.”
The Summer 2022 EU Masters Main Event gets underway on August 29th.
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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.
