Twitch star Tyler ‘tyler1’ Steinkamp revealed that Team Liquid offered him the chance to compete as a League of Legends pro in the LCS Academy, following his infamous ban in 2017.
While Tyler1 is one of the most popular League of Legends personalities for his highly entertaining Twitch streams, there was a time when he was permanently banned from Riot’s MOBA.
After receiving bans on 22 unique League of Legends accounts in the run-up to 2016, Riot Games issued him with a permanent ban from playing the game on stream, citing “a well-documented history of account bans for verbal abuse” as the reason behind their decision.
However, following his massive rise in other games like PUBG, Riot eventually lifted the ban in late 2017, which led to a record-breaking return stream for the star, catapulting him to where he is now.
Despite his current success, Tyler1 revealed that he could have taken a different career path entirely after his League of Legends ban was lifted. On September 22, Steinkamp revealed that he was previously offered a spot on an LCS Academy roster.
While watching the Twitch Rivals tournament with fellow League of Legends streamer Julian ‘Tarzaned’ Farokhian, the pair discussed their previous team offers and Tarzaned revealed he had offers to join both CLG and Team Liquid’s Academy rosters.
Tyler1 followed up by admitting they had something in common, revealing he had also been approached by Team Liquid in 2017, “Do you what’s funny actually? TL wanted me to play for their academy too.”
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“No, I swear to god, it was a couple of years ago before I was even unbanned, but I was about to get unbanned,” T1 revealed, before he opted out of sharing further details on his stream.
He has recently attempted to make it to Challenger in both the Top and Jungle position but, as a bot laner, Tyler1 would have been consistently ranked as a Challenger on the North American ladder and was particularly known for his skills on his signature Draven pick.
Despite going toe-to-toe with LCS pros in his Solo Q matches, it is likely that Tyler1 declined the offer to continue pursuing his streaming career. His record-breaking Twitch return saw him shatter the platform’s concurrent viewer record, although it has since been beaten.
With Team Liquid producing stars like Edward ‘Tactical’ Ra, who has risen from the academy roster, replacing Yilliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng as the starting ADC and qualifying for Worlds 2020, fans can only speculate how Tyler1’s pro career might have turned out, if he was in that same position.
