Returnzo Manifesto

Yusui: RETURNZO MANIFESTO



I want to preface this whole thing by saying that the title is really just a meme and this will not be flaming any players/orgs/etc. besides myself. For the purpose of clarity and making this an easier read, I am splitting it into three segments: Past, Present, and Future. I’ll include a TL; DR at the bottom but I suggest reading the whole thing or at least a majority of it if you are a fan (or hater!) of me.



Past:



I want to make this section as brief as possible because it’s the least important part of this post, though I do feel putting some things in context is important.



The hype behind me as a player in the past has been mostly due to my solo queue performance and the fact that I tended to be a perfectionist (mostly to a fault!) when it came to ranking up my accounts which netted me some disgustingly good win rates. I had a huge spike in popularity when one of my stream mods created a fake rumor that I was going to replace Link on CLG back in 2014. Keep in mind this was back when I was a sophomore in high school (15-16 years old), and dropping out of school to pursue LCS, while the thought did cross my mind, was not optimal and CLG had no interest in me because of that reason alone. Regardless, my stream/twitter numbers shot up and I garnered a solid fan base that followed me throughout my ensuing challenger journey. The two biggest teams I played on were LOLPro in 2014 and C9T in 2015. In both cases, we ended up failing to qualify for the LCS promotion tournament by an extremely small margin (literally one match). I want to touch on my time on C9T because it had a profound impact on me as a player (both for better and for worse).



C9T was, without a doubt, the pinnacle of my “career”. It was the first team I played on with a dedicated coaching staff and an extensive tryout process that included the bulk of challenger players at the time. The first roster iteration was Solo, Hard, Me, LOD, and Ritchie (I forgot Ritchie’s IGN). I won’t dwell on what happened with this roster but long story short our support (Ritchie) was an adc main who proved to be the best available support at the time. When it came time for our NACS qualifier match, he failed to patch his tournament client in time due to a bug and we used our coach as a “ringer”. One thing lead to another (;)) and Riot hit us with the ban hammer, preventing any of us from playing during the 2015 Spring split. The ban was, without a doubt, justified. Leading up to our qualifier, we had been utterly dominating scrims and were the clear favorites going into the split to make it to the LCS promotion tourney. We were not prepared to throw that away because of a failed patcher. The decision was poor, but, in my opinion, justified in the heat of the moment. We were all diehard competitors wanting to prove ourselves.



Getting banned for the Spring split took its toll on me mentally. I went from possessing an incredible drive and passion for the game to regret and frustration. I sought to streaming but it ultimately devolved into me buying a number of accounts and essentially banging my head into a wall playing random shit and trying to get good win rates into challenger. These were my darkest days. I was depressed, not doing well in school or league, and had little direction in my life. My plan to dominate challenger and play in the LCS that following Summer had been destroyed. I went from being an upcoming challenger superstar to a twitter troll who spent 90% of his time (and money lol) smurfing. I was legit wasting my life away during these few months and it was quickly sapping away all my motivation to play the game. I also pulled a reverse Sven and put on a ton of weight (not muscle bros) over this period which lead to me being incredibly insecure with how I looked.



This is already getting way too long so I’m going to TL; DR the next 3-4 months. C9 was looking to replace Hai and offered me a tryout along with Pobelter & Jensen. I was out of practice and my level of play/understanding of mid lane meta was pitiful. I played awful and was clearly outclassed during these tryouts. C9 ended up going with Jensen. We picked up Sheep to replace Ritchie on C9T and qualified for the Summer 2015 NACS and were doing really well until the very end. The meta had shifted to Azir/Viktor every game mid lane and the passive, farm-heavy mid lane playstyle did not mesh well with our team. Again, my play was not up to par here as I was heavily distracted by my obligations to school and family and I simply could not put my all into the game. During my time on C9T I learned a tremendous amount of competitive knowledge and learned how to be both a good and bad teammate. I made a number of mistakes that I still regret heavily, and I apologize to both my teammates and C9 because I could’ve performed infinitely better.





Present(ish):

Yusui in 2017, LUL. I won’t get into the exact reasons, but I found myself starting to play League again last October after a 14-month hiatus. I was rusty and, because I had been playing a lot of CS: GO at 400 DPI, had to slowly adjust my mouse dpi back to a high enough level to feel comfortable playing League without straight up losing control of my mouse (I have always played League at ~1500 dpi).

The most addictive feeling for me playing this game is the feeling that I’m in a state of constant improvement, that every game levels me up in one way or another. I believe coming back after an extended break not only relieved me of the burnout that I was experiencing but also put me back into this mindset of improvement over all else. Each game I played felt like it brought me a step closer to my previous form, something that I could be proud of. The ultimate meme, however, is that I still ended up hardstuck in Master during the end-of-season race to challenger. My play was not quite up to par with what it had to be to climb and… no jacket for me.

Fast forward to the start of S7, I was able to get my account Wizikz among the first 50 or so Challenger players within the first couple of weeks of soloqueue being released (hahAA, early season challenger!!) and then dipped for Winter break and let it decay to D2 during the month I was away from school.

When I came back from Winter break, I took some time to get settled into my new classes and school routine (transferred into a single dorm-room to try and cure my psychophysiological insomnia that developed due to a shit roommate and living situation… seriously fuck that guy). Getting some extra sleep, though I’m still struggling with my condition, has done wonders for my attitude both towards school and League. I’ve been balancing my schoolwork with grinding the solo queue ladder and playing in uLoL for CMU (we have our semi-finals match this Tuesday). This is pretty much where I’m at now so let’s take a peek into the future.







Future:

Why the fuck is this called a returnzo manifesto? Mainly because I like trolling my fans. Also because my drive to play the game has never been this high. I’m writing this on my flight back to CMU after taking a week off for Spring break and all I can think about is playing League when I get back. I am going to grind like I’ve never grinded before. I have to prove that I can back up my shit-talk of years past or else I’ll be remembered as nothing more than a joke. So, what are my plans?

First, I want to win collegiate and I’ll do my best to make that happen. Make sure to follow our games once they get streamed (if they ever get streamed). Second, I want to start streaming more and putting out content for my fans to re-generate some hype around me as a player. Obviously, hype will also be a byproduct of me climbing higher in solo queue. My ultimate goal is to get to r-r-r-r-r-rank one within the next couple of months but I would be satisfied with top 5. Will do my best to stream the bulk of my journey (expect a lot of no-mic TriHard streams).

Third, and finally, the whole point of writing this (kind of). I am officially un-retiring from retiring from nothing. I will be actively looking for a spot on an LCS roster, be it as a substitute or, ideally, a starter. This means less activity on twitter and more focus on the game. I’ve already been working hard to avoid tweeting stupidly aggressive and unjustified shit like I did in the past and it’s been a bit easier now that I don’t have the maturity of a pea sprout.

Lastly, I want to thank anyone who is still a fan of me. You guys (and girls) are a godsend. Thanks for the support even after my “downfall” and string of failures. XOXO, David.



TL; DR: Read this CMON. JK, it’s long as hell. The purpose of this was to denounce myself as a player in the past and acknowledge the multitude of mistakes I made stemming from my immaturity, insecurity, inability to balance school and League, and the resulting burnout. Moving forward, I want to live up to the hype that my fans created for me a few years back. I believe I’m capable of being the best NA born talent and my motivation has exceeded all prior levels (we are talking >>> 2014 Yusui). I’m healthier, happier, and ready to succeed. Actively pursuing all LCS offers that come my way and currently playing collegiate/likely to play for fun in NACS OQs with Avi/few other peeps (forgot to mention that above). Oh also, my current IGN is Wizikz in case people didn’t know that yet. Get ready for me to sneak my way into top 10 ;). Thanks for the read.

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