Swedish League of Legends streamer Simon “Baus” Hofverberg revealed on his first stream after coming back home that he doesn’t intend to play on the pro scene anymore.
The Los Ratones toplaner lamented the bitter loss to Team Vitality on the final day of LEC Versus, which would have allowed the team to move onto the playoffs from almost guaranteed 3rd place. Instead, the rest of the results on the final day played out extremely unfavorably, and what was an almost guaranteed playoff berth ended up being a 9th place and elimination.
Baus said:
A lot of people have been asking me: ‘Baus, what are you gonna do now? What happens now?’ I can’t really speak for the rest of the boys; I can only speak for myself, of course. Like, what I’m gonna be doing… When I joined this little project a year ago, I was never gonna become a pro player; that was never the plan. I was just gonna try it out for one year and then be done with it. That’s why it’s so sad that we lost, because I feel like I had a little bit more in me. And that’s why it’s so heartbreaking that we didn’t make it. But yeah, for myself, I’m not playing pro anymore.
This doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who paid attention to the Los Ratones run through the tier-2 of the European League of Legends scene all the way to LEC.
Baus is primarily a streamer who made a name for himself by playing Sion in a very unconventional way that defied many general sensibilities of what the “proper” way to play League was. He died a lot, proxied waves, and coined terms like the “Bausen Law” (having poor kills/death/assists score but still being the richest person in the game by playing the map), “Good Death” (dying while doing something positive, like sacking the entire wave that the opposing laner won’t get, absorbing pressure while the team is on the objective, or simply trading kills to get a better game state), and “Solo Bolo” (pure mechanical outplay to kill your opponent).
Many point to the fact that Baus makes way more money streaming than any reasonable pro contract would bring, but he still decided to give it a year and play in the ERL and then the Masters. Many regarded him as the weakest link in Los Ratones, but after adjusting to the level of the toplaners in the league, he managed to not only hold his own but also get several match MVP awards for his standout performances on Gragas and Poppy.
As of now, we don’t know the fate of Los Ratones or its players. Caedrel has stated that the team won’t go back to play NLC, and Riot Games hasn’t made the team any new offers to play in any leagues. Players like Nemesis, Crownie, and Rekkles reconfirmed that they are absolutely LEC-level, and Velja managed to showcase his top-tier mechanics and clutch smiting ability.
