Popular mid laner PawN plans to come back to playing professional League of Legends after he treats his obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and a back disc problem, he announced yesterday on afreecaTV, a South Korean equivalent to Twitch.
PawN joined Kingzone DragonX, a Korean team, for the 2019 season along with his longtime teammate Deft. They finished third in the 2019 LCK Spring Split with a 13-5 record. But the team announced in May that Pawn would become inactive due to health issues without providing details.
https://twitter.com/LCK_Raptor/status/1259503270520745984
Then, last September, the 23-year-old announced his retirement from League after competing for seven years. In December, PawN explained in an interview with InvenGlobal that he retired because he had developed OCD.
His symptoms first appeared in 2017 when he started using a ruler to set up his monitor. But it got worse a year later when he returned to Korea and it got to the point where he couldn’t play on stage. PawN said he would measure the distance between him and his monitor, its height, and even the angle. “Whatever that I couldn’t measure with a ruler or a protractor, I had to measure it by feel,” PawN said.
PawN’s gaming chair even started triggering his OCD. The last straw was when the size of the monitors used on stage changed from 24 inches to 25 inches. He just couldn’t adapt no matter how hard he tried.
But now, PawN said he may make a comeback after he’s done treating his OCD and goes through a diet to treat his back disc issue. He won’t return until he’s sure he won’t need to leave during the season, however.
He was one of the best mid laners during his prime and it would be interesting to see him face the current top mid laners in Bdd, Chovy and his long-standing rival, Faker. More professional players are looking to come out of retirement after they’ve noticed how much the scene has grown and the developed ecosystem which allows to explore multiple jobs if you have experience as a pro player. One recent example is Yellowstar in EU’s Academy French League, LDL where he has just won the tournament after taking a couple of years break from professional League of Legends.
While the situation was quite dire a couple of years ago at the beginning of development, the infrastructure in multiple regions allows pro players to develop a good career path without having to rely on going back to school.
