In Katowice, Poland, back in 2016, an underdog faced a behemoth. Top laner Noh “Gamsu” Young-jin, playing for Fnatic, was looking to finally reach the top of League of Legends after travelling across the world for multiple teams. On the other side, living legend Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok and SKT Telecom T1 wanted to continue their dominance.
After going down 2-0, Gamsu and Fnatic only had one game left to bring the series back. Gamsu struck first blood early on, leaving hope for the potential comeback. But that was Fnatic’s only kill in the first fifteen minutes. As Faker grew stronger on Zed, uncontested, Fnatic were swept away. In the most important match of his career at the time, Gamsu watched his dream slip from between his fingers.
Champion select
That game was the closest Gamsu got to a major title in League of Legends. The long journey to that point started in 2014, a couple months before turning 20, when he took a risk and left South Korea for North America. While it took him far from home, the decision helped him find a new one.
“Dignitas was my first team outside of Korea, and I didn’t know how to speak English at that time,” Gamsu said. “In the first year, I started to like Western culture more and more. I learned English, and now I think I like to play more in Western teams, NA and EU, than Korean ones.”
That was when he became a multilingual esport player. With that extra knowledge, he moved to Fnatic in Europe and got his shot to make that initial risk worth it. But, that’s when the biggest loss of his career, so far, hit him.
And after that game, Gamsu said the frustration he felt drove him to try something new.
“I was burnt out at League at that time, stressed,” Gamsu said. “Overwatch was fun, and I started playing seriously and got better. Good enough to play in the Overwatch League.”
When the Overwatch League’s teams started recruiting for the inaugural season in 2018, the Boston Uprising looked at Gamsu as their main tank. His time within APEX, the Korea-hosted top tier of Overwatch before the main league, didn’t lead to any championships or high finishes — but the experience Gamsu brought from another esport transitioned over.
“I knew his English was good from his time in League, so that was a good pickup for a team like Boston, but I didn’t think he was better than the top tanks in Korea, like Gong “Miro” Jin-hyuk or Baek “Fissure” Chan-hyung,” League of Legends and Overwatch caster Wolf Schröder said. “After Boston played, it was clear that Gamsu was a leader-type, making sure everyone was good mentally.”
That was when Gamsu became a figure in a second esport. Through the strong tank duo of Gamsu and Lucas “NotE” Meissner — and the carrying potential of Kwon “Striker” Nam-joo — Boston finished third place overall in OWL’s inaugural regular season, off the back of an unbeaten run in stage three. It all culminated with their toughest matchup in that stage, a single moment that stayed with him years later.
“One of my favorite memories in esports was playing on Boston against the London Spitfire in Stage 3,” Gamsu said. “It was Oasis, map five, 99/99, and we barely won. Striker and I popped off and we continued our perfect stage.”
