Esport: Hamiltonian eyes up overseas move to boost career

Hamiltonian Quin Korebrits helped Legacy Esports to one of their best performances at an international tournament. Photo / Legacy Esports

After leading Legacy Esports to one of the Oceania region's best-ever performances at the League of Legends world championships, Hamiltonian Quin Korebrits must now seek a new team overseas, after the Oceanic Pro League (OPL) was disestablished.

On October 7, Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends, announced that the OPL had ceased to operate.

League of Legends is just one of the many games that currently run professional esports leagues across the world. The game features 10 players split across two teams who play individual champions with unique abilities to destroy the other team's base.

Riot said they wanted to build a sustainable league in the region with commercial growth, however, the OPL had not met their expectations.

"At Riot Games, we want to build competitive and sustainable leagues that drive commercial growth and fan engagement and that support professional play as a full-time career," the company said in a press release.

"Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of our teams and players, the OPL has not met our goals for the league, and we do not believe that the market is currently able to support the league in its current form."

Korebrits said he immediately felt annoyed at the move as he believes the region's rising talent will now struggle.

"My initial reaction to the OPL being dissolved was obviously negative, I'm a pretty patriotic guy so knowing that there's just no future for the up-and-coming players and the region as a whole was just tragic," Korebrits said.

Despite the termination of the league, Riot Games have added Oceania to one of the regions for North America, meaning an Oceanic player would no longer take up an import slot on the roster, with each team only allowed two imports.

Korebrits said this will help established players like himself in the scene move on to the major regions but will damage the chances of up-and-comers.

"Oceania players becoming North American residents definitely helps the top players like me in finding a new team, but for the mid-tier players and the rookies with talent who if they had a year or two to develop first before heading to North America, it's extremely rough for them.

"There's a couple good players besides myself from New Zealand like 'Lost' over in North America or 'Chippys' and 'Shok', both on Australian esport team Dire Wolves, so I definitely think the talent is there to have some Oceania talent break out overseas."

Despite the termination of the OPL, Korebrits also had much to celebrate, with Legacy Esports putting a strong showing at the World Championship, while also drawing the praise of the one of the game's top pundits.

"I think our performance at Worlds was a result of a good read on the meta and being the first team from Oceania to actually meet and exceed our limits," Korebrits said.

"It felt really good to get some praise after one of my games, especially from someone like David 'Phreak' Turley since up until that point I was playing far below my expectations."