Published on: 20/09/2019

TCS LoL – What can we expect of the Tyler1 Championship Series?

Everybody knows that Tyler1 is one of the most famous LoL gamers. While his on-screen antics have generated plenty of controversies, his TCS League of Legends tournament (see here our Esports tournaments page) is starting to look like the real deal.

2019 marks the third time that the TCS LoL competition will take place, and it should help Tyler1 make the move from League of Legends outcast to being a fairly respectable member of the esports community.

But does the person who was once labelled ‘the most toxic gamer in North America’ have what it takes to make his TCS LoL tournament a lasting success? Let’s take a look at what TCS League of Legends is all about, and where it will go from here.

What is TCS LoL?

TCS LoL is a League of Legends tournament that shouldn’t be confused with the Turkish Challengers Series of LoL. Tyler1 started the first TCS League of Legends tournament in November 2017.

It was initially set up as a kind of parody of the League of Legends Championship Series. However, such is Tyler1’s popularity that the TCS LoL contest quickly racked up over 200,000 Twitch viewers.

This led Tyler1 to bring back the TCS League of Legends competition in November 2018. The tournament featured a much more professional presentation and even included a boosted $50,000 prize pool that was funded by Tyler1 himself.

The 2018 TCS LoL tournament saw Polar Ace winning the grand final 3-1 over Team E Turner. The contest features eight teams in a single elimination bracket that usually takes place over one week at the end of November.

It’s hoped that TCS League of Legends will return again in winter 2019. Although TCS LoL is supposed to be about showcasing the best in League of Legends gaming, it’s undoubtedly Tyler1 who is the star of the show.

With plenty of outrageous skits in front of his green-screen and lots of amusing adverts for his merchandise, TCS LoL is doing a great job of helping Tyler1 reaffirm his status as one of esport’s biggest stars.

Who is Tyler1?

Tyler1’s real name is Tyler Steinkamp and he is a 24 year old gamer from Missouri, USA. He quickly became a hugely popular streamer on Twitch as a result of his LoL gameplay that tended to get overshadowed by his obnoxious outbursts.

From encouraging other players to kill themselves to throwing LoL matches to annoy his teammates, Tyler1’s toxicity helped him become one of Twitch’s most notorious streamers.

All of this masks the fact that Tyler1 is actually a pretty good LoL player. Some critics have stated that Tyler1 is too reliant on the Draven character, but the gamer has managed to somehow become more than a one-trick pony.

Whether it’s trash-talking his rivals or dodging skillshots, Tyler1 seems to know what makes for good viewing. So love him or loathe him, Tyler1 is here to stay.

Why was Tyler1 banned from LoL?

Tyler1’s toxic outbursts clearly got too much for Riot Games in 2016. The games developer banned Tyler1 from owning a League of Legends account and even went on record as calling the player ‘a genuine jerk’.

Tyler1 kept busy by carrying on with his green screen antics and even playing Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, but the ban was eventually lifted at the start of 2018. Upon his return Tyler1’s first stream notched up over 382,000 viewers and it broke the record for most concurrent viewers of an individual streamer on Twitch.

Where will Tyler1 go from here?

As of September 2019, Tyler1 had over 2.6 million followers on Twitch, 1.87 million subscribers on YouTube and over 423,700 followers on Twitter. He is undoubtedly one of the major stars of the esports scene, and it already seems as though Tyler’s celebrity status is working in his favour.

His banning by Riot Games actually had the adverse effect of making him more popular, and his path of ‘reformation’ saw him playing a show-match against Micheal ‘Imaqtpie’ Santana and William ‘scarra’ Li. In addition to this, he’s been featured on broadcasts for the NA LCS and even became an analyst on the tournament’s Summer Split finals in 2018.

Tyler1’s rehabilitation doesn’t mean that the gamer has completely lost his volatile streak. He still takes to Twitch to slam players like 100T Yassuo as being ‘bottom-tier streamers’ and has recently started pretending to be sad and distraught online in order to generate extra interest for his channel.

All of which shows that Tyler1 definitely knows how to push people’s buttons and get them to take notice. With his TCS LoL tournament looking to become even more successful this year, it seems that Tyler1 is definitely in it for the long haul.