The Story of Vulcan: An Appreciation Post
In honor of Vulcan’s 24th birthday, I thought it would be a good time to make an appreciation post for the king of spring, ratios, McDonalds, etc., like I made for Jojo and Kacper. And tell the tale of how a shy young rookie grew into one of the fan-favorite faces of the LCS.
As with the other appreciation posts, there will be Vulcan history interspersed with ‘fun’ sections. He definitely has much more history, but I promise it’s interesting.
Origins of Vulcan
Vulcan’s summoner name comes from the Roman god of fire, as his last name, Laflamme, means the flame in French. He was born in Quebec, so he speaks French fluently. If his summoner name wasn't Vulcan, then his second choice would be Laflamme.
As awesome as his real name (Philippe Laflamme) is, it still causes him some headaches when it gets misspelled in flights, an issue that has apparently been plaguing him for years. (I hope it won’t happen again for your sake…) Anyway, if his teammates aren’t calling him Vulcan, then they're usually calling him Phil.
Besides playing soccer as a kid, he would also play whatever video game his older brother was playing. He started playing League at age 11, and the two of them began competing in online tournaments together. One day, they took the next step, competing in a local LAN tournament at the college in their hometown. Vulcan, an ADC main at the time, got a pentakill in semifinals and relished the exciting feeling of competition.
At that moment, he knew he wanted to become a pro player.
I stumbled on this image and I just find it tragically poetic that they misspelled Philippe here
After playing with various French Canadian teams, he eventually won the biggest tournament in Quebec (Dreamhack Montreal) alongside players OmarGod, Hooks (Auto / Zag), and Fill, who went on to participate in 2016 Scouting Grounds and were picked up by CLG. They told coach Ziks that Vulcan was good, so he became a remote sub for CLG Black, but he wasn't really part of the team, just a “name on a piece of paper.” Dismayed that he wasn't invited to 2016 Scouting Grounds, Vulcan realized he needed to focus full-time on his pro player aspirations.
“My main motivations to turn pro were that I always wanted to be the best, I enjoy competition a lot and I’ve always liked the idea of people looking up to me.”
Once, CLG flew Vulcan out to tryout with them, but he says this went poorly because his communication and teamwork needed major improvement. He was determined to work on these aspects— by watching vods, learning the game, how to shotcall and be a leader. Developing these skills helped Vulcan impress teams at 2017 Scouting Grounds.
Clutch Scouting
Vulcan of Team Ocean, Scouting Grounds 2017
Upon being invited to 2017 Scouting Grounds, Vulcan felt relieved that his hard work paid off, and he was drafted by Clutch Gaming. After a year as a standout performer in Clutch Gaming Academy, CG decided to give Vulcan a shot on the LCS stage. At the start, it felt surreal for him to play on stage against players he had been watching and looking up to.
“When I first started in the LCS, there were so many things that were new to me … I was so impressed. I was on the LCS stage playing against these people I had been watching for the past five years from home. I was walking by them in the hallways thinking things like, ‘Holy f—-, that’s Bjergsen.”
Vulcan gives a lot of credit to Huni and LirA for teaching him on CG. They had a rough spring split ending in 9th, certainly not a result Vulcan felt satisfied with, not something that garnered him the same respect that players like Jojo and Inspired got in their rookie splits. But against the odds, CG managed to qualify for Worlds through an insane gauntlet run with a banger reverse sweep of TSM to cap it off.
I don't remember how Vulcan’s individual showing was at Worlds that year (I know their group stage record), but overall I think it's sick that he made it to Worlds in his rookie year.
Brand Building: Twitter Hero, Ratios, and more
These days, thanks to a lot of content and tweets, I think of Vulcan as the funniest player in the LCS. In fact, I managed to make the following video, compiling funny moments captured on camera throughout his career.
But at the start of his career, Vulcan didn’t feel the importance of building a brand as a pro player. He was more shy and less confident in everything; he just wanted to focus on playing. And he thinks that approach is fine for new players since you still have much to learn about the game.
“Everyone always says how important it is to put your face out there — do interviews, have a brand, tweet, stream — and I was just like, ‘f*** you, I don’t care. I just want to play the game.”
As he grew, he also began to grow a brand of his own, showing more personality to the public, especially through Twitter bangers. When asked by Inven Global early in his career (2020), he thinks it’s harder for supports to break out and build a brand than say, mid/adc. At that point he wasn't sure how fans perceived him- “the meme guy on Twitter, or maybe I'm the Alistar guy who flash comboed Deftly or something. Or maybe I'm the Tahm Kench guy 'cause I play Tahm Kench a lot, but it's hard to say for me.”
if you are an LCS fan, there’s a very low chance that you haven’t seen this image before
In 2021, as debates raged around team owners wanting the LCS import rule removed, Vulcan spoke out on Twitter and received a shocking reply from TSM owner Reginald that would go down in LCS history. Vulcan’s witty response sparked Vulcan McDonald’s memes that last to this day (he embraces them).
That was a ratio before Vulcan even became known for ratios, which happened in 2022. Flakked, G2’s ADC at the time, gave Vulcan the inspiration to start his own ratio campaign.
Inspired by G2 players again, Vulcan wrote the word RATIO on his forehead in sharpie. While hilarious and gigabased, makeup staff told him to never do that again.
At first, Vulcan began ratioing his general manager, even quickly alt tabbing during scrims to do so on occasion. Then he suddenly found himself engulfed in Twitter tension with then-retired LCS superstar Doublelift. It all started with a Trist pentakill that Doublelift posted to Twitter, to which Vulcan replied with “That was super skilled”. Doublelift started asking Vulcan to rate his Twitter clips, and Vulcan also played into it, continuing to act utterly unimpressed.
This eventually evolved into a saga of Vulcan mercilessly ratioing most of Doublelift’s tweets for about a month, which was extremely entertaining for me as a big fan of both players with notifs on.
Finally, Doublelift struck back with a brutal counter ratio. Vulcan toned it down after that and eventually stopped even trying to ratio Doublelift. He explains in an interview with Travis Gafford that he was worried that he might be seen as trying to “social climb” because Doublelift has signifcantly more followers than him. In general, he hasn't tried ratioing much since 2022. Perhaps he doesn't find as much fun in it anymore or thought it grew old. Or even this conspiracy theory that he has been contractually banned from ratioing. Either way, any 2022 LCS fan will remember his ratio era, and it definitely got me and my friends addicted to ratioing each other or just saying the word ratio for fun.
Though Vulcan has the best Twitter game in the modern LCS and acknowledges that consistent streaming can help with brand, he’s more hesitant to stream. To him, streaming brings the pressure of feeling like he would have to be entertaining or funny to the audience. Although I would happily watch even a no mic no cam Vulcan stream, I can empathize with his feelings. I don’t want players to feel forced to stream, and they should only do it if they genuinely want to. So I’ll just appreciate whatever Vulcan streams may crop up during a year.
“I do kind of have a character. Phil is different from Vulcan. I am putting an image out there that is kind of my brand, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that when I’m trash talking someone, I’m trying to be mean or something. I just want to entertain and try to get the fans to be involved in what’s going on and in rivalries and all of that stuff.”
I appreciate how Vulcan plays up his trash talk for entertainment. In terms of rivalries, I think of the Doublelift stuff, the tweet chain with CoreJJ last year, and most recently his ‘rivalry’ with Eyla. He didn’t even intend to start a rivalry, he was more trying to hype up Winsome since they had played soccer together. But Eyla clapped back, they went back and forth for a bit, and I think that’s fun. It gets fans and players more invested, so I’m down for it.
An interaction I remember clearly is when my friend Delfino replied to Vulcan questioning why he was tweeting at Eyla when EG just handed Dignitas their first win. He then responded with “what does that have to do with this tweet cringinaur?” because at the time Delfi’s display name was “delfinaur”. We thought this was absurdly hilarious and joke that Vulcan is Delfi’s #3 opp (behind Fudge and Tenacity). She had a chance to get a picture with him during finals weekend, and, well. See for yourself.
“I’m hoping and assuming that fans like it when I interact with them and reply to their comments when I say that they’re stupid or ratio their comments or something. They probably like it even though it’s a bit mean.”
Interactions I’ve had with Vulcan definitely helped me become more of a fan. As fans, we always think it’s amazing and even a bit surreal when a pro player, someone we admire from a distance, actually interacts. Vulcan is one of the LCS players who interacts more than others. He’s interacted with many of my friends, and we always consider it an honor, even if it’s a ratio.
The King of Spring
Vulcan has 3 LCS trophies, all earned in consecutive Spring splits
Dignitas (which bought CG) really wanted to keep Vulcan for 2020 because they saw him as the star of the team. But the $1.5 million became too much to turn down, as Cloud9 really wanted him. Vulcan himself was excited to join what he saw as a respected, prestigious org.
Being the most expensive player in the history of the LCS sparked many questions about whether he was worth that massive buyout. C9 proceeded to have an insanely dominant spring split and win a title, Vulcan’s first title. Unfortunately, covid caused MSI to be canceled which is tragic, as this roster never got a chance to show themselves internationally.
In 2021, C9 won spring again, played at MSI, and made it to quarters at Worlds. Overall, Vulcan was proud of his time on C9, but one of his unfulfilled goals was to win LCS in front of a crowd— the past two years had been missing in-person fans due to the pandemic. When the crowd returned for 2022 playoffs, Vulcan was finally able to achieve this dream, winning Spring for the 3rd time in a row, which really cemented himself as the King of Spring.
That doesn’t mean Vulcan can’t be good in summer, though some summers prove tough. In the post-series interview after a strenuous playoffs run to qualify for Worlds 2022, Vulcan noted that he indeed had flashbacks to the tragedy of summer 2020, having thoughts like “wow it’s happening again, I’m the peasant of summer, I’m not gonna make Worlds,” which was, unfortunately, a banger line... but the team was going through a lot of stuff internally that summer, so you can understand why playoffs became a struggle.
I think Vulcan has a solid argument for being the NA Support GOAT. It's either him or CoreJJ and if you think it's still Core, that's valid, but Vulcan can surpass him. Am I biased? A little, I like Vulcan and I think he deserves more recognition. That's the point of this anyway.
Most recently, Vulcan was the only EG player to make first-team all-pro, which is nice recognition in a split where covid unfortunately struck the team, causing them to fall to 5th place in the final weeks. And sadly EG was also knocked out of playoffs, finishing 4th this year.
In an interview with dGon after the series loss to GG, Vulcan, who had much higher expectations for the split, appeared disappointed and sad. Considering it a “lesson in humility,” he feels he has something more to prove in summer.
“King of spring” is just a fun moniker for the support who won spring thrice in a row- I don’t think losing this year can take that away yet, although I did notice that after the loss, Vulcan removed it from his Twitter bio. Maybe he feels like he needs to truly earn the title again. But I believe in his determination for summer, and we’ll have to find out next year whether he can be the King of Spring again.
The Support to his ADCs
As mentioned, Vulcan started as ADC player but swapped because a team he was playing with at the time needed a support. They won some small tourneys, so he stuck with it.
His favorite supports are on the engage side (his absolute faves are Bard, Thresh, and Rakan), but he’s still good at enchanters. He’s just extra good at engagers on top of enjoying them much more, always looking for opportunities to go in and punish enemies stepping out of place.
Early in his career the support players he looked up to were aphromoo and Olleh. He liked Olleh’s playstyle- he would play roam heavy champs and go for crazy plays, finding great angles on Bard for example. And aphromoo was known for traits that people considered valuable in a support player: leadership, good communication, putting the team first. So Vulcan wanted to be like them. (Besides that, he also says he used to be a massive Bjergsen fan and watch his stream all the time and played a lot of mid lane, trying to copy everything he did.)
In Vulcan’s career, he has gotten the chance to play alongside many botlane partners, shown above. It’s difficult to talk about a support player’s career without also talking about their ADCs.
Vulcan’s first ADC partner in pro League was former world champion Piglet during CG Academy 2018. He says he had a “love hate relationship” with Piglet- Vulcan loved his play and learned a lot from him as a rookie, but Piglet did create some issues in the team. Piglet always spoke highly of Vulcan. Before even becoming teammates, Vulcan says he once talked to Impact and Impact said ‘oh Piglet thinks you’re Faker.’
Cody Sun replaced Piglet on the LCS squad part-way into 2019. He and Vulcan seem to get along well. Vulcan liked that Cody played more for his team and was willing to give up resources, for example, to let Huni carry.
Zven wanted to play with Vulcan, so C9 pursued him. Vulcan thought of Zven as a really funny guy. He picked up some things from Zven, like his “malding” attitude (in a fun way y’know) and his speech patterns (I love an example that my friend Maya always brings up, which is how Vulcan started pronouncing “nautilus” the exact way that Zven does). Zven was an aggressive laner, not afraid to speak his mind, and happy to discuss things. Forming an incredible duo, they played 2 years together with highs and lows.
For 3 weeks of the 2021 summer split, Zven was benched for C9A bot laner k1ng, which created a new challenge for Vulcan to adapt to. C9 was facing a slow start due to MSI burnout- I personally wasn’t watching LCS during that time, but Maya says that other players on the team were struggling, not just k1ng. And Vulcan was kinda just there like, ‘I can teach him.’
Eventually Zven returned to the main roster and they made a run to Worlds quarterfinals. They still get along, but it’s natural to want something new after that long. And so they split.
His next ADC, Danny, was entering only his second split as a pro player, which brought Vulcan a new experience and responsibilities- he was now the veteran/older player in the botlane duo for the first time, and it was time to step out of his comfort zone into much more of a leadership role.
I have a special fondness for this bot lane because… well, if you know me…
“It’s been very different because I was always the younger player in my past duos. It’s a big shift in dynamic, but obviously, it’s one that I am kind of happy to take on. I understand that my role now is to talk more...”
He described it as a “big shift in dynamic,” but was excited to be able to help such a skilled young player grow. It wasn't all smooth sailing from the start, as he noted in a later interview with Inven Global, there was “kind of a clash in playstyles, so at first, it was kind of hard to get on the same page”. Danny was more focused on farming for his iconic strong teamfighting, while Vulcan was accustomed to playing aggressive lanes with Zven. Over time, they improved as a duo and eventually won the spring split.
“I like to give a lot of credit to Vulcan. He’s a very good player and he’s helped me a lot when we first joined together in LA... I think me and Vulcan are very—we fairly know each other very well now, and I’m really happy that I get to play with him.”
Danny enjoys Vulcan’s humor and his support on and off the rift. Even to this day, he speaks fondly of Vulcan. I appreciate Vulcan for taking this leadership role on the team with a mature mindset. This is also the era during which I really got to know Vulcan, and he always gave off older bro energy with the EG roster, which probably wasn't the case on his former teams.
Though short-lived, Vulcan and Kaori found pretty decent success, especially through lane dominance. I don’t know much of how their relationship was, but my friend Andrea said that Vulcan occasionally showed up in Kaori’s Twitch chat even after Kaori was no longer on EG, so it seems they’re on good terms.
Vulcan’s current ADC is FBI, who happens to be the same age as him. He describes FBI as “easygoing” and “chill”, but as of now I’m still not sure yet how their relationship as a bot lane duo is. Doublelift says they’re the hardest botlane to face in lane specifically. I think they’ve been pretty solid, gameplay-wise, so we’ll just have to see more in summer.
Vulfox, Vulcheese?
I still distinctly remember my first real interaction with Vulcan on Twitter. I got both a non-ratio and a ratio reply. He complimented my EG animal chibis; I was touched and lowkey freaking out. And then he asked “why tf am I cheese” which had me dying.
I don’t have a good explanation. It was a joke option I added to the poll since my friend Ines said she felt Vulcan’s soul in the cheese emoji, and I didn’t expect it to gather almost as many votes as fox (which narrowly won).
In any case, I don’t think Vulcan is that cheesy. If I really had to make up an actual reason for the cheese emoji, it would probably be something jokey like the meme about Vulcan being a McDonald’s employee, and McDonald’s has cheese in some of the food. Also, cheesecake is his favorite type of cake along with carrot cake.
When asked on stream, Vulcan said his favorite type of cheese is brie. (I don’t know if this information is useful to anyone...) Also, his favorite McDonald’s order, according to his Reddit AMA, is McChicken + some nuggies with bbq sauce/ HOT MUSTARD. In all caps.
His favorite food is not cheese or McDonald’s or his teammates, it is kimchi jjigae, which is based. His Korean soloq account during MSI 2022 was even named ‘kimchi jjigaegod’. On the other hand, his least favorite food is onions.
The reasoning for fox is mainly the cleverness and cunning associated with them. That’s also why many people thought of Vulcan as Ravenclaw or Slytherin. But then Vulcan came and said he is definitely Gryffindor, so I guess I’ll take his word for it?
“Vulcan is very methodical, very intelligent about how he thinks about things, but he really plays up [his persona].”
Peter Dun said he would maybe swap Vulcan and Inspired’s animals because Inspired would be the one to play with his food before killing it, while Vulcan wouldn’t mess around and just kill it (summarizing). Vulcan also said he would eat his teammates if they were stuck on a deserted island, so maybe he is onto something.
catboy vulcan nyaaaa
While watching stuff for this article, I stumbled across a “friendship test” video with Vulcan and Nisqy, during which Vulcan chooses lion as his “spirit animal” with the reasoning that “I’m the king.” We stan that confidence and I think it’s a funny answer. I didn’t know about this prior to making the animal poll, but it seems like he’s chill with being a fox these days, so why not. It’s all just for fun anyway.
Vulcan even wore cat ears for some content where he was becoming Yuumi. He slayed with the cat ears AND the acting skills.
Vulcan didn’t quite remember his MBTI off the top of his head but he thinks it’s INTP. I think that makes sense, for whoever here cares about MBTI. (I’m a bit of a nerd so I’ll spare you.)
“Funny, big voice in game, stupid (sometimes).”
Growing into a Leader
From the shy 18-year-old stepping into the scene to now, Vulcan has grown into not only a respected veteran of the league but also a fine leader. And this doesn't seem to be something that came naturally to him, but rather something he had to develop over the years.
Vulcan remembers getting very mad after a game during Scouting Grounds. Akaadian was there and firmly told him to “just relax” because “being mad doesn’t do anything during game reviews.” Whenever Vulcan felt himself getting mad the next year, he remembered this advice. In ways like this, he learned a lot from the veterans around him, and now it’s his turn to guide younger players.
In the beginning, Vulcan’s mood was much more affected by wins and losses, and he had to teach himself to be less controlled by the game. He can deal with losses and mistakes by understanding that he’ll still have the chance to bounce back and prove himself again. During the C9 years, he was maturing and shaping into a leader of sorts.
“Mithy even thinks I am an emotional leader, whatever that means. I like to make jokes whenever we are down and make people feel better.”
vulcan replied to this one with “my sons and I”
Considered one of the veterans on EG, Vulcan was a leader figure not only to his young lane partner but also to the team as a whole, trying to keep everyone cool in high-stress moments. Having previously been the young player guided by older players, the responsibilities of being the older player were new and different to him. He didn’t think he was the best at it yet, but I'm sure he’s learned and improved in this role from the start of last year to now.
“I’d say my role is to make sure that there’s not too much of people being at each other’s throats. There are a lot of emotions rising and there will sometimes be tensions after a loss or a bad day of scrims, and there could easily be arguments or people could get heated. So I try to make sure everyone’s cool, and that there are no underlying issues and that we don’t hate each other.”
During the import rule debates in 2021, Vulcan said to Inven Global that he would be down to take a role in the LCSPA if there was a need for it. He did end up with a vice president position in 2022, although I’m not sure if he still holds that - in 2023 there haven’t been any updates, so I can only assume nothing changed. Last year Vulcan said they had monthly meetings discussing topics, and that the LCSPA is active with Riot and teams to be able to improve the lives of LCS players. Having advocated for the players on many occasions, Vulcan seems like a good fit. I appreciate him always speaking up for the players as a player.
“Vulcan, maturity. He’s the most mature from us all.”
Vulcan Style & Hobbies
Before this split, Delfi asked me to record 1 minute of hyping up EG for her Beginner’s Guide to LCS video. 1 minute is pretty short when I feel like I could speak for years about these players. So I was summarizing as much as possible. And if it’s a beginner’s guide, I had to be able to convey info that would make new LCS viewers interested in players.
Therefore, my last line for Vulcan was “Vulcan is also known for being hot.” (Idk what it means to you, but to my aro ace brain it’s synonymous with “good looking.”) After all, he did win the extremely official hottest lcs player contest. I would say that 100% of LCS fans I have interacted with as well as non-LCS friends agree that Vulcan is hot. When asked by some random viewer on stream why he was hottest lcs player (I didn’t ask that ok) he replied “genetics.” Shoutout to Vulcan’s parents, who also seem pretty supportive of his pro career.
Personally, I think the Burger King socks are really funny.
Keep an eye out for Vulcan’s many interesting socks. His favorites are the dino socks and sriracha socks.
You can tell how bad Vulcan’s astigmatism is because of how much his glasses distort the side of his face. Relatable.
Aside from playing League and flipping burgers, Vulcan has many hobbies.
The number 10 on his jersey comes from the number given to the playmaker in a soccer team— Vulcan played soccer from a young age. Peter Dun says he’s genuinely very good at soccer, and Vulcanspired agree that they can 2v5 LCS soccer. According to Vulcan’s AMA, his favorite soccer player is De Bruyne or Eden Hazard.
His family owns chickens, which is a super important fact.
I cannot believe my gamer boy touches grass and reads books
To destress, Vulcan likes to read books or go on walks. (Thanks to him, I started to read the Stormlight Archive series, and I’m thankful because it’s been a very long time since I felt motivated to read books.) He also enjoys playing chess and Super Smash Bros, sometimes as a pre-game warmup.
Vulcan’s Future & Preventing Burnout
Vulcan seems to think about the future quite a bit.
He once said to Dot Esports he probably wouldn’t do something esports related after retiring. After pro play, he might return to school and do something "that helps people more” because he thinks that “being an esports player is kinda useless to the world.”
I think it’s completely valid for him to pursue something different after his pro career, but as an esports fan I would disagree with the last part. Esports isn’t massive, but there are still tens of thousands of fans. Fans who find valuable enjoyment or relief from their everyday lives in the esports they watch.
Through not only his gameplay but also his personality/persona, humor, and interactions, Vulcan has brought a lot of joy into my life as one of my favorite LCS players. He has enhanced LCS in many ways, and he is someone I feel happy rooting for. And I think even years into the future, even when League is long gone, the happy memories will remain.
Whatever he does in the future, he won’t be out of a job and paid minimum. And I hope he’ll know that his esports career wasn’t useless to the world at all.
“I had a lot of good times, and I think that’s what I’ll remember in 10 years. I’ll remember the people I played with and the places we traveled and the moments that we won together. So even though there were a lot of low notes, I think we had a lot of highs.”
The ever-present question of work-life balance:
From reading and listening to many of Vulcan’s interviews throughout the years, I get the impression that he thinks very thoroughly about LCS’ controversial topics like work-life balance. And that he’s still searching for the answers.
We as fans can never know exactly how it feels to be a pro player. That’s why I think hearing out opinions like Vulcan’s is very important.
He got a lot of backlash for sharing his thoughts on pro player work-life balance, but I think he is coming from a reasonable place. He is understandably concerned about burnout after experiencing signs of it in the past either from himself or teammates. Vulcan still works very hard, ever since that day he first felt the rush of excitement from playing in a LAN tournament and decided to become a pro. I think it’s unreasonable to call him lazy, for example.
“I’m always making sure that we’re not burning ourselves out, because I’ve been in this kind of situation before, where I’ve played MSI, and then had a very long year. It’s just been very, very tiring.”
“You can’t blame us for not wanting to burn through our careers and reach the unknowns of retirement faster than necessary,” Vulcan writes in his thought dump. If being a pro player has been Vulcan’s dream since a young age, then I think it makes sense that he would want to be able to do this as long as possible.
“I will never be able to say that we did everything we could because I don’t know what the best — I guess people call it ‘work-life balance’ — I could be in the room and scrimming 16 hours a day if I wanted to. I’m not going to do that, though. Maybe people will flame me for it, but I don’t know what’s the best way of doing it. I’m still trying to figure it out for myself.”
There is never a one size fits all solution. People are different and need different practice methods. If Vulcan finds the method of practice that works best for him (it might not be practicing 16 hours a day), then I trust him.
Vulcan with the Quebec flag
It may be easy for people now to forget how Vulcan came up as an NA talent through Scouting Grounds and Academy. He’s one of those players that shows it’s reasonable to give chances to NA players who show potential, that believing in rookie talent can pay off. Vulcan’s story of hard work, perseverance, and determination motivates me a lot.
I also respect Vulcan for putting himself out there even if it’s not necessarily natural for him. For being willing to speak out and take backlash for what he believes in, something that’s not too common among LCS players. The LCS needs more honest and genuine voices, which proves difficult when many pros (understandably) suppress their true feelings for fear of backlash.
As a fan, I want the pros to feel comfortable sharing in this way. So when pros like Vulcan open up, I would like their words to be met with validation and empathy. Or at the bare minimum, avoid spreading hate. (Otherwise won’t other pros not feel like sharing?) Pros will not always say what you want to hear, but we should be willing to hear them out and not expect them to be perfect human beings because no one is.
Thank you, Phil, for your positive influence and thoughtfulness as an LCS player. I hope you’re able to stick around for a long time and find continued success, and I’ll root for you from the sidelines.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Special thanks to my friends: Andrea @edgyhoon for help with CG stuff and Maya @mayaaonfiyah for help with C9 stuff.
If you read this far: Thank you so much, I know it’s very long but I wanted to get the full story. I really hope you enjoyed it!
*Disclaimer: I made this because I was pretty motivated to. First, it’s not meant to be insanely professional writing. Second, it’s dangerous to put anyone on a pedestal, and this is not the intention. I am trying to be as honest as possible about pro players who influence me, but keep in mind that they are still just people. So keep your expectations reasonable.
Learn more: Reference list of all the articles and videos used for this post. I put them in a separate doc because this post is already giga omega long. Thanks to all of the LCS reporters, journalists, interviewers etc over the years.
Also, check out Vulcan’s lcsprofiles page: https://lcsprofiles.com/player/vulcan/
