How Luminosity Gaming Became Two Time World Champions
Opening
Luminosity Gaming, the two-time world champions, faced a lot of pressure at the beginning of season two. After dominating in the first year’s world championships the players and staff felt immense pressure to keep up their success. But that was not the only pressure on the team.
Post Year 1
Just days after winning the championship title the team found out they would have to part ways with their coach because of a sexual assault allegation. Their celebrations were cut short as this level of stress was applied to all the players and remaining staff.
This combined with what the team defined as “ego issues” Made the interim between Season 1 and 2 extremely difficult.
Start of Year 2
Year 2 of the competitive Pokémon Unite Season changed a lot. The introduction of Draft mode in the tournament scene forced a lot of teams to level up quickly. While Luminosity began the season with a tournament win in the first event, the fall-off was quick. In the second tournament of the season Luminosity failed to even qualify for the finals. This exposed a lot of problems within the team.
Results from this team were still acceptable when it comes to the leaderboards. However, this level of middling success was not enough for the team or fans of the team.
Rhinne joins the team
Within the season Luminosity signed a new Jungle player, Rhinne. Rhinne is an incredibly talented player and no one can question their mechanical skill. The problems started occurring when trying to balance Overlord and Rhinne on the same team, personality and gameplay.
NAIC
NAIC was the biggest tournament of the year before the World Championships, and the biggest proving ground for Luminosity so far. At this event, LG took second place at this event and with it learned a lot of lessons. No longer could their raw skill level carry them to victories, there was something missing. This led to the team picking up Junky to help coach the team.
New Coach
Junky joined the team because they are well known within the Unite Space as the best coach when it comes to team communication. The first thing Junky addressed was the problem of Overlord trying to win the game themselves. Overlord themself identified this issue as well and came into the preparation for worlds with a brand new mentality. Team communication improved, team practice improved, and most importantly the team morale was finally back. The team felt like they could win again.
Worlds in Japan
Luminosity started the event shaky. Winning a very close set over an underdog team of S8UL did not inspire confidence in people watching LG. But after that Luminosity started winning and did not stop. The World Champions were back, and they were even better than the previous year.
Day 2 they were untouchable. Not a single map was lost by LG in the entirety of the top 8 bracket. That energy took them all the way to becoming World Champions yet again. After the event the entire team considered their victory in season 2 much more important than their win in season 1. Despite all the hardships they faced, externally and internally, Luminosity Gaming has proved to themselves that they are capable of being the best in the World.
