Dopa returns to League of Legends, already in Korean Challenger

In the year 2023, we said goodbye to one of the most legendary players, Jeong "Apdo" Sang-gil. After 18 months in the ROK Armed Forces, Jeong has returned and is already streaming again on his YouTube channel and on CHZZK. A mere few weeks after he's returned, and after a year and a half of no gameplay, he's already a few LP away from Challenger in Korean solo-queue.

He's mostly playing his classic picks, including Twisted Fate and Orianna.

Dopa is a legend, and a relatively mysterious and controversial figure. Very little is known about Dopa's career outside of his performance in League in League of Legends.

He's a retired professional League of Legends player, but most of his fame comes from playing soloqueue. His favourite role was midlane, but he excelled with virtually any role in the game up to a professional level. He's gotten to Challenger with several dozens, if not hundreds, of accounts, with different roles. He began a very profitable boosting service, turning his hobby into a dream job.

For those not in the know, a LoL boosting service is a business that levels up League accounts, ranks them up to an appropriate rank, then sells them for a profit. Dopa was so consistently good at it, that he would be able to run the entire business himself — he’d just start a new account, get to Challenger, then sell it. A lifetime achievement for the average player is just another Tuesday for him.

At the end of 2014, when Dopa started to dip his toes into the pro-play scene, he was forbidden to play professionally once his boosting had come to light. Dopa's professional career was cut short due to this offline ban, but he continued boosting and playing solo-queue in streams.

He had several challenges in Korean and Chinese servers where he got to rank 1 in under a month in different servers and aced them all.

Apdo is most likely the most successful LoL player. He started out as an elo booster to pay off his college loans, before forming an amateur team and getting banned for the boosting that had paid off his debts. He resumed boosting for 2 years after that, before the Korean server officially banned him for 999 years.

Was his ban really unfortunate, though? This ban and the controversy around him is what drove people to his boosting business and his stream. He instantly gained tons of attention on every new smurf and moved to the Chinese LoL scene after winning 500,000 Yuan from reaching rank 1 in Chinese soloqueue.

The controversy cemented him as one of the best League of Players in history almost immediately. This attracted the attention of the streaming company Huya, which hooked him up with an apartment, translator and assistants in China so he can keep streaming.

Dopa speaks very little about himself. His finances are even more nebulous. At this point, he doesn't do boosting anymore, since he has more than enough to live off from contracts with Huya and Koo, along with his own investments.

After having completed his military service in Korea, he now has the realistic option to go back to college. He attended Hongik University, which is a pretty renowned one at that, and could always use his money to go back and finish his degree.

This is unlike most LoL professional players. Most retired pro-players in recent memory are still streaming, and will continue to stream as long as they can. College degrees (if any college education at all) are rare, since they've been on contracts since their late teens. Dopa's LoL career, unlike LoL pro-players who have to perform well and maintain their status and image, is by far the closest thing to the dream that we as kids dreamed of—playing games and getting paid for it.

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