LoL Legend hits top rank, five years after retirement
A widely considered legend of the game has still got it. Five years after retirement, League of Legends Worlds 2017 Kang "Ambition" Chan-yong has once again reached the top rank on the South Korean server.
Most impressively, he managed to climb the ladder while the best players are practising in the region, filling the queue while they practice for Worlds 2023 hosted in Seoul, South Korea.
Still got it
Former Worlds Champion Ambition reaching KR server Challenger 5 years after retirement
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Now content creator for Gen.G, Ambition is still heavily involved in League, uploading regularly on his YouTube channel while keeping up with streaming on Twitch.
Due to his popularity, the Worlds winner was often subject to some players sabotaging his matches and pushing him as low as Diamond for stretches at a time in his solo queue post-retirement career.
Counter-intuitively, he had an easier time climbing when the ranks filled up with higher quality players due to Worlds being played in the region, allowing him to consistently climb to the top rank again with less of his performances being sabotaged by his team.
Ambition also appeared to be spurned on by the challenge with Worlds taking place in his home country. In League of Legends, the solo queue ranks are seen as fairly indicative of one's skill with many pro players taking ladder practice seriously.
Ambition had never been one of those professionals and indeed had not been at the highest rank in over eight years, focusing on scrim performances during his professional career instead.
A legend of the game
Ambition is seen as one of the most iconic players of the esport. In 2017, his career reached its pinnacle, winning the World Championship with his team Samsung Galaxy against Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok's SKT T1.
The tournament run was later immortalised in lolesports' Worlds song "RISE," telling his story as the main character of the music video.
After a career that spanned seven years, he retired in 2018 from active play. The year after, he joined his old organisation Gen.G as a content creator.
