When rumours about Luka Perkz Perković moving to North America started circulating through the LOL community, that easily becomes one of the most important possible transfers in this years’ off season.

Although Europe has been taking the back seat to Asia on the world stage, the Old Continent still offers plenty of excitement for their fans. And one of the biggest and most popular excitement-bringers was Europe’s best player for years, Luka Perkz Perković. Having won eight European titles with his team G2 Esports, he is the record holder for most European titles, he has been in the top 10 world’s best players for years, he has been the carrier for G2 (for some time even literally, playing as an AD carry) and a fan favourite basically since the roster formation in 2015. So it’s safe to say that we are talking about one of the most recognizable faces in LOL community.

Perkz, Biggest European Of All Time

As mentioned, Perkz began his rise when he joined G2 in 2015. He was a wrestler as a kid, but he had a foot injury which forced him to stay at home and rest. That’s when he discovered esports, taking more interest in LOL after some time. As he was playing online, he was spotted by the scouts, and the rest is history.

His main position in G2 was midlaner, but that changed in 2018. when Rasmus Caps Borregaard Winther joined the roster. He took over the midlaner position and Perkz transfer to AD Carry, where he continued to be stellar. Since he made the transition so smoothly and was so good at it, there was no need to change it. But, the change did happen again between two players, they went back and forth twice in 2020, and by that time the whole community was buzzing about the fact that Perkz isn’t so happy playing ADC as he was as a midlaner.

When you put it like that, it doesn’t seem as much of a surprise that he would consider changing teams to play the position he wants, but don’t forget that he was and is one of the oldest and best known players of the best European team, so it’s completely understandable that fans went nuts when he decided to leave G2.

Why Did Perkz Leave?

At the beginning of a roster shuffle there were six (!) teams in rotation rumouring to bid for Perkz, but as time went by, it was clear he had his eyes on Cloud9, a big NA organization with the most success on the world stage. And then it got ugly. Fans couldn’t justify his decision to leave Europe for NA, so they started having ideas. Since Perkz was under contract with G2 until 2021, some were claiming he didn’t even have a say in that decision and that Carlos Ocelote Rodriguez Santiago, the G2 owner, made the decision for him, forbidding him to transfer to Fnatic, their biggest European rivals. Caps also received some hits, but Perkz was quick to defend both him and Carlos.

Besides Caps and Carlos, who quickly became enemies of the state, fans also unleashed their fury on Perkz directly. They began blaming him as a sellout, that he went to NA to retire and to get some easy money, and they were pretty relentless doing so. In their defence, Perkz did suggest recently that he feels burnt out from playing so long at a such high level, but he dismissed the accusations by saying “I’m not coming here to retire, I’m coming here to dominate”.

As far as Cloud9 goes, it’s an understatement to say they are thrilled. The org said through Twitter: “We are bringing the most accomplished and most impactful Western player in the history of League of Legends to #C9LoL. Watch him”. Their community is extremely excited, with hopes that Perkz can perhaps even lift the whole NA league to another level. And by the looks of it, since the storm of an initial shock in Europe passed, that possibly isn’t far from the truth. Fans are already saying they are going to watch NA matches because of him, but we’ll have to wait a little longer to see what kind of an impact this big transfer will have.

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