PawN might return to pro League play

The League of Legends player retired because of OCD.

Photo via Riot Games

Popular mid laner PawN plans to come back to playing professional League of Legends after he treats his obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and a back disc problem, he announced yesterday on afreecaTV, a South Korean equivalent to Twitch.

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PawN joined Kingzone DragonX, a Korean team, for the 2019 season along with his longtime teammate Deft. They finished third in the 2019 LCK Spring Split with a 13-5 record. But the team announced in May that Pawn would become inactive due to health issues without providing details.

Then, last September, the 23-year-old announced his retirement from League after competing for seven years. In December, PawN explained in an interview with InvenGlobal that he retired because he had developed OCD. 

His symptoms first appeared in 2017 when he started using a ruler to set up his monitor. But it got worse a year later when he returned to Korea and it got to the point where he couldn’t play on stage. PawN said he would measure the distance between him and his monitor, its height, and even the angle. “Whatever that I couldn’t measure with a ruler or a protractor, I had to measure it by feel,” PawN said.

PawN’s gaming chair even started triggering his OCD. The last straw was when the size of the monitors used on stage changed from 24 inches to 25 inches. He just couldn’t adapt no matter how hard he tried.

But now, PawN said he may make a comeback after he’s done treating his OCD and goes through a diet to treat his back disc issue. He won’t return until he’s sure he won’t need to leave during the season, however.

Author
Image of Nádia Linhares
Nádia Linhares
Nádia is a Brazilian freelance writer who works for Dot since 2020. She has covered everything from Pokémon to FIFA. Video games are an essential part of her life, especially indie games and RPGs. You can catch her playing Overwatch in her spare time, but she writes better than she aims.