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From player, to pro, to coach, and beyond.
Albert “Crumbz” Rengifo is a phenomenally talented League of Legends pro who’s competed for teams like Curse Gaming and Dignitas and has coached teams like Apex Gaming and Apex Pride.
With a wealth of esports knowledge under his belt, we were eager to learn more about how he got his start in League of Legends, and his experiences in the esports scene. Speaking with Shacknews’ Greg Burke, Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo says he started out playing DOTA in high school as part of an after-hours DOTA club.
At the time, Crumbz didn’t have internet access at home so to continue playing outside school, he put DOTA on a flash drive, set up a LAN cable between his and his brother’s computer, and the two played against bots. Crumbz notes that his friends were all into DOTA, but by the time he gained access to the internet at home, his friends had switched over to League of Legends.
So, Crumbz also switched to League of Legends. Crumbz had just started attending university in Canada at that point and remarked that he didn’t want to go, especially after just having moved to Canada.
“I just moved to Canada,” Crumbz explains. “I didn’t even know what Canada was about, so signing up for university on top of that was such a confusing experience for me when I had so many other questions going on that I figured well, I’m just going to play League of Legends instead.”
With this, Crumbz dedicated all of his time to League of Legends, ending the first season with the most ranked games played and ranked among the top 10. At a tournament in Atlantic City, an esports team had a member who was under the age of 18 who could not attend given the tournament’s location inside of a casino. Needing a replacement, the team went through the list of people in the top 10 for League of Legends and of the people on that list, Crumbz was the only one who was over 18 who wasn’t already on a team that could go.
Once the tournament was over, the team snagged second place and Crumbz got $1,000 and an offer to join a team at the same time. After accepting that team offer, which Crumbz notes was for Curse Gaming, he was able to further refine his gameplay while playing on a professional team and earning a salary. This led to Crumbz getting an invite from Dignitas to fly to Korea and compete, and with an interest in going to Korea, Crumbz accepted.
He played with Dignitas for several years before eventually leaving to start his own team.
“We qualified from ranked all the way to the LCS which was an amazing experience. Just five people could become an LCS team worth millions of dollars. And we did that right before the window closed.”
With Crumbz’s career coming to a rather abrupt end, he decided to become a coach with the goal of eventually becoming a caster.
“Afterwards, I didn’t get an offer to join the team and it was in the middle of the year so I figured well, I don’t want to wait half a year and keep grinding without anything since I can’t join a ranked team and do the same thing again, so I could be a coach,” Crumbz details.
“And I’ll try being a coach because I want to end up being a caster because I’ve done some work on the analyst desk for fun and it was very enjoyable meeting all these people talking about the game that I love and I just did coaching for a bit because I thought, no matter what, I can always do casting later, the window’s still open and I can learn a bit more about another side of the game to better communicate with the audience about what it means to be a professional player.”
Overall, it’s an extremely enlightening interview on starting in esports and moving upwards and outwards. Be sure to check out the full interview with Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo on GamerHub TV, and while you’re there be sure to subscribe, and if you haven’t already, also subscribe to the Shacknews YouTube channel for more interviews like this one!
Morgan is a writer from the frozen wastelands of Maine who enjoys metal music, kpop, horror, and indie games. They’re also a Tetris fanatic who’s fiercely competitive in games like Tetris 99… and all games in general. But mostly Tetris. You can follow Morgan on Twitter @Author_MShaver.
Morgan Shaver posted a new article, Alberto ‘Crumbz’ Rengifo on becoming a League of Legends pro and life in esports
