There’s a new face at the top of NA’s solo queue ladder in League of Legends, and Jaxon sat down with 17 year-old jungler Michael “Munchlax” to chat about his accomplishments.
Munchlax isn’t a serial Challenger player who finally climbed to high LP. In around 250 games, he climbed from a floor of Diamond 2 to the single highest rank available on the server. We sat down with the Munchlax for his first-ever interview to discuss his journey to rank one, his thoughts on the future, and why he’s named after a Pokemon.
Note: This conversation was a flow of consciousness and some segments have been edited for clarity.
Hey Munchlax, thanks for taking the time to chat. Can you introduce yourself to the audience and let us know a bit about your history with League of Legends before this season? When did you start playing, what was your peak rank before this?
Hey, I’m Munchlax, or I go by Michael. I started playing League in 2017 when I was visiting Korea with my family and my cousins were playing it. I thought I’d pick it up as well. My peak rank was Diamond 1 in 2021 before this. I stopped playing around that time because I prioritized school, and my parents really didn’t like me being on the PC a lot, so I couldn’t really pick it up that much until now that I graduated high school. Since I’m older, they gave me a lot more freedom with how I spend my time, as long as I still get good grades.
I always thought I could be higher rank than Diamond 1 at the time, but just never had time or cared too much to stay on late and sneak on to play.
Have you always been a jungle player or did you swap to the role at some point?
Yeah, jungle was my first role as I thought it was the coolest. Because you can just farm the NPC camps and not worry about 1v1ing or 2v2ing the enemy laner.
So you had hardly played in a few years, picked it back up, and managed to get rank one in 250 games? That’s wild.
It does still feel unreal that I was able to hit rank one, I thought I could at least get Grandmaster when I hit Master, but rank one wasn’t even a thought in my head.
You mentioned your parents not liking you being on the PC a lot. Have you told them about this? Do they know you’ve claimed the #1 spot on a server of 16 million players? What was their reaction?
Yeah, I told them, and they were like “Oh, that’s pretty cool.” I showed them my Reddit AMAs and said “Look! People are responding and asking questions about me, and even coming to my stream. I showed them screenshots of people typing in my chat and said “These are real people asking about me and how I got this right.” Their reaction wasn’t, like, too crazy, but that’s alright because that’s just them.
So you got the, “Oh you got #1 on a server of millions of people? That’s nice.”
Yeah! [laughs]
Any League-playing friends you got to show it off to?
Yeah, I showed friends from middle school that I grew up playing video games and sports with, and they were amazed and congratulated me.
Sounds like you’re the only one in your friend group who really stuck with League, huh?
Yeah, they are all very casual and barely play. My cousins in Korea, on the other hand, I messaged them and they were amazed as well.
So, looking at your OP.gg for what champions got you this far, I’m seeing a lot of Graves, a lot of Kha’Zix, a fair amount of Lee Sin too. It’s a lot of AD skirmishers and assassins, who haven’t exactly been the most meta this season with Fated Ashes ruling the jungle. Why did you choose these champions, and how did you gravitate to them?
Yeah, at the start of the season I wasn’t really sure what to play. My favorite champion was always Kha’Zix as I thought he was a good champion, his clear speed is decent and his 1v1 is strong, to add on his objective taking is really good with an evolved Q. So I thought “This is one of the junglers that if I have to play if I want to climb.”
Also, for Graves and Lee Sin, I would watch [Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu] and see him everywhere on my timeline so I was like “I gotta check this guy out.” I saw him win Worlds in 2020 and thought this guy was insane, everybody was hyping him up. So I started watching his jungle VODs and tried to kind of copy and see what he does.
From what I observed, he’s always a carry threat and tries to get as many resources as he can, to always have agency in the game. Which, I think, is maybe what I got to do in jungle.
Do you watch much LoL esports coverage, or are you more focused on playing the game?
Usually for pro play, I would watch mainly the elimination matches on Worlds and some LCK. In Korea, League is pretty big, and literally middle schoolers go to PC bangs to play at least League.
Well, the question is inevitable once you’ve gotten rank one this quickly. Have you ever considered a competitive career? Whether that’s collegiate, challengers, or even all the way to LCS and beyond.
Going pro definitely crossed my mind. My main goal when I started to stream and play solo queue was just to try and become a streamer. because I liked watching streamers whether they were playing video games or just in real-life streams. It inspired me, and made me think, “Wow, that would be pretty cool if I could do that.” But I never had anything so I just tried League, and grinded the season, and suddenly hit rank one.
Now I’m 50/50 on things and leaning towards school more as I think it’s very important for my future. Playing professionally at the highest level is definitely something very cool that I would consider doing.
Alright, this next question has nothing to do with League of Legends. Why Munchlax? I assume he’s your favorite Pokemon, but why all the Munchlax branding?
[laughs] Munchlax is one of the Pokemon that I thought was really cool. And it goes with my first name, Michael. …Not really, but they have the same first initial I guess. I thought, as well, that Munchlax is really cool because he evolves into Snorlax, which is the funniest-looking character in the anime. I always thought Munchlax was a strong Pokemon in general.
You talk about bouncing back and forth for a while. Did you get worried that you were stuck in Diamond or did you always have faith?
Yeah, I was stuck Diamond 1 for like 93 games, it was a hassle getting to Masters. I needed to really have the strongest mentality.
[laughs] Originally, I was gonna give up. I was demoted and promoted from D1 to D2 like four times. Then I was like, “No way I can’t get Master. It’s so close, it’s right there!” I just needed to get 100 LP then.
I hit Masters and suddenly the game got a lot better and I was winning more.
What kept you coming back to League of Legends even after you hadn’t played for a couple years? What about League captures your imagination?
In general, League is my favorite out of all the games I’ve played. I’ve played Fortnite, Roblox, Call of Duty… But it really didn’t feel as satisfying as winning in a League game and stealing peoples’ LP, or just making the enemy jungle three levels down. It’s so fun to do when that happens. And also, with League, I feel like every game something new or exciting is going to happen. But [Call of Duty] and Fortnite, I can just get headshot out of nowhere, feels more frustrating to play.
As a newcomer to Challenger, is there a player where, when you see them in-game, you know it’s going to be a tough game?
[Laughs] Okay, this might sound weird, but honestly not really anyone. The things that would make me feel worried or think a game is hard is if I see certain players on my team that are first-timing champions. Because in my experience it always goes wrong, and they, most of the time, run it down and make the enemy laner super fed and I can’t do much about it.
But right now mages feel the best to play with, and I hate playing against them. Like, Seraphine, Syndra, Hwei. Split-pushers like Gwen I hate as well because if they are fed, they’re always two levels up on me and I can’t do anything.
Any goofy pocket picks you’ve been working on? I know I’m partial to a little Yorick Jungle.
[Laughs] I’ve been playing Rumble and Jax in the jungle and they are pretty fun. But I’m a firm believer you can pick anything and win, because enemies will always make a mistake, no matter what champion they are on.
Yorick sounds horrible.
I won’t preach too much, but four Yorick Ghouls with just jungle item solo-clear Gromp. You can be farming two camps at once. Every Ghoul auto can proc the jungle item passive.
I never knew that. I’ve never VS’d a Yorick Jungle, so I had no idea. Wow, maybe I’ll try it in future.
So, overall, how are you feeling about this journey and accomplishment? This took a lot of work, how does it feel in the moment.
Overall, I feel pretty good and happy every time I think about it. There’s lot of support and kind messages that I got through Reddit DMs, which was actually very surprising.
What’s next for Munchlax? What can we expect? I think people are excited about the possibilities of what you have ahead.
I’m gonna keep grinding and see if I can reach higher LP, but maybe I’ll do unranked to Challenger on a new account on stream and try to grow. Because, like, in traditional sports, I think it’s good to build a brand for yourself.
Alright, we’ll bring it back to LoL esports now to close off the interview: Who is winning the FlyQuest vs Team Liquid NA grudge match, and who’s winning the whole thing?
Uhh, I haven’t kept up with NA, at least in LCS, but from watching Worlds highlights, I’d say Flyquest look like they put up more of a fight than TL. Or, at least, don’t make as much mistakes. And also TL lost a game to GAM yesterday when I thought it should be a solid 2-0.
I think for sure it will be one of these three: LNG, T1, or GEN.G. But I’m leaning towards GEN.G, then T1, then LNG.
Thank you very much to Munchlax for the exclusive interview with Jaxon.
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