Hai (gamer)

Hai Lam (Vietnamese: Lâm Du Hải), better known as Hai, is an American former professional League of Legends player. He previously played mid lane for the Golden Guardians of the North American League of Legends Championship Series (NA LCS). Hai rose to prominence as the mid laner for Cloud9 (C9), leading them to two NA LCS championships. During a brief retirement due to health issues in 2015, he was Cloud9's Chief Gaming Officer. He returned to the team's lineup as their jungler and support to fill in for the split playoffs. He later became the mid laner for Cloud9 Challenger, which qualified for the LCS and was bought and rebranded as FlyQuest. Hai has won two NA LCS splits with Cloud9, as well as the NA LCS Promotion Tournament with Cloud9 Challenger. He is well known for his shot calling within the game.

For the Norwegian footballer, see Hai Lam (footballer).

In this Vietnamese name, the surname is Lâm. In accordance with Vietnamese custom, this person should be referred to by the given name, Hải.
Hai
Hai in 2015
Personal information
NameLâm Du Hải
Born1992 or 1993 (age 30–31)[1]
NationalityAmerican
Career information
GameLeague of Legends
Playing career2012–2018
RoleMid Laner, Jungler, Support
Team history
2012Orbit Gaming
2013–2015Quantic Gaming
2013–2016Cloud9[lower-alpha 1]
2016Cloud9 Challenger
2017FlyQuest
2018Golden Guardians

Hai announced his retirement from the competitive League of Legends on April 23, 2018. In Spring 2019, he was part of the North America LCS analyst desk.

Early life

Hai Lam moved to East Lansing, Michigan to attend Michigan State University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Arts and Technology.[2][3] He was a prominent member of the League of Legends club on campus.

Career

Orbit Gaming

Hai began his professional League of Legends career in earnest as a part of Orbit Gaming in 2012.[4][5] Orbit went on and was placed 7th/8th at the 2012 MLG Spring Championship. At the Spring Championship, Orbit defeated vVv Gaming 2–0 in the first round but lost 1–2 to Counter Logic Gaming Prime in the second round, which placed them in the losers' bracket. There, Orbit defeated Redact 2–0, Team Legion 2–0, and Team SoloMid Evo 2–0. They eventually lost to Counter Logic Gaming EU 1–2 in the fifth round of the losers' bracket.

On June 30, 2012, Orbit Gaming competed in the Leaguepedia North American Invitational. They finished the two-day online tournament in first place, most notably defeating Curse Gaming 2–1 in the quarterfinals and sweeping Team Dynamic 2–0 in the finals. On August 26, Orbit took fourth place at the 2012 MLG Summer Championship, losing to Dynamic 1–2 in the third-place match.[6] This led to a tie with Monomaniac Ferus for eighth place in the North American Season Two Circuit Rankings. To decide the last spot for Season Two Regional Finals Seattle, a best-of-three tiebreak match was held. Orbit lost 0–2 to mMe and was denied a spot at the North American Regionals.[7]

2013 season

Competing under the name Team NomNom and then Cloud9, Nientonsoh, Hai, Yazuki, WildTurtle, and LemonNation secured a spot in the Season 3 North American Offline Qualifier for the inaugural split of the League of Legends Championship Series. However, Cloud9 were knocked out in the group stage after losing to Team MRN and Azure Gaming.[8]

Initially, Nientonsoh said that Cloud9 would disband in light of the loss. The team later decided to stay together, although Nientonsoh and Yazuki left the team and a roster change ensued. Hai shifted from jungle to mid, and new junglers and top laners were actively being tried out in online competitions. The final roster of Balls, Meteos, Hai, Sneaky, and LemonNation set out to qualify for the NA LCS.

2014 season

Hai was hospitalized after suffering a collapsed lung in June, which prevented him from attending All-Star 2014 in Paris.[9] CLG's Link replaced him on the roster.[10] C9 finished 1st in the 2014 Summer LCS.[11]

2015 season

Cloud9 finished second in the 2015 NA Spring LCS.[12] In the playoffs, C9 reached the finals, where they were beaten by Team SoloMid.[13] On April 22, 2015, Cloud9 manager and founder Jack Etienne announced that Hai was retiring from competitive League of Legends and leaving the team.[14] This followed a post on the League of Legends subreddit that showed Charlie, the coach of Cloud9, chatting with a streamer about Hai's departure. Hai mainly blamed his wrist injury in his retirement, saying, "I cannot keep up with the amount of Solo Queue games my teammates play and it’s not fair to them. At best, my wrist injury would have only allowed me to play for another split and that wasn’t even certain." He also stated that team morale was at an all-time low and that his teammates were losing trust in his shot calling and performance as a player.[15] Hai announced his appointment as Chief Gaming Officer of Cloud9.[16][17] He was replaced on the roster by Nicolaj "Incarnation" Jensen.[18] Hai became a temporary substitute for Cloud9 Tempest in June.[19]

Hai came out of retirement in the middle of the Summer 2015 Split and replaced Meteos as jungler.[20] He helped the team rebound safe from relegations; they failed to qualify for the playoffs after ending the split in 7th place, but due to outstanding championship points from Spring, Cloud9 qualified for the Regional Finals. He helped the team qualify for the 2015 League of Legends World Championship by winning the North American qualifying tournament.[21][22]

Considered an underdog at Worlds, Cloud9 was placed into Group B along with Fnatic, ahq, and Invictus Gaming and expected to place last. Instead, they achieved an undefeated 3-0 the first week. In the second week, Cloud9 needed only one win to advance to the quarterfinals but instead lost four games in a row, including a tiebreaker loss to ahq. They placed third in their group, ahead of only Invictus Gaming. On the final day of Group Stages, Hai made an obscene gesture towards an opponent who predicted Cloud9 would lose. As a result, Hai was fined €500 as he was expected to behave professionally.[23]

2016 season

In the 2016 Spring Split, Hai was replaced in the jungle by former Team Impulse jungler Yoon-Jae "Rush" Lee, and shared the role of support with former Gravity support Michael "BunnyFuFuu" Kurlyo.[24] Hai trained BunnyFuFuu to become Cloud9's main shotcaller during the spring split.

Cloud9 Challenger

For the 2016 Summer Split, Hai moved to Cloud9's North America League of Legends Challenger Series (NA CS) team.[25] Cloud9 Challenger made it past the NA CS promotion tournament to clinch a spot for the 2017 LCS Spring Split, although Cloud9 had to sell the spot, as one organization could not have more than one team in the league.[26]

FlyQuest

Before the start of the 2017 LCS season, the Cloud 9 Challenger roster, including Hai in the mid lane, was purchased by Wesley Edens and rebranded as FlyQuest.

Golden Guardians

Hai signed with the Golden Guardians in ahead of the 2018 LCS season.[27] In April 2018, he announced his retirement.[4]

Tournament results

Notes
  1. Briefly rebranded to Quantic Gaming in early 2013.

References
  1. Esguerra, Tyler (June 10, 2020). "Hai gets chat restricted in League for calling a player "terrible" while 2 AFK players go unpunished". Dot Esports. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  2. Pan, Henry (June 25, 2014). "Video games can be sports, too". The State News. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  3. "C9 Hai Meet and Greet". Facebook. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  4. Goslin, Austen (April 24, 2018). "Hai Lam retires after 6 years of professional play". Rift Herald. Polygon. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  5. Shields, Duncan (April 28, 2014). "The history and formation of Cloud 9 - Part 1 of the Cloud 9 story". GameSpot. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  6. "Featured Team: Quantic Gaming | LoL Esports". Na.lolesports.com. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  7. "Back for Seconds: Quantic Gaming". YouTube. May 9, 2013. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  8. Goldberg, Harold (October 21, 2014). "Winners, losers, and Legends". Playboy. Playboy Enterprises. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016.
  9. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "'League of Legends' star plays with a collapsed lung from hospital bed". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  10. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "Can Link replace Hai? Here's what the stats say". The Daily Dot. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  11. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "Hai's Yasuo puts Cloud9 1 game away from first place". The Daily Dot. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  12. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "Is Cloud9 set for another title run?". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on November 19, 2015. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  14. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "Hai steps down from Cloud9 lineup". The Daily Dot. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  15. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "Hai on wrist injury, IEM failure, and why he's still on cloud nine". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  16. "Thank you Hai — Cloud9". Cloud9.gg. April 22, 2015. Archived from the original on October 23, 2015. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  17. "Hai Leaving C9? : leagueoflegends". Reddit.com. April 22, 2015. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  18. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "Incarnati0n officially joins Cloud9". The Daily Dot. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  19. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "Yusui permabanned, Jintae and Hai called up to C9T roster". The Daily Dot. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  20. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "Cloud9's Hai steps in for Meteos". Dailydot.com. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  21. Baker, Gavia (September 2, 2015). "Cloud9 completes Cinderella run, qualifies for Riot World Championship". Dailydot.com. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
  22. Chen, James (October 4, 2015). "Worlds turns the League of Legends scene on its head". PC Gamer. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
  23. "LoL Esports".
  24. Cocke, Taylor. "Bunny FuFuu and Rush Agree to Terms with Cloud9". www.redbull.com. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  25. Chouadria, Adel (March 9, 2017). "The most memorable role swaps in League of Legends history". ESPN. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
  26. Volk, Pete (August 6, 2016). "Cloud9 Challenger clinches LCS spot, which means an LCS spot is for sale". Rift Herald. Polygon. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
  27. Gillam, Ryan (December 13, 2017). "Golden Guardians reveal roster featuring Hai, Contractz and more". Rift Herald. Polygon. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  28. "LoL Esports".

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