Kurtis Lau Wai-kin (), better known as Toyz, is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

personality and

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influent ...

. He is a former professional ''

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for War ...

'' player, best known for winning the

Season 2 World Championship The ''League of Legends'': Season 2 World Championship was an esports tournament for the multiplayer online battle arena video game ''League of Legends'', held from October 4 to October 13, 2012, in Los Angeles, California. It was the second ite ...

as the mid laner for

Taipei Assassins J Team is a Taiwanese professional esports organization owned by JY Entertainment with players competing in ''League of Legends'' and ''StarCraft II''. Its ''League of Legends'' team competes in the Pacific Championship Series, the highest le ...

. Following his retirement in late 2015, he transitioned to several coaching and managerial roles for esports teams in Taiwan before switching focus to his

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel. In late 2021 he was arrested by Taiwanese police on suspicion of trafficking

marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...

. He pled guilty to drug trafficking charges the following year and was sentenced to 4 years and 2 months in prison.

Career

After starting his competitive career by playing for the amateur team CrossGaming in 2011, Toyz was recruited by

in April 2012, with whom he went on to win the

. Although he was successful while playing for Taipei Assassins, in June 2013 he was forced to retire from professional play because of

carpal tunnel syndrome Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the collection of symptoms and signs associated with median neuropathy at the carpal tunnel. Most CTS is related to idiopathic compression of the median nerve as it travels through the wrist at the carpal tunn ...

. In 2014, he coached for the European team

Fnatic Fnatic (pronounced "fanatic"; also stylized as fnatic or FNATIC) is a professional esports organization headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Founded 23 July 2004, the team has players from around the world, across a variety of games, such ...

during their run in the 2014 World Championship, which ended in the group stage. However, Toyz returned to professional play in 2015, forming the

Hong Kong Esports Hong Kong Attitude (HKA) is a professional esports organisation based in Hong Kong. Its parent company is Hong Kong Esports, and all of its teams were previously known by that name from October 2014 to 16 May 2017. Hong Kong Attitude previousl ...

team together with former Taipei Assassins teammate Wang "Stanley" June Tsan. Toyz left Hong Kong Esports on 14 October 2015, after making a lengthy post on his Facebook account accusing the team's CEO, Derek Cheung, of match fixing on September. On 12 September 2016, Toyz founded Raise Gaming to compete in the Elite Challenger Series (ECS), the secondary league of the ''League of Legends'' Master Series (LMS), with the goal of qualifying for the promotion tournament. Under Toyz's coaching the team placed first in the 2017 ECS Spring regular season and second in playoffs. The team qualified for the LMS after defeating Team Yetti in the promotion tournament. When the team rebranded to

G-Rex G-Rex, officially G-Rex Gaming and previously Raise Gaming, was a professional esports organisation based in Hong Kong. Its parent company was Emperor Esports Stars, a subsidiary of Emperor Entertainment Group. It had a ''League of Legends'' t ...

on 15 September 2017, Toyz remained as a coach, before becoming the organisation's Director of Esports in mid-2018. He left G-Rex at the end of 2019.

Notable tournament results

Awards

In 2019, the Hong Kong government awarded Lau with the Medal of Honour for his contributions to esports in Hong Kong.

Arrest

Taiwanese police in

Taichung Taichung (, Wade–Giles: ''Tʻai²-chung¹'', pinyin: ''Táizhōng''), officially Taichung City, is a special municipality located in central Taiwan. Taichung has approximately 2.8 million residents and is the second most populous city of Taiw ...

arrested Lau on suspicion of trafficking

on 29 September 2021. He subsequently pled guilty to drug trafficking charges on 16 June 2022 and was later sentenced to 4 years and 2 months in prison.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Toyz Hong Kong esports players League of Legends coaches Living people League of Legends mid lane players Fnatic coaches Taipei Assassins players Hong Kong emigrants to Taiwan 1992 births