Balls

BalIs
Retired
BalIs
Background Information
Name	An Van Le
Country of Birth	; United States
Birthday	June 22, 1994 (age 30)
Residency	NANorth America
Competitive
Role	; Top Laner
Favorite Champs	; ; ; ;
Soloqueue IDs	C9 Squirtle, The KidRobot, C9 Balls, EunjiSuzy (KR), BlG HUEVOS, d2piayer
Social Media & Links

Overview

Tournament Results

Stats

Match History

An "BalIs" Van Le is a retired League of Legends esports player, previously top laner for FlyQuest.

Team History

Combine Role Swaps:No|Yes

Dates:Approx|Exact

	Team	Start	End
NA	⁠⁠APictureOfAGoose	≈Feb 2012≈2012-02-11	Feb 20122012-02-14^[1]	≈3d ejel
NA	⁠⁠mTw North America	Feb 20122012-02-14^[3]	Aug 20122012-08-22^[2]	6mo 8d ejel
NA	⁠⁠Monomaniac Ferus	Aug 20122012-08-22^[5]	Oct 20122012-10-26^[4]	2mo 4d ejel
NA	⁠⁠Meat Playground	≈Dec 2012≈2012-12-??	Jan 20132013-01-23^[6]	≈1mo 22d ejel
NA	⁠⁠Cloud9	Jan 20132013-01-21	Apr 20132013-04-01^[7]	2mo 11d ejel
NA	⁠⁠CLG	≈Feb 2013≈2013-02-??	≈May 2013≈2013-05-??	≈3mo ejel
NA	⁠⁠Quantic Gaming	Apr 20132013-04-01^[9]	May 20132013-05-23^[8]	1mo 22d ejel
NA	⁠⁠Cloud9	May 20132013-05-23^[10]	Jul 20162016-07-13	3yr 1mo ejel
NA	⁠⁠Cloud9 Challenger	Apr 20162016-04-22	Jan 20172017-01-06^[11]	8mo 14d ejel
NA	⁠⁠FlyQuest	Jan 20172017-01-09^[13]	Nov 20172017-11-21^[12]	10mo 12d ejel

	Team	Start	End
NA	⁠⁠APictureOfAGoose	≈Feb 2012≈2012-02-11	Feb 20122012-02-14^[1]	≈3d ejel
NA	⁠⁠mTw North America	Feb 20122012-02-14^[3]	Mar 20122012-03-15	1mo 1d ejel
NA	⁠⁠mTw North America	Mar 20122012-03-15	May 20122012-05-02^[14]	1mo 18d ejel
NA	⁠⁠mTw North America	May 20122012-05-02^[14]	Aug 20122012-08-22^[2]	3mo 20d ejel
NA	⁠⁠Monomaniac Ferus	Aug 20122012-08-22^[5]	Oct 20122012-10-26^[4]	2mo 4d ejel
NA	⁠⁠Meat Playground	≈Dec 2012≈2012-12-??	Jan 20132013-01-23^[6]	≈1mo 22d ejel
NA	⁠⁠Cloud9	Jan 20132013-01-21	Apr 20132013-04-01^[7]	2mo 11d ejel
NA	⁠⁠CLG	≈Feb 2013≈2013-02-??	≈May 2013≈2013-05-??	≈3mo ejel
NA	⁠⁠Quantic Gaming	Apr 20132013-04-01^[9]	May 20132013-05-23^[8]	1mo 22d ejel
NA	⁠⁠Cloud9	May 20132013-05-23^[10]	Apr 20162016-04-22	2yr 10mo ejel
NA	⁠⁠Cloud9	Apr 20162016-04-22	Jul 20162016-07-13	2mo 21d ejel
NA	⁠⁠Cloud9 Challenger	Apr 20162016-04-22	Jan 20172017-01-06^[11]	8mo 14d ejel
NA	⁠⁠FlyQuest	Jan 20172017-01-09^[13]	Nov 20172017-11-21^[12]	10mo 12d ejel

News

2012
2013
2016
2017

NA	⁠⁠APG	February 11 (approx.), Balls joins. e
NA	⁠⁠APG	February 14, Balls, Xmithie, mandatorycloud, Atlanta, and cuRtoKy leave.^[1] e
NA	⁠⁠MTW	February 14, Balls, Xmithie, mandatorycloud, Atlanta, and cuRtoKy join.^[3] e
NA	⁠⁠MTW	March 15, Zuna joins. Balls (Top to Bot) and Atlanta (Bot to Support) change positions. cuRtoKy leaves. e
NA	⁠⁠MTW	May 2, Muffinqt joins. Balls (Bot to Top) and Atlanta (Support to Bot) change positions. Zuna leaves.^[14] e
NA	⁠⁠MTW	August 22, Balls, Xmithie, mandatorycloud, Aphromoo, Muffinqt, and Gnomesayin (Manager) leave.^[2] e
NA	⁠⁠MMF	August 22, Balls, Xmithie, mandatorycloud, Aphromoo, and Muffinqt join.^[5] e
NA	⁠⁠MMF	October 26, Balls leaves.^[4] e
NA	⁠⁠MP	December (approx.), Arthelon and Balls join. Pobelter and LightSludge leave. e

NA	⁠⁠C9	January 21, Balls and Calitoxic join. e
NA	⁠⁠MP	January 23, ⁠⁠Meat Playground is disbanded. xHazzard, Nk Inc, Arthelon, Balls, and Lemongod leave.^[6] e
NA	⁠⁠CLG	February (approx.), Balls joins as substitute. e
NA	⁠⁠C9	April 1, Balls, Meteos, Hai, and LemonNation leave.^[7] e
NA	⁠⁠QTC	April 1, Balls, Meteos, Hai, and LemonNation rejoin.^[9] e
NA	⁠⁠CLG	May (approx.), Balls leaves. e
NA	⁠⁠QTC	May 23, ⁠⁠Quantic Gaming is disbanded. Balls, Meteos, Hai, Sneaky, and LemonNation leave.^[8] e
NA	⁠⁠C9	May 23, ⁠⁠Cloud9 is reformed after the roster's departure from ⁠⁠Quantic Gaming. Sneaky and Jack (Chief Executive Officer) join. Balls, Meteos, Hai, and LemonNation rejoin.^[10] e

NA	⁠⁠C9	April 22, Altec joins as substitute. Hai (Support to Sub/Mid) changes position. LemonNation (Coach to Sub/Support) changes position. Balls and Rush move to substitutes. e
NA	⁠⁠C9C	April 22, Balls, Rush, Hai, Altec, and LemonNation join. Licorice, Morning, Thinkcard, bobqinXD, kt Smurf, and Fragnat1c join as substitutes. e
NA	⁠⁠C9	July 13, Thinkcard and Zeyzal join as substitutes. Balls, Hai, and Altec leave. e

NA	⁠⁠C9C	January 6, Balls, Hai, Altec, LemonNation, Bubbadub, Bunny FuFuu, Smoothie, and Thinkcard (Head Coach) leave.^[11] e
NA	⁠⁠FLY	January 9, Balls, Moon, Hai, Altec, LemonNation, and Thinkcard (Head Coach) join. bigfatlp and Remilia join as substitutes.^[13] e
NA	⁠⁠FLY	November 21, Balls, Hai, and bigfatlp leave.^[12] e

Biography

An "Balls" Van Le started playing League of Legends during the beta along with his friends and cousin, Dang Le, known ingame as Professor Rice. Prior to playing League of Legends, he had played Runescape, Maplestory, and other casual online games, but once Season 1 began, he started playing ranked games and quickly climbed the Elo ladder. He achieved an Elo of 2252 during that season playing mainly Ezreal and Corki. Eventually, Balls started playing weekly Go4LoL tournaments and got a taste of the competitive scene.

League of Legends Career

After a few unsuccessful tournaments, Balls was introduced to mandatorycloud, Atlanta, LemonGoD, and wallstop, and they formed the team APictureOfAGoose, where Balls switched between AD Carry and toplane. The team qualified for IEM Kiev but were unable to attend due to external commitments^[15]. The roster was later picked up by mTw.NA and soon transferred once again to Monomaniac Ferus. When AD player Aphromoo joined mTw.NA in August 2012, Balls switched to top lane.

In October 2012 Balls left mMe Ferus to focus on school, but in December of the same year he was picked up for the AD carry position of Meat Playground just before the NA LCS Season 3 qualifiers. When the team failed to qualify, they disbanded, leaving Balls a free agent. He was picked up by Quantic Gaming as their toplaner in April, and on May 2013, they qualified for the summer split. After qualifying, the current Quantic roster reformed as Cloud 9. Balls has played for Cloud 9 since, winning two splits of the NA LCS, taking second place in the 2014 Summer Split, and qualifying for and playing in two World Championships.

Balls is widely recognized as one of the best toplaners in North America and is known in particular for his Rumble play.

2015 Preseason

Cloud 9 was the North American team fan-voted to IEM San Jose.^[16] They defeated paiN Gaming 2-0, Alliance 2-1, and then Unicorns of Love 3-0 to win the tournament.

2015 Season

Due to their IEM San Jose victory, Cloud9 qualified for IEM Katowice in March. They lost their only two games, first to GE Tigers and then to yoe Flash Wolves, and finished in 7th/8th place. Domestically, they underperformed at the start of the season, and were in 8th place at the end of the second week of the spring LCS split. However, they improved over the course of the season, ending with a second-place finish behind Team SoloMid and a playoff bye; after beating Team Liquid 3-2, Cloud9 lost to TSM 1-3 in the finals and finished the split overall in second place.

Cloud9 replaced mid laner Hai with Incarnati0n at the start of the Summer Split due to Hai's retirement. They performed poorly for the first five weeks of the split and replaced Meteos with Hai going into the sixth week. With Hai back on the team, Cloud9's record improved from 3-7 to 6-12 by the end of the split, and they finished in 7th place after a tie-breaker victory against Team 8, narrowly avoiding relegations and retaining their Championship Points, though they did not qualify for playoffs. In the Regional Finals Gauntlet, Cloud9 reverse-swept both Gravity Gaming and Team Impulse before beating Team Liquid 3-1 in the finals. Their fourteen games played over the course of three days gave them North America's third seed to the 2015 Season World Championship, Cloud9's third-consecutive Worlds.

Considered an underdog at Worlds, Cloud9 were placed into Group B along with Fnatic, ahq, and Invictus Gaming and expected to place last. Balls's soloqueue performance in Korea was especially called into question, as he was demoted from Diamond I to Diamond II multiple times during the team's bootcamp in Korea. Instead, Cloud9 surprised with an undefeated 3-0 first week, with Balls suddenly picking up Darius. In the second week, Cloud9 needed only one win to advance to the quarterfinals but were unable to find it, losing four games in a row including a tiebreaker loss to ahq. They placed third in their group, ahead of only Invictus Gaming.

2016 Season

For the 2016 season, Cloud9 added two new players - Rush and Bunny FuFuu - and moved Hai to support, with the intention of splitting time with Bunny. However, after two losses with Bunny and two wins with Hai in the spring split, they committed to starting Hai fulltime and rose to a 67% winrate, with a third-place seed in the playoffs. However, despite a seeding advantage, the team lost to TSM in the first round and were eliminated.

Before the summer season began, Balls moved to the newly-formed Cloud9 Challenger, joining his former teammates Hai and LemonNation. The team, which had acquired Enemy's NACS Qualifiers slot, easily qualified for the NACS 2016 Summer and then dominated the circuit, losing only two games throughout the season. In the playoffs, they swept Dream Team, then beat Team Liquid Academy in the finals to secure the best possible seed heading into the promotion tournament. There, they swept 9th place LCS team NRG Esports to qualify for the 2017 NA LCS.

2017 Season

Due to rules preventing one organization from owning multiple LCS teams, Cloud9 Challenger was bought and rebranded to FlyQuest. Balls joined the new team, along with Moon and his C9C teammates Hai, Altec, and LemonNation. FlyQuest started the spring split with a surprisingly strong 6-2 record but went 1-7 over the next four weeks. However, a 2-0 final week let them squeak into the playoffs as the fifth seed.

In the quarterfinals, FlyQuest faced off against fourth seed Counter Logic Gaming, who were favored due to FlyQuest's weak late-season performance. After going to 0-2 in the series, FlyQuest roared back to win the next two games and eventually reverse sweep CLG off the back of some questionable aggressive calls in game seven. Unfortunately, the Cinderella story ended there, as they were quickly swept by eventual champions TSM in the semifinals, and fell to Phoenix1 in the third-place match despite taking a 2-1 series lead.

Unfortunately, despite their playoff performance, the struggles that had begun for FlyQuest in the spring split continued in the summer. FlyQuest never managed to climb higher than seventh place or reach a .500 record and only avoided relegation by winning their final two games. Although the team didn't make playoffs, due to having 30 championship points from the Spring Season, they were eligible to play in the 2017 Regional Finals. With little expected of them, FlyQuest managed to shockingly sweep Team Dignitas in the first gauntlet match and take the first game of the second series off of CLG before eventually falling in a close 3-1 series, ending their Worlds hopes.

Balls left FlyQuest in November. He never officially announced his retirement but didn't join another competitive team.

Trivia

His favorite champion was at one point Ezreal.
His cousin, known as Professor Rice on the NA server, was a diamond player in season 1.
He is also related to Shiphtur and AnDa.
Used to play tennis and was a cross-country runner. As such, he spends a lot of time exercising.
Benches 155/160 lbs (8 reps) with a max of 200 lbs.
Being the first ever toplaner to achieve a pentakill at World Championship all-time.
Known for his Rumble.

Pentakills

Date	Region	Tournament	Team	Vs	Champion	Pos	W/L	KDA	SB	VOD
2015-10-04	INT International	Worlds 2015			Darius	Top	W	9/4/2	Link	Link

Click here for a full list of pentakills by all players.

Tournament Results

This table shows up to the 10 most recent results. For complete results, click here.

Balls Tournament Results
Date	Pl	Event	Last Result	Team	Roster
2023-09-17	3 - 4	NA Legends Invitational	0 : 1⁠⁠YASS	⁠⁠THE	Balls, Spica, Stunt, Sneaky, Smoothie
2017-09-10	3	NA Regional Finals 2017	1 : 3⁠⁠CLG	⁠⁠FLY	Balls, Moon, Hai, WildTurtle, LemonNation, Thinkcard
2017-08-06	7	NA LCS 2017 Summer	6 - 12⁠⁠RR	⁠⁠FLY	Balls, Moon, Hai, WildTurtle, LemonNation, Thinkcard, Hermes
2017-04-23	4	NA LCS 2017 Spring Playoffs	2 : 3⁠⁠P1	⁠⁠FLY	Balls, Moon, Hai, Altec, LemonNation, Thinkcard
2017-03-26	5	NA LCS 2017 Spring	9 - 9⁠⁠RR	⁠⁠FLY	Balls, Moon, Hai, Altec, LemonNation, Thinkcard
2016-08-07	Q	NA LCS 2017 Spring Promotion	3 : 0⁠⁠NRG	⁠⁠C9C	Balls, Contractz, Hai, Altec, LemonNation, Thinkcard
2016-07-20	1	NACS 2016 Summer Playoffs	3 : 2⁠⁠TL.A	⁠⁠C9C	Balls, Contractz, Hai, Altec, LemonNation, Thinkcard
2016-07-07	1	NACS 2016 Summer	3-2-0⁠⁠RR	⁠⁠C9C	Balls, Rush, Contractz, Hai, Altec, LemonNation
2016-05-25	Q	NACS 2016 Summer Qualifiers	3 : 0⁠⁠DFGL	⁠⁠C9C	Balls, Rush, Hai, Altec, LemonNation
2016-04-17	5 - 6	NA LCS 2016 Spring Playoffs	1 : 3⁠⁠TSM	⁠⁠C9	Balls, Rush, Jensen, Sneaky, Hai, LemonNation

Balls Showmatch Results
Date	Pl	Event	Last Result	Team	Roster
2020-07-10	1	LCS 2020 Summer Classic Showmatch	1 : 0⁠⁠TSM	⁠⁠C9	Balls, Meteos, Hai, Sneaky, LemonNation
2014-05-10	3 - 4	All-Star 2014 Paris	0 : 2⁠⁠OMG	⁠⁠C9	Balls, Meteos, Link, Sneaky, LemonNation

Media

2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2021

July 17, mTw Balls 2.5k+ elo AMA~ with Balls on Reddit
e

March 20, Cloud 9's Team AMA! with Hai on Reddit
e
May 11, QTC vs coL Interview - LCS 2013 NA Summer Promo D2 with Riot Games on YouTube
e
July 15, C9 HyperX Balls, MVP of week 5, AMA with Balls on Reddit
e
July 16, Interview with MVP Cloud 9 HyperX Balls [Archived] with Drfeelbad on Dignitas
e
July 26, Hai and Balls talk about the Longest Win Streak at NA LCS with Travis Gafford on YouTube
e
September 30, Cloud 9 HyperX Talks League Of Legends Championship by John Gaudiosi on GameSkinny
e

February 1, Balls talks about today's match against EG with Travis Gafford on GameSpot
e
May 31, Balls talks about their losses last week and their performance after the first day of Week 2 LCS Summer Split (video) with , and on onGamers
e
August 30, Balls on battling Curse at PAX (video) with , and on onGamers
e
September 16, Cloud9 HyperX Balls | 20 Questions (video) with , and on HyperX
e
December 10, IEM San Jose: Balls and LemonNation after C9 victory (video) with , and on SK Gaming
e

February 14, NA LCS 2015: Balls "I didn't know at first...that Shiphtur was my cousin" (video) with , and on SK Gaming
e
March 21, NA LCS 2015: Balls "We were allowed to talk for 5 minutes since it was such a long pause" (video) with , and on SK Gaming
e
June 17, Recall with Thorin - Interview - C9 Balls (video) with , and on HTC
e
October 4, Balls on Group B: 'We know the strength of each team now so it makes it a lot easier to go in to our next game' by , and on The Score
e

March 29, Q&A: An “Balls” Le on Cloud 9’s origins, the Hai effect and League of Legends’ rise by Vince Nairn on Slingshot Esports
e

January 31, Balls on FlyQuest’s practice setup, NA LCS goals and being a veteran with , and on Slingshot
e
February 21, Balls talks the best part of being on FlyQuest, Hai's shot-calling, and what he misses about C9 with , and on Blitz Esports
e
August 3, FlyQuest Features - Home Workouts ft. Balls by , and on FlyQuest Sports
e
August 29, FlyQuest Features - Rumble in the Top Lane ft. Balls by , and on FlyQuest Sports
e

May 26, The 5 Best Top Laners to Ever Compete in the LCS - Run It by Tim Sevenhuysen on YouTube
e

Post-Match Interviews

Date	Tournament	Match	Link
2015-10-04	Worlds 2015	C9 vs FNC	Link
2014-08-02	NA LCS 2014 Summer	TSM vs C9	Link
2014-07-19	NA LCS 2014 Summer	C9 vs COL	Link
2014-04-20	NA LCS 2014 Spring Playoffs	TSM vs C9	Link
2014-04-04	NA LCS 2014 Spring	CLG vs C9	Link
2014-02-23	NA LCS 2014 Spring	C9 vs EG	Link
2014-01-26	NA LCS 2014 Spring	C9 vs CRS	Link
2013-09-01	NA LCS 2013 Summer Playoffs	TSM vs C9	Link
2013-08-17	NA LCS 2013 Summer	C9 vs TSM	Link
2013-07-26	NA LCS 2013 Summer	TSM vs C9	Link
2013-07-19	NA LCS 2013 Summer	C9 vs CRS	Link
2013-07-11	NA LCS 2013 Summer	C9 vs CLG	Link
2013-06-13	NA LCS 2013 Summer	C9 vs CRS	Link
2013-05-11	NA LCS 2013 Summer Promotion	COL vs QTC	Link