The Final Fight is a series in which we catch up with World Champions from Seasons 1-4 and have them recount the special moments just before and after they took down the Nexus to win Worlds. When did they know they had won? And how did it feel to become a League of Legends World Champion?

Four years ago was a much simpler time in League of Legends esports. Rather than being held in world class stadiums and arenas, the World Championship was a more…intimate experience. Fighting for space and attention at DreamHack in June 2011, a massive crowd of hundreds screamed for the players in FnaticMSI and Against All Authority who were competing in the Finals of the first World Championship.

xPeke, who’s now attending his fourth Worlds as the captain of his hand-picked team Origen, remembers the final moments of that series with a grin. For him, he admits he was honestly surprised just to make it there.

“I remember for me, all this time it was kind of weird because I never expected to win. All my friends were like, ‘What if you win? What are you going to do?’ and I was like, ‘We’re never going to win, there’s no chance…maybe with some luck we’ll make it to Semifinals.'” So when he and Fnatic made it all the way to the Finals, “it just felt like a dream,” he says.

The Final Fight of Season 1 was centered around Baron, and xPeke wasn’t even alive for much of it. The fans in the crowded room were on their feet, standing inches from the players, cheering them on as Fnatic started to take down Baron and aAa moved to contest. MoMa instantly dove in on Jarvan IV and dunked xPeke’s Karthus to death to start the fight. With a front row seat for the rest of the engagement, xPeke watched as his teammates Shushei and Cyanide retaliated, taking out MoMa and sOAZ, forcing Yellowstar — who was playing AD carry for aAa at the time — and Linak to retreat.

“When we were winning, I couldn’t actually believe we were winning this…” xPeke says with a laugh.

As Fnatic’s super minions stormed into aAa’s base from top and bottom following the fight, his teammates busted down the middle turret and Inhibitor. With only three aAa members to defend, it wasn’t long until the Nexus exploded. And so did xPeke out of his chair, hugging his teammates and screaming in disbelief. “I was thinking I was so happy…and telling my team how good they were!”

As he looks back on the moment when he became a World Champion, he can’t rid himself of a huge, nostalgic smile. “It didn’t matter how big the tournament was, how big the prize was,” he says. “We just were playing because we loved it in the end.”

“That’s kind of what I find really cool about Season 1 more than anything else, that it was the beginning of everything.”