There comes a time in every pro’s life where he has to say farewell to dear friends. With the multitude of roster changes in the 2015 offseason, many teammates won’t be on the same team, or in some cases, the same region, come next season.

At the 2015 All-Star Event, a few of these teammates got together to talk about the memories they’d shared together.

Doublelift and Aphromoo

• Team: Counter Logic Gaming
• How Aphromoo describes Doublelift: “Doublelift is a dangerous mother******.”
• How Doublelift describes Aphromoo: “Okay, he can be a badass mother******.”

North America’s most confident bottom lane of Aphromoo and Doublelift is parting ways. Aphromoo is sticking with Counter Logic Gaming, while Doublelift is heading to Team SoloMid. But this is one dynamic duo that’s been through a lot together. Including Aphromoo’s change from AD carry to Support. “Well, the first time we played together I had never played support in my life,” said Aphromoo. “Every game I’d get flamed. By the whole team. Because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. And that was unfortunate.”

“Then, in 2014, in the beginning there were growing pains with how we were supposed to play the lane. But I took it upon myself, I said ‘Peter, let’s watch some replays of our 2v2.’ And after that, the rest of the year was free NA LCS bottom lane. I don’t know what happened.”

“I actually remember what happened,” Doublelift chimed in. “One LCS match we would destroy bottom and then in the next one we’d lose. And it was hard to pinpoint why we would do that, why were so inconsistent,” he says. To fix their problems, they watched VODs and discovered how to optimally target their opponents depending on the matchup. “We started having systems for how to play bottom lane and we were a lot more consistent after that. It was really hard to lose after that. I guess, we just agreed how to play the lane really naturally. And, we always wanted to play aggressive.”

After playing — and winning — together for so long, the duo had their fair share of memories with one another both on and off the Rift. While Aphromoo’s favorite memory of Doublelift was Double’s triple kill on Vayne back at MLG Dallas 2013, Doublelift’s favorite memory was a lot more recent. “I remember the penta at MSG [at the NA LCS Summer Finals]. I didn’t say a single word the whole time. Aphro said everything. ‘Zeke’s is up, I’m ulting, I’m Exhausting.’ I was like Niiiice, I just have to sit back and say nothing,” he says. “That sums up our bottom lane pretty well. Aphro controls how we play and he has the strategy down. I just have execution.”

“Yeah, you’re the executor,” Aphro agrees.

“He’s both, he’s the execution and strategy,” says Doublelift.

“But he carries the axe,” explains the oh-so-clever Aphromoo.

They also shared a memory about a time when Doublelift was almost an executioner in another type of way…

“We were coming home from a sponsor event and Peter was driving,” Aphromoo began. “I made sure I was awake. You know how it gets to be nighttime and you’re comfortable with the driver and you can just fall asleep? Well, I can’t do that with Peter.”

“I was about to fall asleep, and the signal to turn left went green, and there were two lanes, and we were in the right one,” he continued. “Seraph was in the back, asleep. We turn left, and Peter didn’t see the guy next to us in the lane. He thought it was a one lane turn. So we turn, and Peter starts drifting to the side…”

“Just as I was about to fall asleep, I grabbed the wheel and yanked it the other way,” said Aphromoo with a laugh while Doublelift was cracking up alongside him. “He was like, ‘Oh Shit!’ and we got on the freeway five seconds after that. Then Seraph woke up and he was like, ‘Wow, Peter, you’re a great driver.’ He didn’t know what happened at all.”

“Seraph said, you used to be a Bronze level driver and now you’re a Gold level driver,” Doublelift explained. “I was like, ‘Thanks, Seraph!’ And never told him what happened.”

And now what rank driver is he? “I’m Silver. I didn’t get demoted, he just thought I was Gold when I was still Bronze…”

Thankfully everyone made it out safely, and now they look to the future where they’ll be playing against one another in the NA LCS. They both agreed it will be a fun match, but Doublelift thought up the best case scenario. “I think the best would be if Aphro did really well, but we crushed Counter Logic Gaming,” he says. “Like Aphro is hitting every hook, but we still won. That would be the best of both Worlds!”

“If I hit every hook on you, you’ll still die,” Aphro said, perplexed.

“But I mean if we win, that’s okay!” Doublelift said, before the duo started cracking up — again.   

MaRin and Faker

• Team: SK Telecom T1
• How MaRin describes Faker: “In a word, Faker is a superstar.”
• How Faker describes MaRin: “MaRin is a volcano because if he loses a game he’ll explode.” (To which MaRin replied, “No, you’re more like a volcano! You explode more!”)  

Unlike our previous duo, MaRin and Faker had good synergy from the moment they joined the same team. “Even though we were on different teams, we lived together for a year and a half,” said MaRin, who went on to explain how they lived on different floors in the same complex, rather than together in the same apartment. “So we were close already. And after joining the same team, we did our duties well. We performed our goals well, so we were able to do pretty well as a team.”

Yeah, winning a World Championship is a pretty good accomplishment. But according to both of them, their Worlds victory wasn’t actually the proudest moment they shared together.

“There was this one game in Spring Split where we faced off against CJ Entus. We were losing, but then we were able to come around,” says Faker. “That was a game that I remember a lot.”

“In that game against CJ, we all thought we were going to lose that game,” said MaRin, continuing the story. “But we turned it around, so I think that was the happiest moment for us as a team — ever. In that game, we all thought that we had lost. So after winning that game, our teammates all celebrated a lot. More than after any other game.” MaRin explained that for him, as well as for SKT’s bot laners, they had never made it to a Finals before. “It was our first time, that’s why we were so ecstatic.”

Now that the two are parting ways, with Faker staying on SKT and MaRin moving to China to play on LGD Gaming, Faker had some advice for MaRin’s new team. “MaRin can’t speak Chinese, so I would advise them to make him learn Chinese,” he said with a smile.

MaRin smirked at the advice, saying “I’ve already bought a book on Chinese!”

Westdoor and Ziv

• Team: ahq eSports Club
• How Westdoor describes Ziv: “A good friend. A bro.”
• How Ziv describes Westdoor: “A loyal and trustworthy motherf*****.”

Westdoor and Ziv played on ahq eSports Club for a year together, and the two worked well together in-game. “One combo was that I’d play a Teleport champion, like Twisted Fate, and Ziv, he would play fighters,” says Westdoor. “And I helped Ziv to snowball.”

Ziv agreed, but said it wasn’t a one-way street. “Another example is I used Gnar and Westdoor was on Fizz. Gnar can crowd control with Fizz in the later game and get him a lot of kills.”   

When Ziv first joined ahq, Westdoor had already been on the team. But the veteran mid laner says that he was happy with Ziv from the start. “Ziv was a more vocal person and he also tries very hard. He’s a good teammate!”

But it almost wasn’t meant to be. “Before I joined ahq, my performance was not so good and my old team didn’t play good as well,” says Ziv. “I wanted to give up and go back to school full time. But the ahq coach and manager encouraged me to play in ahq. And finally, we won the championship, and went overseas to participate in Worlds. That was the most memorable moment for me.”

“It’s a wonderful memory,” Westdoor agrees.

Outside of the game, the members of ahq bonded with one another as well. Once, they went to Boracay, a small tropical island in the Philippines. On another occasion, Westdoor recalls a game they played, where the whole team went out to a night market and divided into two groups to eat exotic foods.

“The rule was that each group had to follow a specific order,” says Westdoor. Basically, they had to eat one food, then the next food had to start with the Chinese letter that the last food ended with. “Whichever group finished eight first, won,” he said.

Ziv laughed, remembering the challenge. “Westdoor won! And the loser had to sing a song…I sang it.”

“And, we also shot our own music video!” Westdoor added.

In the upcoming season, Westdoor will still be around for more antics with Ziv — but this time he’ll be on the sidelines as a substitute for ahq. For whoever ahq’s new mid laner ends up being, Westdoor left some words of wisdom. “Because of ahq’s style, we used to really suck in scrims,” Westdoor explained with a smile.

“We would play really bad,” he continued. “It’s totally different when we play on the stage. The new team member needs to get used to that. Don’t get disappointed with their performances during a scrim!” said Westdoor, while Ziv nodded along.

Rekkles and Huni

• Team: Fnatic
• How Rekkles describes Huni: “Cute and funny.”
• How Huni describes Rekkles: “Rekkles is too handsome. Not just handsome. TOO HANDSOME.”

Rekkles came back to Fnatic after a one-split hiatus, and when he returned, he had the pleasant opportunity to play with the funniest top laner in all of EU: Huni. Now that Huni is headed to NA to play for the Immortals, the duo looked back at what made their team so special.

“For me, it was mostly the fact that for the first time in my career, I had teammates that were my own age. It felt really natural,” said Rekkles. “It was a lot of fun, which is something I hadn’t really experienced before.”

Huni agreed, but said that when Rekkles first came back to Fnatic, it made the top laner a little worried. “I was a bit scared, because in Spring Split we were playing around Top and Jungle a lot — that Korean duo!” Huni laughed. “But he told me to just keep playing the style I was used to and that he’d adapt to what I was doing.”

Rekkles went on to elaborate about why he took this approach. “Previously in my career I’d been the main guy, in Copenhagen Wolves, in Fnatic in Season 2 or Season 4. If it wasn’t always around me, it was partly around me,” he says. “So in the new Fnatic, I tried to adapt as much as possible. Because when you come in as the new guy, especially with something that’s already working great, you don’t want to destroy something that’s not broken.”

But that doesn’t mean that Rekkles was never the star. In fact, one of Huni’s fondest memories of Rekkles in-game was when he supported his ADC in getting a pentakill. “That feeling was really great, because I’d never had that feeling,” Huni said. “In Spring Split, we had never played around the ADC. So it was kind of a nice experience.”

Rekkles couldn’t name just one moment. Instead, he said that because he was such good friends with everyone he played with in Fnatic, it made the experience much more special.  “I had such a great time playing as a professional player together,” he said.

What made it even better of course, was how Huni kept him laughing every day. “Huni is like one of those guys in your class at school, he is just funny by nature. He didn’t even have to try, it was just funny to be around him. That’s what Huni was,” Rekkles said, laughing while Huni nodded.

“It’s quite interesting to see him go from class clown to the guy who is super serious and carries the whole team on his back.”

Now that they’re parting ways, the two still seem closer than ever. “It wasn’t like we split on bad terms, it doesn’t feel like there’s a huge rivalry or anything,” says Rekkles. “If we did play at MSI, it’d be good, because we’d be first in EU and them first in NA, so we’d be happy!”

What were your favorite memories these amazing teammates shared with one another? Let us know and stay tuned to Lolesports to see how they perform on their new teams in 2016!