Caedrel asks: “Who the f*** is Levitate?” Levitate responds: “According to my viewers, I’m the guy with the best jawline in NA who’s going to mog every bot laner on the Rift and IRL.”

Home > Articles > Caedrel asks: “Who the f*** is Levitate?” Levitate responds: “According to my viewers, I’m the guy with the best jawline in NA who’s going to mog every bot laner on the Rift and IRL.”

Levitate came onto the scene by qualifying for the NACL with Team Tony Top in 2023, only for the team to be unable to find a sponsor and compete in the league. Denied his first chance in Tier 2, Levitate was picked up by Blue Otter in 2024 and won Rookie of the Split honors in his debut. With Supernova in 2026, he has established himself as one of the top ADCs in NA Tier 2 as his team competes for the NACL title and a chance to contest DSG for the LCS guest slot in 2027. We sat down with Levitate to discuss who he is as a player, his path to pro, and how to succeed as an ADC.

A few weeks ago, Caedrel was playing Lolix, the game where you match pro players with their teammates, and he asked, “Who the f*** is Levitate?” Have you seen the clip (link)?

Levitate: It's my sub sound on Twitch (link) now.

How would you answer Caedrel?

Levitate: According to my viewers, I’m the guy with the best jawline in NA who’s going to mog every bot laner on the Rift and IRL. I don't want to sound egotistical. Those words came from viewers, not me. A few years ago, when I was in Tier 3, someone said, "If you were in the LCS, you would be the most handsome League player in the world."

I don't know if you've seen the !jawline command in my stream. The basic story is that this guy would come into my stream, his first message was !jawline. Then he just did that every single day for months. Eventually, I turned it into a command. It caught on in NACL, and it's kind of what I'm known for.

What was your introduction to gaming in general? Was League the first competitive game you played or were you playing some other stuff growing up?

Levitate: I have two siblings who are a lot older than me. I have a sister who's 11 years older and a brother who's 8 years older. Growing up, I kind of just did what they did, especially my brother. I would listen to the same music that he did; I played the same sports. He was actually a Dota player at first, but he picked up League because the laptop that we used to use at home was too bad to run Dota with decent frames. He started playing League, and then I followed in his footsteps. I didn't start playing League myself until a few years after he did; MapleStory was the first game I played for a long time, but I quickly stopped once I started playing League.

My brother and I used to share the same computer. When I started playing League, he would only allow me to play three games a day. That was my limit. I don’t know if that was so I wouldn't get addicted or so that he would give himself more time to play, maybe a bit of both. For a few years, until I got my own PC, I was only allowed to play three games a day.

How many seasons were you playing three games a day?

Levitate: I want to say maybe two years; I don’t know the exact length of time. Then I got a really crappy laptop as well after that, and I got to play more. I was still limited but definitely not three games a day. I got my first actual PC when I was 14. That's when I started playing non-stop. When I started going to high school, I would just play 10 hours a day or whatever. A year later, I hit Challenger. I always told my brother that he gated me from my full potential. It’s all his fault.

You hit Challenger after a year of consistent play. Was that the goal all along, or did it just happen? How was your journey climbing the solo queue ladder?

Levitate: I grew up in a small town in North Carolina called Greensboro for 14 years. I lived in the South my whole life, but I moved from North Carolina to a suburb of Atlanta when I was 14 going into high school. It was really hard for me; I grew up with the same people all around me for my entire life. I was really outgoing before the move. I played competitive sports year-round for my school in soccer, basketball, volleyball, and track. After I moved, all that kind of died down. I did play varsity tennis in high school, but I definitely played more League than tennis. That's when I started playing more League. It started as a kind of escape, but it quickly became an addiction. I really enjoyed the game, so that's what I would do after school. I never really thought anything of the game. My family was very against me playing that much. They wanted me to use that time to study and go to a good college, get a scholarship. I just kept playing. I naturally climbed through the ranks.

How about the transition to the pro scene? When did you decide that you wanted to go pro?

Levitate: I hit Challenger when I was 15. That was my sophomore year of high school. COVID hit shortly after, so I grinded the game even harder after I hit Challenger. My original plan was to quit the game entirely when I was going into college. I decided to move again across the country to a place I've never set foot in for college here in LA. I grew up with the stigma that video games are a waste of time. I guess that was one of my biggest regrets. I think if I started playing amateur or started trying to go pro when I was 15, maybe things would look different now. But, it’s in the past. It's all hindsight. Ultimately, I'm still grateful for the opportunity I have now and the values I was raised on.

Before I was planning to quit the game, when I was in high school and I was applying to colleges, I was looking at League teams. I put in an interest form for the collegiate League program for the college where I ended up going. A month after I got into college, the coach reached out. At that point I didn't even have League installed, but I was like okay, why not? I was really rusty at the time, but I performed pretty well. I decided to use collegiate League as a way to find a community. I'd never played any competitive League before that. The only experience I had was solo queue. After my freshman year, I really fell in love with competitive play. Through League, I re-discovered that I'm a super competitive person. After my freshman year, I decided to take a gap year to try to go pro.

Your first experience in pro was with Team Tony Top, which unfortunately disbanded after qualifying for the NACL in 2023 but before you could play any games. How did that affect your desire to continue playing, and where does that fit into your journey in hindsight?

Levitate: I took my gap year. I moved back to Atlanta where I went to high school, and I used the year to play League. Team Tony Top was my first team. We promoted to NACL but couldn't get a sponsor to pay us to play. This was right after Academy boomed. The development system before was very stable and supporting. At the level that I play now, I would be netting around 100k. Now we get paid less than minimum wage. But that didn't really affect me much. The biggest thing for me was that I've always expected a lot out of myself and never anything less. When I was a kid, I told myself I'd be the best at something in life. I thought it was going to be sports, because that's like all I did when I was young and I was quite athletic. I quickly realized that I wasn't growing physically like my peers and it became difficult to compete in the sports that I really enjoyed because they were all contact sports. I took the gap year because I enjoyed League, and I thought this was the opportunity to repay my younger self by being great at something in life. I gave myself a deadline of one year to make it to the next level. I started in Tier 3, and then I said, okay, I have a year until Tier 2 and then a year until Tier 1.

Basically, it didn't affect my desire to keep playing because I never really cared about what the environment was. The only thing you can really control is yourself and your efforts. Whatever happens externally is going to happen externally, and it’s completely out of your control. It was unfortunate, for sure, but it didn't really affect me at all.

How did you grow as a player in the Tier 3 competitive environment?

Levitate: I think I was super fortunate. When I took my gap year, there were members of the coaching staff from Immortals like Draxyr and Dayos who were basically trialing a coaching theory. Outside of LCS, they were testing their theory on newer players who they thought had potential and were trying to help them grow. I got into that group, and because of that I was able to access high-level coaching. That was my first experience with coaching. I was found from the solo queue ladder, and that’s how I landed on Team Ambition. My teammates and coach were all a part of that group.

What was it like going from the qualifier environment to actually playing in the NACL with Blue Otter in 2024 Summer? What do you think enabled you to immediately find success in Tier 2?

Levitate: I think the biggest thing for me was that I felt more knowledgeable than a lot of my competitors because of the high level of coaching and experience I had with Tier 1 coaches. They taught me pretty much everything I knew, and because of that I was able to understand the game at a higher level and process things efficiently compared to others in NACL. From a personal level, the biggest thing was that I didn't really have any expectations. Our team was presumed to be one of the lower-tier teams. I was a complete rookie; because of that I was able to play fearlessly and with nothing to lose. I think that's ultimately what led to my success in my first split when I won Rookie of the Split.

You had a tougher experience in the next split. You missed the playoffs by one series. What did you take away from that experience?

Levitate: I loved all my teammates on Blue Otter for different reasons. But, from that split and even the previous split, I realized what I needed in my teammates for me to be confident. I think it just didn't work out. We had disagreements in the way we saw the game, things like that. On a personal level, in my rookie split, I was able to put on better performances because there were no expectations of me. When people don't expect things of you, how you perform doesn't really matter to the public perception. But, going into the next split, we were kind of the dark horse team of the previous split, and we kept our roster. I think people had pretty high expectations, and they ranked us pretty highly going into 2025. I guess that took a toll on me mentally and led to me playing worse. That split, I really discovered a lot about how my mentality, the way I was raised, my values, and the way I think about and approach things really come out in my gameplay. It was a big self-reflection split for me.

You sat out Split 2 of the NACL in 2025, but you had two really successful ACL runs with Milk Esports where you took out some NACL teams. How did that opportunity come up and how was your experience in the ACL?

Levitate: ACL in the offseason is a time for players to stay in form and also play on teams that they want to play on, if that makes sense. Obviously, NACL has a way higher weight to it, so you can't necessarily pick your teammates. Milk Esports was just a team of five friends. We all have good relations with each other, and we respect each other as players. I think that environment is generally the best, and it was pretty light-hearted. I thought all my teammates were really good. I enjoyed playing with all of them, and we all view the game in a similar way. That led to us taking down the NACL teams.

In NACL Spring 2026 with Supernova, you finished 2nd place in the regular season with a 7-2 record going into playoffs. What do you think changed this year that enabled you to perform at a really high level in the NACL?

Levitate: One thing is I really like our roster. I like all my teammates that I'm working with. That gives a lot of confidence to begin with. I would say it's a good combination of talent but also people that hold themselves to high standards and have good work ethic. Being a good teammate is one of the most important things, second to talent. Because we have those two things, we're able to improve at a steady rate, find progress, and stay levelheaded even in our losses or bad series. That allows us to be honest and constructive with each other. I think a big barrier that some players or teams have is that they're too scared of confrontation, but I think that's a necessary part in any high-level competitive environment, whatever it may be. You can't have passengers everywhere, for lack of better words. You need people that are willing to take criticism and be direct, as well as people who are going to be assertive. I think that's one of the most important traits that we currently have.

What's the team environment like in terms of shot calling? How do you guys approach the game?

Levitate: When it comes to stage matches, I'd probably say Music, our jungler, has the loudest voice. He talks the most and gives the most directions and planning about the game. That said, I think what's unique about our team is that we have a lot of players that are very adamant about the way that they see the game. Not necessarily stubborn, but very confident and we have a lot of viewpoints, and I think it's like a double-edged sword. It's high potential, and you can think of a lot of opportunities or ideas and you can be creative in a way too. At the same time, League is a game of cohesion. You need to be on the same page and do the same things, especially on stage, to produce results. I think that's why we've had some high performances and some low performances. Hopefully we can smooth things out by the time playoffs come so that we look more consistent and cleaner.

Looking at the next steps for your career, would you consider moving to EU at some point to play in Tier 2 if you got an offer from a good team there?

Levitate: I don't know how realistic it is because I think for you to be approached by a Tier 2 team in Europe, you'd have to be considered young within the esports industry. I'm not necessarily young anymore, so I don't even know if that's a possibility, but if the opportunity arose, then yeah, my ultimate goal is just to compete at the highest level. If that's the best opportunity for me to get there, then I would do that in a heartbeat. But, if you think about the talent that EU has scouted, like Toasty, Cryogen, and Yukino, they were all approached around 18 or 19. I think these teams are looking to develop young talent that they can develop for multiple splits or seasons or years and promote them in their system. I don't know if the opportunity is there for me, but I would take it.

Where would you like to be at the end of this year going into January 2027?

Levitate: For me, playing at the level I am now, I told myself the moment I don't believe I can make it to LCS or think it’s not worth it for me to anymore, I'm done. I think I'd just uninstall the game completely at that point. I think by the end of this year, after the spring and summer, I want to have tryouts or be very closely scouted/watched as a prospect like I was during my rookie split on Blue Otter before I kind of lost it. By 2027, I either need to be in the LCS or very close. That's the standard I hold myself to. I'm definitely not average at the game, but I don't want to be at this level forever. I want to either make it to the top or find something else to be passionate about.

What was the most impactful change that you made to improve and become a better player? How could average players learn from you to improve their own gameplay in solo queue?

Levitate: I always thought that I had to do everything perfectly, and this was a mindset I carried from life over to League. One of the things that I heard recently that spoke to me was that in League, you just need to find a way to play well. You don't need to play perfectly. I think some people that are similar to me in that regard might struggle with the same thing: they either let one mistake or one hiccup in the game ruin everything for them and find it hard to recover mentally. The biggest thing is about finding consistency and results. I think that's what ultimately makes you a good player, especially in a solo environment. You're playing so many games that if you just play well over a large amount of games, you're going to climb.

My approach, basically, is to break the game down into black and white and accept that I can't play perfectly. You're not going to be able to do the correct play every time even at the highest level. But, establishing habits that will get you to your result consistently and then sticking to those habits will produce those results for you. People overindex and spend brainpower on specific mistakes that will not be broadly relevant. This is what I messed up on; that's how you limit your growth. You have to look at the big things and do them over and over again, and you'll find results.

Is there anything for bot laners in particular that you think players trying to improve should work on?

Levitate: One concept that's really relevant and important for ADCs is the idea of max-ranging. When I coach people of every elo, even Challenger players, they overindex on kills. This is just a thing everyone does in League. I was the exact same way, because I was Challenger before I got any coaching. Everyone wants to kill the guy. However, when you do this every single game, it builds a really bad habit of playing for kills and prioritizing that over everything else.

Range is important because that's partly how League is balanced: champions with range are vulnerable and they get one-shot by everything, but they can hit people from afar and be safe. I'll see people underutilize their range and put themselves in dangerous positions. The biggest thing I try to emphasize is to get rid of the mindset that you need to kill someone immediately in the beginning of every fight. The most important thing is to prioritize positioning over short-term damage. I think this is the biggest barrier for pretty much all AD carry players except the ones at the top, because they've already got this down.

Your job as an AD carry is to deal damage. The most impressive ADC fights in pro play that make the highlight montages are the ones where they're the last man standing and they kill everyone. This result stems from prioritizing position over damage. This is something that almost every AD carry player fails to do. They'll randomly run into range of a bruiser to try to kill some guy, and then they end up dying and they lose the fight. The longer you stay alive, the more damage you do overall. Your role is literally designed to deal sustained damage. This is the most important thing, not to put yourself in a vulnerable state to squeeze as much damage and die because that's the character class of assassins. For some reason, almost every single player thinks they play AD carry like an assassin and then ends up like this. If you were to prioritize your position first and be patient, the damage will come, and then that's where those highlight plays can happen.

Outside of League, what do you like to do for fun? If you weren't playing pro, what would you want to do with your life?

Levitate: It was sports, but ever since I started trying to go pro, I kind of just let it go. I committed myself to League. Honestly, right now, there's not really much. I would say if I had to pick, it would just be sports.

I actually don't really know what I'd want to do. I took a gap year and I prioritized League over school. I feel like it's my job more than being a student. There's some other interests that I’d want to pursue once I do call it quits, whenever that is. I think content creation apart from League is something I would be interested in. I really want to try producing my own music. My major is finance, so if I weren’t playing League, maybe I would just be somewhere on Wall Street or in an office working a corporate job 9 to 5.

Any shout-outs or thank-yous?

Levitate: I want to give a shout out to my family, and specifically my brother. He's supporting me; he's the one that got me into League. He calls himself the trailblazer or the pioneer in his own words. Shoutout to Anthony, my childhood friend who handed me down his PC, which allowed me to grind the game. Shout out to my close friends, viewers, and fans supporting me.

Levitate and Supernova have locked in their spot in the upcoming NACL 2026 Spring Playoffs, where they’ll fight to prove themselves as the best team in NA Tier 2. If you want to learn from pro players like Levitate to improve your own League gameplay, check out the pros on ProDiff.

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