Q & A With Nethaniel Palomino

Warrior Life sat down with Nethaniel Palomino, 21, Astrophysics Major to ask him about his road to becoming a semi-professional player for the game League of Legends.

The League of Legends website explains their game as “A fast-paced, competitive online game that blends the speed and intensity of an RTS (Real Time Strategy) with RPG (Role Playing Game) elements.”

Staff Writer: What made you want to play League of Legends instead of any other games like Overwatch or Call of Duty?

Nethaniel: “The thing that made me want to play league was probably the amount of characters that you can play as. It also helped that I started playing with friends and I had a lot of fun.”

Staff Writer: Are you currently playing in a team or just by yourself?

Nethaniel: “I do a bit of both. I do play league by myself from time to time to practice, but I’m also in a team.”

Staff Writer: What team do you play for, have you been with them for long?

Nethaniel: “I play for NFG, as for how long, we’ve been playing together for about six months. So far its been pretty fun, especially when it comes to our matches.”

Staff Writer: Is the team being sponsored by anyone or anything? If you have, how long have you been sponsored?

Nethaniel: “Actually yes, we’re sponsored by Rogue Energy. Its sort of like G-Fuel’s competition. We’ve been partnered with Rogue Energy for about three months.”

Staff Writer: What do your parents think about you playing League of Legends at a semi-pro level?

Nethaniel: “My dad says to give it my all, my mom does too, as long as I don’t play too much, probably because its easy for me to forget how long I’ve been playing.”

Staff Writer: Since you became a semi-pro player, do you work? Or is league your official job?

Nethaniel: “I wish, I have a part time job at St. Anthony’s pre-school. Its in El Segundo so not too far away. I’m an assistant so what I do is I go and help set up the class for experiments, clean the classroom, things like that. Plus I have school so I can’t really put as much time into league as I’d like to.”

Staff Writer: What does your team usually do to prepare for your official matches?

Nathaniel: “We’ll usually play a few matches online beforehand to warm-up and to get ready, make sure we’re on the same page, stuff like that. We’ll also review footage from our streams.”

Staff Writer: What do you guys usually stream on?

Nethaniel: “Twitch (Twitch.Tv) is our usual go-to for streaming, we stream and after, we’ll review the video, see what we missed, what we can improve on, stuff like that.”