Summoner Spotlight Series: #LampsOut for Jack Counts

He’s an admin of the Oklahoma League of Legends Facebook group and the founder of the OKLCS, but even giants have humble beginnings.

Jack “JackLovesLamp” Counts, 21, is a general management student in the business school at the University of Oklahoma. Born and raised a gamer, Jack started with children’s puzzle games like Freddy Fish and was basically taught to read by the Pokemon handheld games. He didn’t discriminate based on console, playing games on most every system (Xbox, Playstation, GameCube, Dreamcast), but his first PC gaming experience with Steam in high school got him more into PC gaming. He got involved with League of Legends earlier than most, entering the game in its alpha stage.

“My sister’s ex-husband was an investor in Riot and sent me a copy of League of Legends in its alpha stages,” Jack said. “At the time, the plan was for League to cost about $40 and come with all of the champions. The runes and masteries were unlocked through leveling up and in-game points with the ability to buy skins for extra money. I played mostly Jax as well as Cho’Gath and Heimerdinger after their releases during the closed beta. I only had a MAC at the time, so I didn’t get to play much unless my dad let me on his PC laptop. Eventually, Riot made League compatible with MACs, which is when I really started getting into it.”

With League becoming more popular, Jack joined the OKLoL Facebook group and became interested in attending tournaments across the state. With a group of friends, Jack and Alex Tu created a team to take on the local competition, evolving as time went on and swapping names from Team Dunsparce to Land Snakes, which eventually split in to Land Snake Infinity and Land Snake Void (after a brief stint of being named Blue and White). The teams tended to dominate the gold-capped scene, but as competition grew and talent dividing the team, Jack felt the best course of action would be to reform the Land Snake teams into Land Snek, a platinum-capped team with a mix of players from the previous two teams. Land Snek was able to place first in the platinum-capped division at Tokyo in Tulsa 2016.

“Even though certain parts of the journey were unfortunate and hard, the team remained close as a group of friends, and the unification helped us to win several platinum-capped events,” Jack said. “We’ve now participate in the diamond-capped division in seasons 1 and 3 of the newly created OKLCS, and we look to keep improving both as a team and as individuals going forward.”

For being an active member in the OKLoL community as well as the tournament scene, Jack was eventually asked to become an admin for the page. Jack has since used his admin status to create the OKLCS as well as community events to keep local players engaged. The admin title also has a few dirty work jobs, such as sifting through drama and irrelevant posts, but Jack feels the community is at an all-time high.

“There are more active members than before, more content being posted and more people looking for new friends and teams,” Jack said. “It feels good to have been a part of making the community a more positive place. Though important posts can sometimes get lost in a sea of irrelevant or crappy posts, it’s part of the beauty of the page – people can celebrate their achievements and vent their woes. My philosophy is this: if Faker, the best player in the world, can be more humble than players that aren’t as good as he is, you can be, too. Be humble and take responsibility for your mistakes.”

With the community member count nearing the 2000’s, Jack feels the community is growing in a positive direction and hopes to see more positive discussions and team formation.

“LAN events have always been a fun experience for me, especially when they run well without a lot of down time,” Jack said. “I hope to see more teams form in support of LAN events so our community can grow closer.”

Jack occasionally streams on Twitch and has been the source of a few memes, specifically #lampsout which will remain an “inside joke” to his viewers. Outside of League, Jack likes to spend time with friends and girlfriend and upgrading his home and personal space. His main passion is food, whether cooking or eating, and he can generally eat as much or more than his friends that are larger than he is (Jack is a little guy).

 

 

 

– Ariel

Twitter / Twitch

Q&A with Jack
Favorite champions? Gangplank is dope – I even wrote a rap about him. My other favorites are Poppy, ZAC, Vel’Koz, Rek’Sai, Tahm Kench, and my one true love Aatrox (Rito where are the buffs pls)
LCS role model: Faker for his humility despite being the best
Strengths: When a game really matters and I’m in the zone, I can focus and play like a beast
Weaknesses: I can lose focus if my teammate is tilted, I tend to play champions with weaker laning phases, and sometimes I make some dumb decisions when I’m ahead.
Favorite quote: “I love lamp.” – Brick Tamland, “Anchorman”