Name Hai Lam Status Active May 2013 - May 2015 Quantic Gaming/Cloud9 | Games League of Legends July 2015 - Present Cloud9 | |
Full name Hai Du Lam Date of birth (1992-09-20) September 20, 1992 (age 23) League League of Legends Championship Series | ||
Hai Du Lam (born September 20, 1992), known in-game as Hai is a League of Legends player who plays Mid lane for FlyQuest in the North American League of Legends Championship Series. Hai rose to prominence as the mid laner for Cloud9 (C9), leading them to 2 North American LCS championships. After a brief retirement due to health issues in 2015, Hai returned to the lineup of C9 as their jungler, and later support. He later became the mid laner for Cloud9 Challenger. Hai has won two NA LCS splits with Cloud9, as well as the NA LCS Promotion Tournament with Cloud9 Challenger. He is well known for his shotcalling within the game. Hai has also been the Chief Gaming Officer (CGO) of Cloud9.
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Early life
Hai Lam was born on September 20, 1992. He is from Grandville, Michigan and graduated from Grandville High School. During his high school life, Hai was an active participant in the Counter Strike community, and enjoyed many Warcraft III custom games.
Hai moved to East Lansing, Michigan to attend Michigan State University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Arts and Technology. He was a prominent member of the League of Legends club on campus.
2012
On May 25, 2012, Orbit Gaming announced the acquisition of the roster form Hai's n'Fear Gaming.
Afterward, Orbit placed 7th/8th at the 2012 MLG Spring Championship. At the Spring Championship, Orbit defeated vVv Gaming 2-0 in the first round, but lost 1-2 to Counter Logic Gaming Prime in the second round which placed them in the loser's bracket. In the loser's bracket, Orbit defeated Redact 2-0, Team Legion 2-0, and Team SoloMid Evo 2-0. They eventually lost to Counter Logic Gaming EU 1-2 in the fifth round of the loser's bracket.
On June 30, 2012, Orbit Gaming competed in the Leaguepedia North American Invitational. In the two-day online tournament, they were able to finish in first place, most notably defeating Curse Gaming 2-1 in the quarterfinals and sweeping Team Dynamic 2-0 in the finals. On August 26, Orbit took fourth place at the 2012 MLG Summer Championship, losing to Dynamic 1-2 in the third place match. This led to a tie with Monomaniac Ferus for eighth place in the North American Season Two Circuit Rankings. To decide the last spot for Season Two Regional Finals Seattle, a best of three tiebreak match was held. Orbit lost 0-2 to mMe and was denied a spot at the North American Regionals.
2013
Competing under the name Team NomNom and then Cloud9, Nientonsoh, Hai, Yazuki, WildTurtle and LemonNation would secure a spot in the Season 3 North American Offline Qualifier for the inaugural split of the League of Legends Championship Series. However, Cloud9 would be knocked out of the tournament in the group stage after losing to Team MRN and Azure Gaming.
Initially, Nientonsoh said that Cloud9 would disband in light of the loss. The team later decided to stay together, although Nientonsoh and Yazuki would leave the team and a massive roster swap would ensue. Hai shifted from jungle to mid, and new junglers and top laners were actively being tried out in online competitions. With their final roster of Balls, Meteos, Hai, LemonNation, and SnEaKyCaStRoO finally being set, the team set out to qualify for the NA LCS.
2014
Hai was hospitalized after suffering a collapsed lung in June, which prevented him from attending All-Star 2014 in Paris. CLG's Link replaced him on the roster. C9 finished 1st in the 2014 Summer LCS.
2015
Cloud9 finished second in the 2015 NA Spring LCS. In the playoffs, C9 reached the finals, where they were beaten by Team SoloMid. On April 22, 2015, Cloud9 Manager and Founder Jack Etienne posted on the Cloud9 website that Hai was retiring from competitive League of Legends and leaving the team. This followed a post on the League of Legends subreddit that showed Charlie, the coach of Cloud9, chatting with a streamer on how Hai had left the house. Hai mainly blamed his wrist injury in his retirement, saying "My wrist injury is something that I simply cannot ignore. It limits my ability to play as much as I need to and my ability to improve. I cannot keep up with the amount of Solo Queue games my teammates play and it’s not fair to them. At best, my wrist injury would have only allowed me to play for another split and that wasn’t even certain."(Hai Lam) Hai also stated that the team morale was at an all-time low and that his teammates began to lose trust not only in his shotcalling, but his performance as a player. Hai announced that he is now a Chief Gaming Officer of Cloud9. He was replaced on the roster by Nicolaj "Incarnation" Jensen. Hai became a temporary substitute for Cloud9 Tempest in June.
Hai came out of retirement in the middle of the Summer 2015 Split and replaced Meteos as Jungler. Hai helped the team rebound safe from relegations but failing to qualify for the playoffs as the team ended the split in 7th place, but due to outstanding championship points from Spring, Cloud9 qualified for the Regional Finals. He helped the team qualify for the 2015 League of Legends World Championship by winning the North American qualifying tournament.
Considered an underdog at Worlds, Cloud9 were placed into Group B along with Fnatic, ahq, and Invictus Gaming and expected to place last. Instead, they surprised with an undefeated 3-0 first week. In the second week, Cloud9 needed only one win to advance to the quarterfinals but instead lost four games in a row including a tiebreaker loss to [ahq e-Sports Club|ahq]. They placed third in their group, ahead of only Invictus Gaming. On the final day of Group Stages, Hai made an obscene gesture towards an opponent who predicted Hai's team would lose. As a result, Hai was fined €500 as he was expected to behave professionally.
2016
Hai was replaced in the jungle by former Team Impulse jungler Yoon-Jae "Rush" Lee, and shared the role of support with former Gravity support Michael "BunnyFuFuu" Kurlyo. Hai trained BunnyFuFuu to become Cloud9's main shotcaller during the spring split.
The Cloud 9 Challenger team swept through the Challenger Series and won the Promotion Series, earning themselves a spot in the LCS.
2017
Before the start of Season 7, the Cloud 9 Challenger roster, including Hai in the mid lane, was purchased by Wesley Edens and re-branded as FlyQuest.