In the summer of 2016, Mads "Broxah" Brock-Pederson was eyeing his prospects.

He was fresh out of high school and he had two options. On one hand, he could continue studying in the pursuit of higher education. On the other hand, he could find work, a matter that became complicated given his age, just shy of 19.

"When you only finish high school, and you're more than 18-years-old, it's really hard to get an actual job, because people under 18 get less salary and can do the same thing as you can, so it was a real struggle," Broxah said.

Instead, he pursued a career in League of Legends, a game he'd been playing for over four years.

He was aware of the risks. Either his pursuit of the pro-gaming life would bring him to a promising career -- or it'd be a year wasted. Some of his friends took the leap with little success to show, but he wouldn't meet the same fate.

"Already two months after that decision [was] made, I went to Fnatic Academy, we qualified for Challenger Series, and after one game I got into LCS, and it has been going even faster from there," he said. "Now, we're the best team in the LCS standings-wise."

Broxah became the starting jungler for Fnatic, a squad close to returning to the World Championship stage after almost a year spent watching it from the sidelines.

His solo queue play did the talking since Season 3. He started off in Diamond and he would reach Master Tier by Season 4 before finishing in Challenger in Season 5 and 6. On the way, he met Nicholas "NicoThePico" Korsgaard.

"[Nico] was a jungler around two-three years ago," said Broxah. "I played against him, and we talked together. Then we just kept in touch. I was really lucky that it stayed that way."

When Nico became the head coach of Fnatic, he was tasked with assembling an academy team. In an interview with Aaron "Medic" Chamberlain, Broxah recalled how Nico wanted to develop his skill set. Broxah was asked to be a core member of the academy lineup alongside Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek and Johan "Klaj" Olsson.

Following the footsteps of several big names in Europe was a sound plan. After all, the likes of Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski, Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen and Kikis had to prove themselves in a Challenger setting, honing their skills in the process.

However, Broxah's career in the Challenger series wouldn't last long. A few showings in the academy team was all it took for him to turn pro, less than a year after he decided to take the risk.

"I think it's a combination of my personality, and help from the coaches I've had after joining Fnatic," Broxah said. "Nico and especially Kubz helped me a lot while I was in the challenger team since I had so many things to learn. Kubz was always there for me, and Nico was there when he had time. Obviously, he was kind of busy with the LCS team."

A playmaking jungler, Broxah made his name with aggressive early game oriented champions like Elise, Kha'Zix and Lee Sin. With his help, Fnatic narrowly made the playoffs before making a furious run towards a first-place finish, only losing games to eventual spring champions G2 Esports. The organization had sought to recapture the glory days of Season 3, 4 and 5, and it came close to bringing down the team that took its spot at the top in Season 6.

That playoff run was merely the start, as Fnatic sits atop Group A in the summer split uncontested, guaranteed to participate in the semifinals at the very least. Reaching that point was not easy: the squad needed to adapt to a metagame shift during Rift Rivals that rendered its high-octane aggression around the bottom lane obsolete, or at least suboptimal. The metagame shift also made a dent on the jungle position.

"Since [Rift Rivals], tanks were extremely broken, and I always hated playing tanks because I find them so boring," he admitted. "So I had to start learn some tanks really, really fast so that I have them ready for the LCS."

"That's kind of what makes the job fun," Broxah added. "Suddenly, Riot makes some crazy patch, and you have to adapt. It's really stressful and really fun at the same time since I've never had to learn so many champions in such a short amount of time."

Transitioning from aggressive carry junglers to scaling tanks was not a simple process. But the same determination that helped him reach the LCS came in handy.

"I'm really harsh to myself, usually," he said. "So I always want to do as well as I can, whatever I do, so I was just tryharding for my life to fix all my mistakes as fast as possible. I think that helped me a lot in the end."

Now 20-years-old, Broxah can finally celebrate. The risk that he had taken had paid off -- and it may take him to the World Championship. Some would have given up on their ambitions, but he did not. The jungler had to earn his position in the LCS, and had to make the necessary adjustments to stay there.

"I think that it just shows hard work really does pay off," he said. "No matter what you do, if you just work your ass off, then you might be lucky and you get really far."

"That's what happened to me. It was a combination of luck -- having the right contacts since I knew Nico in the first place, and then with the help from my teammates and the coaches, I worked as hard as I could to make sure that I didn't lose my spot in the end."