Patrick "Nyph" Funke is the former head coach for Schalke 04 Esports.

Biography [ edit ]

Nyph is a League of Legends player coming from Kirchheim unter Teck (not too far from Stuttgart), Germany. The first game he ever played was The Legend of Zelda (the first installment of the Zelda franchise). He would go on to play games such as FIFA World Cup 1998, Anno 1604, The Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim later on), Warcraft III (mostly the custom maps), World of Warcraft and Dawn of War.

He would play Dark Age of Camelot and Counter-Strike: Source semi-competitively. One of the friends he made in Dark Age of Camelot, enticed him to try League of Legends. At first, he was reluctant - even skipping the opportunity to play during the beta. Eventually he started playing the game when Nidalee was released (end of 2009/early January 2010). He reached level 30, along with hitting the Top 500 milestone, before Ranked games were installed.

Season 1 [ edit ]

At the start of Season 1, Nyph ascended through the Ranked solo-queue ladder by playing mostly supports - which led him to specialize in the role. Nyph took his first step into the competitive LoL-scene by joining the German squad from Gamed!de, which today he considers "one of the best European teams" at that time.[12] They placed 6th at the Riot Season 1 Championship. One of the highlights of his career was beating then-SK Gaming during the qualifiers, leading to that event.

Nyph eventually left the team and formed SK Gaming's new bot lane together with his close friend Candy Panda in June 2011.[13]

Season 2 [ edit ]

Nyph originally worked as an electronics engineer, while simultaneously playing League of Legends professionally. He made the decision to play full-time in League of Legends in 2012.

With SK Gaming, he would experience the other highlight of his career: beating Counter Logic Gaming Europe during the Season 2 European Regionals, despite losing to Moscow Five in the final of the tournament, the win over CLG guaranteed the team's place as a Top 2 European seed in the Season 2 World Championship. The World Championship was not a success itself, with SK finishing at the bottom of their group.

Season 3 [ edit ]

Nyph stuck with SK Gaming for the next season, and participated with the team in the Spring Split. SK placed 3rd overall behind Fnatic and Gambit Gaming, clinching themselves a place in the Spring Playoffs. Nyph and SK ended up coming in 4th in the playoffs, after losing to Gambit in the semifinals and Evil Geniuses in the third-place match.

This sealed Nyph's participation with SK in the Summer Split. The split was extremely tight, and saw Nyph show off his impressive

Zyra. SK ended up finishing 7th, despite winning only 2 less games than 2nd placed Fnatic. They were tied in joint 6th with Team Alternate, but lost the tiebreaker match played between the two teams. This meant that the team would have to play in the Spring Promotion in order to qualify for the next split.

In preparation for this, SK solidified the team by adding 3 new players to the roster: fredy122, Svenskeren and Jesiz. The organization also decided to make Nyph the captain of the team. The changes improved the team's performances, and Nyph's captaincy helped SK win DreamHack Winter 2013, beating Kiedys Mialem Team in the final.

Nyph helped SK to a win in the Promotion Tournament against SUPA HOT CREW before leaving the team to join newly formed Alliance.

2014 Season [ edit ]

The start of the Season 4 Spring Split was disappointing for the team, as they found themselves consistently ranked in the bottom 3 teams, until the 8th week. From here on-wards, Alliance managed to dominate the split. Nyph's performances along with that of Froggen in particular, propelled them up to 1st place in the penultimate week. Nyph himself picked up the weekly MVP award for Week 10. Unfortunately, an unsuccessful superweek saw the team lose the top spot, and Alliance finished in 3rd place behind SK Gaming and Fnatic.

The team's performance in their first split resulted in their qualification for the Spring Playoffs. The playoffs saw the team lose to Fnatic in the semifinal, and following this, they lost to ROCCAT in the third-place match.

The Summer Split saw Alliance emulate their form from the end of the Spring Split. Nyph impressed on a range of champions, including

Thresh,

Morgana and

Nami. Alliance finished in 1st place, staying at the peak of the rankings table for the entire split.

Following this was the Summer Playoffs, a chance for Nyph to qualify for the World Championship in Alliance's first season together. Alliance placed 1st in the playoffs, beating Fnatic in the final, and secured themselves a place at the World Championship.

The World Championship saw Alliance placed in Group D along with NaJin White Shield, Cloud9 and KaBuM! e-Sports. Alliance beat each team once and lost to each team once, resulting in a 3rd place finish in the group, meaning they would not go any further in the tournament.

2015 Season [ edit ]

Alliance were the European team invited to IEM San Jose. Seeded directly into the semifinals, Nyph and the team lost their matchup to Cloud9 and tied for third place with Team SoloMid.

In order to comply with new LCS regulations, Alliance would have to change their name for the upcoming season, and they rebranded as Elements.[14] The Spring Split itself was not a success for the team, and involved a number of roster changes. These roster changes included Nyph moving to coach and being replaced in the support position by Krepo. A 7th place finish meant that the team would not go to playoffs, but would qualify for the Summer Split.

Nyph stayed on with Elements as coach for the Summer Split, and was called upon before Week 5 to replace promisQ as the team's starting support. In the team's first week with Nyph back on the roster, they experienced their first 2-0 week of the split. Despite this, the split was still disappointing for the team, again finishing in 7th place, though this meant that they would still have a place in next season's Spring Split.

2016 Season [ edit ]

In the offseason, all Elements members but Nyph joined new teams for 2016. For the Spring Split, Nyph decided to stay with Elements, once again stepping back from his support position to work as head coach.

Trivia [ edit ]

During his World of Warcraft days, he would start the names of his characters with "Ny". One of his characters was named Nyphen. That nickname would eventually be shortened to Nyph . His Counter-Strike handle was "Nyt".

. His Counter-Strike handle was "Nyt". Used to play a lot of

Twisted Fate ,

Annie ,

Evelynn and

Taric (the latter as part of a Taric/Pantheon botlane) before the start of Season 1.

, , and (the latter as part of a Taric/Pantheon botlane) before the start of Season 1. Nyph's first main champion was

Janna .

. His fondness for champions that are focused on healing, buffing and protecting fellow team-mates stems from his background as an avid Dark Age of Camelot and DotA player.

Achieved rank 1 on the EUW Solo Q ladder in June 2013.

Used to play basketball competitively at a high level until the age of 19.

Likes to eat lasagna and spätzle. Likes drinking radler after an exhausting day.

Likes fantasy adventure books (such as Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings).

Likes to watch comedy shows (such as How I Met Your Mother). Used to watch the basketball drama show One Tree Hill.

Watches Naruto and used to watch the Death Note anime.

Tournament Results [ edit ]

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Interviews [ edit ]

Images [ edit ]

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