Like most of us, Chance the Rapper is baffled by League of Legends in this SNL sketch

YouTube

Chance the Rapper hosted Saturday Night Live over the weekend, which provided him with the opportunity to bring back Lazlo Holmes, the Knicks correspondent who had to cover a hockey game without knowing anything about hockey. "As they say in hockey... let's do that hockey."

This time around he's handling the League of Legends World Championships, and he appears to know even less about what's going on. For starters, he repeatedly calls it "League of Legos."

It's low-hanging fruit for the most part, aimed squarely at people who still watch SNL, but I did get a chuckle out of a few cracks, like saying LoL "looks like how a seizure feels," or getting the audience pumped up with, "You know how they do in esports: Ready, set, sit down." The interview segment is more cringe-inducing, and not in a good way—the skit could have easily had fun with some of the inherent alienness of esports without going so all-in on the "look at these weirdos" approach.

Some of my appreciation for the bit may arise from the fact that I can relate to poor Lazlo's predicament. Pro-level esports can be incredibly complex and covering it in any depth requires specialized knowledge and experience. Honestly, given the choice of having to do emergency color fill-in for the NHL or LCS, I'd take the NHL every time.

TOPICS

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.