COMPETITIVE

• TEAM

  

  Anubis Gaming

  ROLE

  

  Midlane

  YEARS ACTIVE

  2016-2017

• 

  Anubis Gaming

  

  Coach

  2017-2019

• 

  QLASH Egypt

  

  Coach

  2020-2020

• 

  RA'AD

  

  Coach

  2020-present

Origins

After his father shut the door to his professional player career, Sherif “Presence” Elguindy climbed out the window of coaching and carved his name amongst the best, nonetheless.

Introduced to League of Legends in 2012 by his friends, Presence walked down the mid-lane, unaware of the journey ahead. Influenced, over time, by legendary players such as Froggen and Voyboy and enthralled by the level of competition in international tournaments like IPL 5, ESL, IEM Katowice, and, of course, Worlds, he set his sights on glory.

That is when he started to dominate his fellow players at the PC cafe where he used to play and the local tournaments he participated in. This led him to establish his own team, CH, back in 2014-2015 with a group of his friends that included names like Rated, Molto, and Dakrai.

With their guidance and advice, Presence grew his talent and made his way to the spotlight in the Egyptian competitive scene. His star shone bright enough for Anubis Gaming to notice and extend an invitation to join their ranks as their main mid-laner in 2017. However, Presence's father prioritized his high school graduation over this opportunity, leading Presence to decline the offer and take a break from playing League of Legends for a while.

With a degree in hand, Presence gradually returned to the game and its professional scene. Once again, Anubis Gaming expressed interest in collaborating with him, this time as a coach. Given his enduring fascination with studying the game and the thought process that goes into it, he soon realized that coaching could actually become another passion of his. The pieces all fell into place when his father did not stand in the way of his ambitions this time since coaching wouldn't take up much of his time and wouldn't interfere with his college studies.

Presence was surrounded by shadows of doubt and regret for what could have been, but he eventually embraced his fate and pursued a coaching career with Anubis Gaming in 2017. He led them through tournaments like the PLG Games Week and NVIDIA. In 2019, they won the fourth edition of the GLSC at the Esports Summit Event and the final of Insomnia.

With these achievements under his belt, Presence expanded his coaching career by joining QLASH, and later moved to his current team, RA’AD. With them, he’s lived the highlights of his career, especially their sensational 3-2 comeback against his former team, Anubis Gaming, in the semi-final of the Arabian League Grand Finals in 2022.

In 2023, he was appointed Assistant Coach to Edward, coming all the way from the European scene. Despite facing skepticism from the community, they managed to secure second place in the first split, surpassing all expectations. The following split of the same year saw them at the peak of their game, with what could be their best roster to date. However, they came up short against Nigma Galaxy in the Grand Finals held in Riyadh, marking one of the most agonizing moments of his career.

Presence occasionally streams the game to teach players in the region the ins and outs of League of Legends and the way out of ELO hell. His journey now continues with the new server, and he looks forward to the new blood and potential it will unlock in our regional scene.

Competitive Experience

Presence’s competitive history is rich, from his time as a player and, more importantly, ever since he became a coach. As a player, he participated in many local tournaments in PC cafes in Cairo and ended up winning a portion of them.

One of his most noteworthy experiences was placing third in the first-ever League of Legends tournament held by Gamers Lounge, a leading tournament organizer in Egypt. He then kicked off his coaching career with Anubis Gaming by winning both GLSC 4 and Insomnia in 2019.

His ongoing journey with RA’AD began with qualifying for the IAC 2021 Competitors League, which was the highest division of MENA LoL esports at the time. They carried on their success by being crowned the champions of IAC 2022 Split 1 and securing a commendable second place in the IAC 2022 Grand Finals. Later, came the newly rebranded Arabian League, where they snatched second place in Split 1 of 2023 and qualified for EMEA Masters, followed by a third-place finish in Split 2 of the same year.

Memories

Reaching out to the community for the first time and sharing his enthusiasm for the intricacies of League of Legends left Presence with one of his best memories as they reciprocated the same level of interest.

Another memorable moment he experienced was winning his first-ever tournament in 2014, which bestowed upon him an immeasurable feeling of excitement at the time. His highlighted accomplishments always left him feeling extremely proud of both his teams and his own abilities and insights.

On the more unfortunate side, it is no longer a secret that Presence had a rough start to his professional career in regional esports. He was forced to quit the game at a young age, and this decision still haunts him to this day.

With his coaching career highs came lows, as he lost the NVIDIA tournament in 2017 against HEX. This was followed by his inability to qualify for the Nexus main event in 2019 and then his extremely heartbreaking loss in the Intel Arabian Cup 2022 Grand Finals against Geekay Esports.

His most recent struggle occurred when RA’AD dropped out of the Arabian League Summer Split Playoffs in third place after losing multiple winning positions against Nigma Galaxy.

Trivia

• Presence favors Azir’s “When every trace of you is lost, I will remain.”
• He likes to remind his opponents of their inferiority with Riven’s taunt.
• League of Legends brought him together with some of his best friends and fellow Summoners, such as Rated and Molto.
• As one would expect, Presence prefers to thoroughly prepare for his games by studying matchups and learning every small detail of his lane.
• His dedication to LoL had him play on a pay-per-hour PC at a hotel resort in Hurghada.
• The longest he’s spent in a single game was 75 minutes.
  It’s safe to say that Presence isn’t a fan of change, as he’s kept the same backpack he carries his gear in ever since he started playing in 2012.
• When he’s not taking things seriously in ranked queue, you’ll find him speeding at people and threatening deadly pulls with Blitzcrank.
• And when he's not playing League of Legends, he enjoys swimming, playing chess, and reading to keep his mind sharp.
• Another proof of Presence’s superior intelligence is his adeptness at mental math. We’ll take him up on that in future interviews.
• He has quite a unique taste for ice cream flavors, particularly mastic and pistachio mix or high-quality vanilla.
• He gets extra points for once raising a pet dog named Alex and an unnamed pet tortoise.
• Silly memes are the fastest way to make him laugh.
• We’re unsure whether it’s his love for K-pop or Faker, but he’d like to learn Korean.
• When he was a child, Presence dreamed of becoming a sailor.
• If you wonder about the story behind his username, it is to assert his presence in both name and performance for extra measure.