WiNo Interview: From Coaching Grind to Climbing Amber's Ladder

WiNo: Exactly. You can outwork almost anyone in coaching and still not make it, because the limiting factor isn't your skill, it's your reach. I burned out pretty fast. There are other ways to make money playing League of Legends — I just didn't know about them yet.

🔍 How WiNo Discovered Amber.gg

CM: So how did Amber.gg end up on your radar?

WiNo: A friend in my Discord mentioned it. He was talking about cash prize ladders where you compete directly for a prize pool. I was skeptical at first, I'd seen platforms that promise money but the payouts are sketchy or the competition is totally random. But I checked it out and the concept made sense.

CM: What specifically convinced you to sign up?

WiNo: The fair-play matchmaking. I'm Diamond, and on Amber I'm playing against Emerald and Diamond players, people at my actual level. It's not an open bracket where a Challenger smurf wrecks the whole field in round one. The tiers are aligned, the competition is legitimate. That matters a lot when you're putting entry fees on the line.

CM: Did it take long to feel comfortable with the format?

WiNo: Not really. The fact that it's transparent made a huge difference. Anyone who's dealt with hidden MMR and opaque ranking systems knows how frustrating it is not to understand why you win or lose. Amber's scoring is the opposite of that. Once I understood it, I knew I could compete.

🔥 What Changed After Joining Amber.gg

CM: So you signed up. What was the experience actually like?

WiNo: The biggest shift was understanding it's not about any single game. In solo queue, one bad game can tilt your whole session. Solo queue has real structural problems for serious players that most people just accept. On Amber, your score builds over multiple games. It's about your performance over the long run, not one lucky win.

CM: Can you break that down a bit more?

WiNo: If I lose a game on Amber, I'm not panicking. Even pro players lose games. What matters is how I respond in the next one, and the one after that. I started being way more deliberate, thinking "what can I maximize in this game to improve my Amber score?" instead of just going on autopilot. It actually made me a better player overall.

CM: The resilience aspect seems like a big part of it.

WiNo: 100%. Amber rewards consistency. If you're genuinely a strong player over time, you will come out ahead. You can't luck your way to the top and you can't get unlucky out of it if you're actually good. That kind of integrity just doesn't exist in regular ranked. It changed the way I approach every game, whether I'm on Amber or not.

CM: Any advice for players thinking about giving it a shot?

WiNo: Don't treat it like a one-off bet. Treat it like a season. Show up consistently, play your best every time, and let the scoring system do its thing. The players who win on Amber are the ones who stay focused over the long haul, not the ones chasing one big game.

🎯 Key Takeaways

• Coaching is hard to scale without an existing audience — reach matters more than raw skill when monetizing through lessons.
• Fair-play matchmaking on Amber.gg pairs Diamond players against Diamond and Emerald opponents, not open brackets.
• Long-term scoring removes the tilt factor: one bad game doesn't end your run or your payout.
• Consistency beats variance: the best Amber players show up and perform session after session, not just once.

Think you can hold your own over the long run? Check out how LoL prize pool ladders work, then jump into a ladder on Amber.gg and find out.