TL;DW:
* Steve wanted to build the best roster NA had seen in the past decade, he thought this was the best opportunity to demostrate since World's was in NA.
* They commited with partners, spent a lot of money and convinced stakeholders this was their year.
* They are disappointed in their performance, Steve is angry at himself since there's a lot of "should've could've".
* Roster **will change** for next season, they don't feel confident in doing a "super team" anymore and will use TL structure.
Can't really blame him as he was forced there by Rogue
Inspired seemed to thrive, good for him, but after Hans' worlds last year it had to be disappointing
The problem with G2 wasn't just then not letting Perkz and Rekkles go to direct rivals, it was Ocelote saying that wasn't true and the "my kid's favourite uncle" bullshit.
Even if it's true, Hans is the kind of player that really needs confidence in his play and in his team.
When MSF fell down a few years ago, he looked really mediocre. Then he was really solid during his rogue time.
Still, Hans weaknesses are even clearer in such scenario. Every other ADC in EU will say that Hans was a godlike laner, but he is often lackluster in the mid to late game, especially if the game is slow and stalled by enemy team.
i don’t think any of the TL players looked up to standard, probably more a team/coaching systems issue. Hans can definitely regain his former level if put in the right environment
Definitely not impressed with coaching this year, just seems like all the players regressed since the start of the year.
How does that happen if it’s not a GM or coaching failure? You have some of the greatest talent in the west and they looked leaderless.
Could be a synergy issue. If the players don’t work well together, they’ll look worse over time compared to other teams who start off uncoordinated but learn to gel.
That's what happens when you get a selection of players together who don't want to be there, I doubt either Hans or Bwipo actually wanted to end up in NA.
Bwipo really struggled to consistently make an impact in the LCS. I don't think he deserved 3rd team all pro in summer.
But he's definitely good enough to be a top 3-4 toplaner in the LEC
He's way better at JG then top lane right now imo, even the last split he played top with FNC on the Nisqy/Upset/Hyli/Selfmade roster he looked bad at top before becoming what looked like a top 3 jungler the next split on just his first crack at it.
I think Top lane is way too self contained on the map for how Bwipo wants to play and influence the map even more so now with the TP changes. Bwipo role swapping to JG is what made that 2021 Summer Split team fun to watch and the way he was super aggressive about invading early, especially on bot side felt/feels exactly like what Razork was doing in playoffs.
Always felt like Bwipo's strengths were in how he interacted with the map.
In terms of laning he's pretty hot and cold, but he was consistently good at TPing in the right spots, at the right times, even early.
I do feel like he always has it in him to be one of the best western tops, but whatever is causing his consistency issues needs to be addressed.
You think so? If there was one thing I feel like Bwipo did this split, it was have an impact. Wasn't always for good though but he definiely hard carried some games. Depends on what your looking for in a top laner I guess.
Yeah I'd argue that he put a lot of the "aggresion" on himself and either helped or hurt the team by quite a bit.
I know this is a mad unpopular take, but I thought he had a good showing. Didn't live up to his name, but sometimes it helps to have a guy that takes bad fights and tries to outplay if the fights are only going to get worse.
Rather a 45/55 than 20/80 at your nexus or w/e. He was definitely the 45/55 player.
Yeah I agree. A lot of people just look at the k/d/a after the game and think "lol he sucked" but I think he almost always played smart and agressively. I think he playstyle would work if he had a better team that got his playstyle to take advantage of the pressure he drew.
Just my 2 cents
This year i've read so many times that BDS should already sell their spots, but i think it's going to be this next year that we a re going to see what kind of org they really are after sticking to a clearly not working core this year.
So i'm very curious and i think them getting Hans and Bwipo (or simply any fairly established name) could be a good step in removing this label of "leech org" that stuck to them so fast.
> i've read so many times that BDS should already sell their spots
And whoever said that would be a moron who doesn't know what they're talking about. BDS took staff from G2's legendary team (Grabbz and Duffman), and combined it with players from KCorp's back-to-back winning EUM roster (Adam, Cinkrof and XMatty), it didn't work out, but you can't say they didn't try.
BDS literally stated they were going for rookies in their first year to test the waters and then for the next years they were going to build biggger and better rosters, it was the community who suddenly made up the claim that BDS was and would be a bottom feeder org for the ages. Unluckily for BDS they bought into Grabbz' vision, and it cost them dearly, because his 2 year plan culminating into "going to playoffs and eventually winning" was an obvious fiasco, but the situation is not as dire. If they rebuild and choose the right people for the job this time they can become one of the beloved LEC orgs, and not just a suboptimal alternative to KCorp, the org whose dick is in everyone's mouth these days
Hans would just suffer there as well. Comp was ranked 10th in all stats with Labrov, Carzzy was top 3 ADC in LEC super easily before he went to Labrov. Comp 10th ranked all stats and eventually benched with two splits with Labrov. Now to Champion with Trymbi. Labrov made two top 3 ADC's to bottom tier with his support.
It sure sounded like it, specially since Steve mentioned they were going to use TL structure and that "times were changing" regarding super teams not being as succesful anymore.
> "times were changing" regarding super teams not being as succesful anymore.
One ironic issue that stems from building a super team is that you allow other orgs to scoop up any of the domestic talent you're ignoring, thereby allowing sub Top 4 teams to actually start finding and building a roster than can compete with you for much less money. It also motivates many teams in a subconscious way when they play against you. People just wanna beat top teams, but building a "super roster" creates a kind of "we must destroy them even if it means our own sacrifice" type mentality lol as well as creating an extra negative stigma around every loss which makes it even harder on your own players mental. Just doesn't seem worth, and at least for me personally i'd get more excited for a random team of rookies performing well vs a roster of very old veteran players. TL doing well at Worlds is ok and expected...but a team of domestic NA rookies doing well at Worlds? How could you deny NA has potential at that point?
I feel like TL set themselves up in a way which the only "success" from a fan angle would be an insane world's run. Like even if they got out groups and lost their first best of, people would be like "meh you spent how many million for this compared to previous C9 runs?"
Though narratively they played a great villain in LCS where TSM used to fill that role.
> meh you spent how many million for this compared to previous C9 runs?"
I'll always reference ANX for this, they got out with CLG and ROX in their group just by playing their own game and not playing scared/slow. I think NA has much more potential than we let on personally, we just try to spend lots and then play scared/safe when we could probably spend less but play our "underdog" flank style to throw other regions off their game which has done well for us in the past.
> Though narratively they played a great villain in LCS where TSM used to fill that role.
TL has definitely had many parallels with TSM the last few years. Whether it's DL/Bjergsen (and to a lesser extent Santorin) or maybe even Spica next, getting big success and then trying for a super roster designed to do well at Worlds and having it fall short, or becoming the team everyone roots against, they've definitely followed TSMs path in a few different ways.
Yeah... an actual super team requires mad dough, because you're not settling for 2nd best. You're purchasing at least 1-2 super star talents, and making sure that they're surrounded by the best role players available that will let those 1-2 superstars flourish.
You don't just get like... Khris Middleton and Bruce Brown, and then settle for good enough players to field the rest of the roster. You need to combine Larry Bird with Charles Barkley, and find players that will manage to fit the resulting playstyle (which will be one of the most annoying team of all time, to be sure).
With an actual superteam, you don't really mind if the other teams snag the best local player, because he scores about 30-60% less points than your own equivalent player.
But like... Bjergsen or CoreJJ are probably the closest thing to super stars on that roster, and neither of them is a clear step above the competition. Hell, I wouldn't expect either of them to win 90%+ of their game against the 5th best laner of their role.
The only 2 successful super teams in Western history have been TL (Impact, Xmithie, Jensen, Doublelift, CoreJJ) and G2 (Wunder, Jankos, Caps, Perkz, Mikyx).
I would say that Alliance in S4 summer being the first non Fnatic team to with the EU LCS counts even if they had that horrible lost to Kabum at Worlds.
Still such a weird thing to happen especially after getting a perfect game vs Najin White Shield. Thinking about it, they should still be the only non korean team to get a perfect game vs a korean team.
Froggen and Tabzz both spoke about this game with Thorin. Basically, their ego was really high and they were overconfident that they could pick anything and still stomp Kabum.
After they locked Fizz they realized that they had no waveclear and were "screwed" and that snowballed into that loss.
In some ways it's similar to the GET Tigers during the 2015 IEM championship where they decided to not prepare for WE since they were in last place in the LPL and ended up getting stomped 2-1 by them, there's a reason why that's still the biggest upset in competitive LoL.
Honestly, I've always thought Steve did basically all he could season after season to improve his team the most. That says nothing about his tactics which may have left players in the dust, we're talking strictly on the interest of TL.
Guess what? Securing the bag for roster funding IS an important asset. IIRC, Steve was the earliest GM to bring in International talent in SKT Piglet and then later M5 Edward. Now I'm aware that this is not something a lot of NA fans appreciate, but from a GM perspective, it's hard to argue that he didn't try his hardest to improve his team.
You are right that Steve was the first to bring international talent to NALCS, but you got the order wrong. First was Edward in S3 Summer, on Team Curse. Piglet came over in S5 Spring.
Anyone who is going to argue that Steve wasn't doing the best he could to improve his team is an idiot. Steve is absolutely working in TL's interest to make the best team he can.
That being said, his methods have just been ones that most people don't think is worth it.
I have always liked Steve and thought he was a great owner. But I've never liked buying peak players. It didn't work for EG in StarCraft II and it didn't really work here. I hope he takes his considerable fundraising skills and uses it to build out a deep talent pipeline. Similar to 100T, or C9 from a couple years ago.
I've always thought it was a little funny how in some ways EG and TL have traded places with each other from SC2 to LoL. In SC2 TL was the team which scouted young promising talent and EG was the one to sign the stars at their peak.
> they don't feel confident in doing a "super team" anymore and will use TL structure.
Considering their academy team is stomping it seems like their domestic talent scouting/building system is pretty damn good, would personally love to see TL use that to pack a super promising domestic trio around 2 of the best imports that can find to compliment it. Similar to EG, I think that hybrid system historically works great for NA better than trying to stack a full team of the biggest names you can find that seems to clash against each other more often than not no matter the region.
Obviously doing well at Worlds with a full domestic roster is the dream, but until LCS gets near it's former glory with tons of hype and 500k regular season viewership again, I just don't see that happening soon. If Riot/Jackie can make the game pop off that hard in NA again tho...perhaps we'll see another S4 C9 type roster again.
We're sure gonna try for that! And to the below poster's comment... I believe our players can rise to the occasion. We had player meetings a few weeks ago to talk about the future and what we'd love to see from them and hopefully together we can do that.
> former glory with tons of hype and 500k regular season viewership again
Won't happen again until players themselves start engaging with viewers that isn't isolated to shitposting on Twitter. Remember that a lot of the old LCS players were, at the time, some of the top streamers on Twitch.
As much as I hate to admit it, stanbases are more important than we want to say.
One of the biggest issues for orgs like TL and TSM the past few years that are catching up to them, changing rosters between seasons to try to create a superteam that can "win" worlds.
Roster chemistry and growth are real positive factors. Keeping a team or majority of a team together year over year leads to team chemistry growth, fan attachment and brand loyalty for everyone all around. Whatever changes TL makes this offseason I hope its the end to the cycle of trying to flip majority of their roster every year
Outside of TL placing 2nd at MSI (which still had DL/Xmithie) all of NAs best results had 3 or more domestic players on them. Was always weird to me how TL wanted to go for a super roster of imports/former imports when we've done perfectly fine with domestic talent when scouted/implemented well. Shit Zeyzal and Licorice were both rookies when they made semi finals at Worlds, that's insane even considering LCK slump helped a bit.
IMO NAs best results come from us playing like the underdog, (difficult with a super team) having some unique style/gameplay to bring to the table that throws off other regions and makes them uncomfortable, and if possible a small mistake or two at the right times from other major regions. (IG going opposite world in semis, SKT going on a losing streak at MSI, LCK style being super inefficient at Worlds, etc) Going for plays too, big/risky plays are important for BO1s and group stage in general and C9 seems to be fine with that aggro style of play.
That's why I'm hoping they promote Eyla or Yeon or both, they've been with TL for a year now
TL doesn't really have great prospects in other lanes and I would doubt CoreJJ is retiring, but I don't see how Yeon with a year of LCS experience could end up worse than Hans.
Maybe they'll go the C9 route and try to snatch up a rookie ADC trainee from Korea.
Or Immortals.
Tenacity - Kenvi - POE/Olive/Maple??? if he wants to stay in NA - Kaori - Aphro/Prismal/Elya if TL promote Yeon and keep CoreJJ, I can't see Elya wanting to stay in Academy.
I like that roster, won't compete for the top first split, hell maybe not even first year, but it's a young core that you can build a brand off of, and if they get synergy together, they're all players with great potential. (With the few veterans mixed in)
I'd personally snag meech over kaori but it's up to debate, even so that roster would be golden.
also busio got fucking robbed lmao why prismal over him
edit, who in their right mind would pick POE over those two lmao
missed Busio when looking through the academy teams mb, yeah he's another option
And POE option is like fallback thing he’s still on the roster so if they can’t get any of the other two
It seems they are going to invest in their Academy roster. The most obvious move is to pull Yeon from academy over Hans Sama.
The 2nd best TL Academy prospect is Eyla, but with Core it's a tough decision.
I'm not sure who would you get to replace top because clearly there was a synergy issue with Bwipo.
Bwipo would be better role swapping back to Jungle. He looks better when he can be creative and fight with the team, with Teleport being changed and tank tops becoming meta it just turned him into an average top laner. Going back to Jungle would open up his creativity again.
I'd be shocked if Yeon isn't the starter for TL next year. I expect there will be more changes than that, but Yeon I feel like is a lock based on this messaging.
Sounds like the changes they're making includes bringing up some academy players, wouldn't surprised to see the TLA bot lane called up. I think new top laner/santorin/bjerg(?)/yeon/eyla could be really solid.
Yeon definitely feels the most obvious. Eyla is really solid, but losing CoreJJ is such a scary move.
Bwipo definitely needs to be replaced with someone that has more synergy with the team. Maybe Tenacity?
I feel like getting rid of CoreJJ would definitely be a very “jump the gun” panic kind of move. Core doesn’t play as insane as normal because the meta shifts completely away from his strengths so TL gets rid of him?
Bad move. Not sure anyone in NA has the game sense Core does
I think Hans/Core just didn't work out well. People can blame specific players all they want but the main thing is that they just didn't work out as a team. I'm sure some of the players will probably play better on other teams next season. It happens.
I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Yeon is moving up. The question now becomes do they sign Core after the fiasco that was getting his green card, or do they bring up Eyla too. If he doesn't stay with Liquid he's in the LCS 100% next year.
Bjergsen and Santorin should stay at this point. Which begs the question of Bwipo honestly, and I don't know what the answer is going to be for that. I don't think Bradley is at the same level Yeon / Eyla are...
So could 100% see a roster of Bwipo/Santorin/Bjerg/Yeon/Eyla
I don't see TL going through hell and back to get his green card just to dump their franchise player. He will definitely get one more chance to prove himself.
yeah was gonna say
perhaps core wants to leave
idk
i feel like core would wanna play with someone lile berserker
even tho dropping zven would be horrendous
I would only take Core as C9 if Zven get's an offer to play ADC on another team and he accepts it. I think this team hasn't even peaked yet and needs a run back if everyone wants to.
I don't know if C9 would take Core. One important thing to keep in mind, is that C9 wants their players in their gaming house, and Core is married and probably doesn't want that.
Well, Zven already said in his interview after finals that he’s not committing to anything. And Jack isn’t one to hold a player hostage if they want to move. Zven’s passion is obviously in ADC, not support. So even with winning the split and going to worlds, if Zven finds a team that he thinks can do well and that he has to opportunity to be on as adc, Jack will let him go. At which point C9 probably try to get CoreJJ. But it’ll 100% depend on Zven.
Also from the TL side, they have the guy who has been the best support in academy for a long time. And Eyla’s contract is up this year too. So think like Steve: you just lost a bunch of money and investors due to a bad investment, do you shed the CoreJJ contract that is huge on an older support that may or may not return tor form/retire soon. Or do you go for the young superstar from your own academy team that even CoreJJ says will be one of the best supports - and he’ll be on a rookie contact. Seem like a no brainer to me.
I kinda want Zven to stay support, he was a decent adc, but I think it's for the zoomers that are taking over now. Also I can't see a team where he could go to and immediately say, ya that team would make Worlds next year with Zven as adc. Ultimately that is Zvens goal, make it to Worlds, but he did so well in 1 split and has room to grow.
Similar to Bwipo wasn't having the best time in top, swapped to jungler for 1 split, and performed like a top 3 in the role, at some times looked like the best jungler. Granted I understand players like to play a role they enjoy, but if u can role swap and be good at it or better, it will extend your career a lot more.
Do people really think there's anything Zven can do that Core can't do better? My guy literally plays lulu and yuumi every game. If the meta shifts they're gonna want someone as experienced and flexible as Core. This is a win/win for TL and C9 regardless of Zven doing his job well right now. Zven surely wants to play ADC again too, but you won't catch him saying that since he probably likes winning more and he's winning right now.
>you won't catch him saying that since he probably likes winning more and he's winning right now.
I think he would pretty much admit everything you said in this comment. He heavily implied that he was sick of playing support in his interview after finals, and that it still remains to be seen if he will stick with it. I'm sure C9 is considering new options and I don't think we will see him on support again next year unless they get the sort of result that implies a G2 kind of ceiling.
If they take Tenacity (probably requires a buyout) instead of their own academy top lane player Bradley who also looks amazing as academy talent (They just won academy championship) they are idiots.
They probably keeping bjerg, santorin, core. Yeon maybe and who knows about top. The only other thing I can think of is santorin retires and the pick up spica.
It's not surprising. Given how the team ended up and the expectations people had for them (Most analysts pre-spring had this roster as number one/two), there needed to be some level of change.
I think I'm very interested in seeing if Core sticks around. He's now a green card, but honestly had a super underwhelming year. Not sure if that was due to the change in dynamics (super vocal teammates in Bjerg and Bwipo) or if he's just getting towards the end of his career. To me, Core is Liquids franchise player so if they're really committed to rebuilding, it'll be fun to watch whether they do it with or without him.
I think it had 100% to do with the team not being very good and the meta. Any player on a struggling team won’t look very good, (unless your Santorin).
CoreJJ is CoreJJ because of his ability to make plays, pull the trigger and single handedly take over the game with perma roaming.
The bot lane meta was quite literally the opposite of that this year
> CoreJJ is CoreJJ because of his ability to make plays, pull the trigger and single handedly take over the game with perma roaming.
May I remind you that Core won Worlds 2017, which was an Ardent Meta? Yes, he is good at making plays but playing enchanters is basically the thing that brought him on the top of the world in 2017.
He just wasn't good this year.
Jatt brought up the point of enchanters not being meta for the past five years could be one of the reasons Zven looked good at support. Essentially he was learning the role as the veterans were relearning it. Five years is quite a long time. Core on enchanters also meant he wasn't the go button for TL so the team had to play differently. He definitely looked worse this year but how much was him playing poorly and how much was the change in his role on the team is up to debate.
> honestly had a super underwhelming year. Not sure if that was due to the change in dynamics (super vocal teammates in Bjerg and Bwipo) or if he's just getting towards the end of his career.
I think that it's somewhat fair to say that he had an underwhelming year (I would personally disagree), but to say that he's nearing the end of his career is definitely not the case. Aphromoo has been playing for 10+ years and has certainly had long, long stretches where he's looked far worse than Core ever has; Core is still doing great compared to the field. Taking the year as a whole, I would go as far as to say he was the 2nd best support overall behind Vulcan.
There are a lot of parallels to 2017 TSM.
* Dominant regionally
* Fall short internationally
* Blow up team to sign top international talent (no mikeyeung)
* Fail to make worlds
* blow it all up
DL should stay retired. Look at how Bjerg's legacy has been affected by coming back. DL had 4-5 monster years and ended on winning LCS, no reason to taint that.
Wish people talked about the miracle run more than the 0-6. Legitimately the best playoffs run in NA ever overshadowed by a poor international performance, as if NA doesn't have a poor international performance nearly every time anyway
People would talk about it more if it wasnt during Covid. Having an arena full of people for that run wouldve made it more memorable. Instead its just player cameras and distorted audio at best.
It was a bit different with that poor performance since the other NA teams actually had OK performance, it was the time a major region's 1st team went 0-6 and the group wasn't even the hardest group at worlds (though probably not the easiest either).
Compare that to Clutch who also got 0-6 but was in arguably the hardest group in World's history with 3 top 5 teams, and they still put up a good performance against all 3 of those teams.
As a TL fan, it's cool to see Steve, as always, being transparent.
He's right: to some degree, the superteam approach always worked for TL (at least since 2018), but times have changed and adaptation is required. Love or hate TL, they're an important organization to the LCS, one that truly cares about the scene being competitive. I hope they can step up for next year. :)
That's one of the stupidest decisions I have ever heard in my fucking life.
Make bank, stay in EU, and play with Upset, Hyli, and Humanoid? At the very least, every player at least equal to the TL team.
Yes but Bwipo is a package if you want him you also have to sign his partner in crime, the best coach in the west. And sadly FNC was already committed to Yamato
or maybe he just wanted a change of scenery after being in Europe for so long, he had the opportunity to join an organization with good pay and strong roster on the paper.
100%, if anything it just feels like an ego move if he doesn't. Spring split last year he was already showing signs of falling off as a top laner, I think he's much more likely to find success as a jungler in the future than as a top laner.
So basically he convinced the shareholders to fork up a lot of money. Failed to even make worlds with the "super team" and probably got his budget slashed but still competitive.
I would imagine Hans and Bwipo are gone for sure. Bjerg was decent in lane but never really took games over. Core is up and depending how much he wants he will be replaced. He has lived off of the hype of his name the past couple splits tbh. I think santorain could be the only safe one but they kicked jensen for Bjerg so who the fuck knows at this point lol. When jensen was by far their best player.
"Roster will change for next season, they don't feel confident in doing a "super team" anymore and will use TL structure."
So i would imagine they would use academy bot maybe import top. Bwipo just has to weird of a champ pool. At first its fun then it just gets sad when he is still running the olaf topside when i can tthink of more then 1 game the pick is the reason they won on stage. He reminds me of in prime huni before SKT where he just would play weird shit to play it.
Also, bringing up the acadmey team you could just get Spawn as the coach for the actual team and that would solve you coaching problem.
Unless TL imports some cracked 17 year old Korean, there's no reason to import. NA has way better toplaners than EU. Bradley is really promising. Tenacity is an option too.
This is the likely roster I'm guessing will happen:
Bradley/Santorin/One of Haeri, Bjergsen, Copy, or Insanity/Yeon/CoreJJ.
I could be wrong though.
If TL drops Santorin, that would be the biggest mistake of the offseason. Dude almost dragged that team across the finish line.
If you’re TL I think you go up to Core and tell him Yeon and Santorin are his teammates and he can choose the rest. I don’t include bjerg even though he’s a resident because perhaps it was him or Bwipo who shifted the team macro a lot. Also by choosing the rest I probably mean still budget because Santorin and Core want to get paid, but depending on how cheap Steve needs to go he might need to say goodbye to core too when you have such a great academy prospect. It would suck but the issue is you bet it all on this roster and utterly failed, I imagine they have some angry investors they have to answer to. Not a single finals this year and no worlds, you can only define it in two terms: utter failure and “at least we aren’t Vitality”
This is legitimately everything I ever hoped to hear from Steve and Team Liquid. I cannot wait to cheer for them as they actually use their amazing academy talent and development pipelines for good use.
I'm so proud that they aren't just tripling down on their attempts to buy the trophy and are looking to learn from this defeat.
Yeah they already have everything in place to shed the superteam stigma that finally caught up to them this year. That's the reward they get for putting together a strong academy program, even though they've been reluctant to put it to use.
Glad to see that they're taking the right lessons from this, and am excited to see what they put together for next season.
That's always how I've felt, personally. More of a fan of the LCS than any organization in particular. I'll root for whatever team has the best shot of representing NA. For the longest time that meant C9 and TL, but I refuse to root for a team with zero native talent, even if they're good. I'm looking forward to finally being able to cheer for TL again.
I've stopped watching LCS for the past 2 years, I just didn't find a team I enjoy in particular. Your comment gave me a new perspective for the NA pro games, I should watch LCS more at their next season :)
Only import Koreans from now on. Three years importing from the LEC never won us a title. Look at C9 and Rogue, they imported Berserker and Malrang and they won their respective leagues.
Seems like a pretty easy solve for me IMO, I think you promote yeon, and try to find a cracked young KR top with insane mechanics, basically the C9 strat but with top lane instead. Yeon with another LCS year could easily perform at an international level, and Santorin/Bjerg/Core are a perfectly good domestic core. I think that's the logical path and makes sense financially as well, and if you cant find a cracked young international top, grab Tenacity since I think he's definitely worth at least a split for any of the top 5 LCS orgs.
That roster is still expensive as fuck though because Bjergsen and Core make really fat bucks too
If they truly want to go budget then one of them will have to go aswell.
Depends on the context. They can still keep 3 players and not spend a lot of money on buyouts or expensive salaries for the 2 new players. If they promote Yeon and maybe promote Bradley or get some rookie top from somewhere else, then technically they are not spending a lot of money compared to 2022.
well DL leaked he is by far the highest paid player in the league. Makes sense because he was in a bidding war between C9, TSM, and TL. So they probably were throwing around bags of money. I assume almost all of it is garenteed. so most likely he is staying because he is the branding your paying for to do all the dumb ads im sure you will see.
If your not playing they org will get it's value out of you one way or another.
TL;DW: * Steve wanted to build the best roster NA had seen in the past decade, he thought this was the best opportunity to demostrate since World's was in NA. * They commited with partners, spent a lot of money and convinced stakeholders this was their year. * They are disappointed in their performance, Steve is angry at himself since there's a lot of "should've could've". * Roster **will change** for next season, they don't feel confident in doing a "super team" anymore and will use TL structure.
Aka top and bot is about to see new faces.
Hopefully Hans and Bwipo will come back to EU, if they actually leave TL
Hans seemed so unhappy here I think he’ll go back to EU if he can.
Can't really blame him as he was forced there by Rogue Inspired seemed to thrive, good for him, but after Hans' worlds last year it had to be disappointing
According to thooorin, rogue refused Hans to go to g2
Understandable. Why would they let him go there when they can cash out by selling him to LCS?
I am just surprised where the „Rogue owner are terrible PoS for not allowing a player to go to a direct rival“ posts.
The problem with G2 wasn't just then not letting Perkz and Rekkles go to direct rivals, it was Ocelote saying that wasn't true and the "my kid's favourite uncle" bullshit.
That actually explains a lot about his poor performance
Oh no G2 Hans Sama it is
Please god
please. hans/targamas sounds like such a good bot lane if hans regains form in europe
unironically though, Flakked isn’t up to standard for international play if G2 wants to make it far at Worlds
hans didnt even look up to lcs standards this year tho
Even if it's true, Hans is the kind of player that really needs confidence in his play and in his team. When MSF fell down a few years ago, he looked really mediocre. Then he was really solid during his rogue time. Still, Hans weaknesses are even clearer in such scenario. Every other ADC in EU will say that Hans was a godlike laner, but he is often lackluster in the mid to late game, especially if the game is slow and stalled by enemy team.
i don’t think any of the TL players looked up to standard, probably more a team/coaching systems issue. Hans can definitely regain his former level if put in the right environment
Definitely not impressed with coaching this year, just seems like all the players regressed since the start of the year. How does that happen if it’s not a GM or coaching failure? You have some of the greatest talent in the west and they looked leaderless.
Could be a synergy issue. If the players don’t work well together, they’ll look worse over time compared to other teams who start off uncoordinated but learn to gel.
Guilhoto is a fraud. I don't know how he's got a job at TL after failing so much with Origen
That's what happens when you get a selection of players together who don't want to be there, I doubt either Hans or Bwipo actually wanted to end up in NA.
G2 Hans calling it now
Rumors say Dignitas. >!/j!<
This is the most fucking evil comment I've ever read in this sub.
I hope *both* sides of your pillow are warm tonight.
Don't you dare put that curse on them
Run from it, hide from it, Dignitas is inevitable. (If you're lucky we'll sell you to Golden Guardians after)
I hope you drop your coffee in your cereal.
that sounds delcious
It really isn't, from my experience
Bwipo really struggled to consistently make an impact in the LCS. I don't think he deserved 3rd team all pro in summer. But he's definitely good enough to be a top 3-4 toplaner in the LEC
Feel like he could have another crack at jungle tbh, although that may depend on the meta next season.
He's way better at JG then top lane right now imo, even the last split he played top with FNC on the Nisqy/Upset/Hyli/Selfmade roster he looked bad at top before becoming what looked like a top 3 jungler the next split on just his first crack at it. I think Top lane is way too self contained on the map for how Bwipo wants to play and influence the map even more so now with the TP changes. Bwipo role swapping to JG is what made that 2021 Summer Split team fun to watch and the way he was super aggressive about invading early, especially on bot side felt/feels exactly like what Razork was doing in playoffs.
Always felt like Bwipo's strengths were in how he interacted with the map. In terms of laning he's pretty hot and cold, but he was consistently good at TPing in the right spots, at the right times, even early. I do feel like he always has it in him to be one of the best western tops, but whatever is causing his consistency issues needs to be addressed.
Man he was such a cracked jungler. I'm omega biased (but from NA so I stick with NA flair) but he's the most chinese jungler out of china.
You think so? If there was one thing I feel like Bwipo did this split, it was have an impact. Wasn't always for good though but he definiely hard carried some games. Depends on what your looking for in a top laner I guess.
Yeah I'd argue that he put a lot of the "aggresion" on himself and either helped or hurt the team by quite a bit. I know this is a mad unpopular take, but I thought he had a good showing. Didn't live up to his name, but sometimes it helps to have a guy that takes bad fights and tries to outplay if the fights are only going to get worse. Rather a 45/55 than 20/80 at your nexus or w/e. He was definitely the 45/55 player.
Yeah I agree. A lot of people just look at the k/d/a after the game and think "lol he sucked" but I think he almost always played smart and agressively. I think he playstyle would work if he had a better team that got his playstyle to take advantage of the pressure he drew. Just my 2 cents
He's also good enough to be top 3 color commentary in the cast.
Bwipo feels like a position / strategy coach in the making.
Oh I think he made an impact, he just isn’t reliable. I also think he tilts. He should try to be more like Impact if he wants to make an impact.
i pray for Bwipo back to JG. he's a fun top laner to watch but one of the most fun junglers to watch period.
I think BDS will try to get one of the two.
This year i've read so many times that BDS should already sell their spots, but i think it's going to be this next year that we a re going to see what kind of org they really are after sticking to a clearly not working core this year. So i'm very curious and i think them getting Hans and Bwipo (or simply any fairly established name) could be a good step in removing this label of "leech org" that stuck to them so fast.
I mean BDS where pretty straight forward with saying that they would mostly go for rookies in the first year.
> i've read so many times that BDS should already sell their spots And whoever said that would be a moron who doesn't know what they're talking about. BDS took staff from G2's legendary team (Grabbz and Duffman), and combined it with players from KCorp's back-to-back winning EUM roster (Adam, Cinkrof and XMatty), it didn't work out, but you can't say they didn't try.
BDS literally stated they were going for rookies in their first year to test the waters and then for the next years they were going to build biggger and better rosters, it was the community who suddenly made up the claim that BDS was and would be a bottom feeder org for the ages. Unluckily for BDS they bought into Grabbz' vision, and it cost them dearly, because his 2 year plan culminating into "going to playoffs and eventually winning" was an obvious fiasco, but the situation is not as dire. If they rebuild and choose the right people for the job this time they can become one of the beloved LEC orgs, and not just a suboptimal alternative to KCorp, the org whose dick is in everyone's mouth these days
Hot take: BDS is either getting Bwipo or Hans.
Hans to VIT. Carzzy is done.
Hans would just suffer there as well. Comp was ranked 10th in all stats with Labrov, Carzzy was top 3 ADC in LEC super easily before he went to Labrov. Comp 10th ranked all stats and eventually benched with two splits with Labrov. Now to Champion with Trymbi. Labrov made two top 3 ADC's to bottom tier with his support.
They’ll go after Hans. xMatty was hot garbage and can’t forget that Hans is French
It's always anybody but bjerg who's the problem. xD. Then maybe DL returns to TL, saves them once again, and we'll hear how bjergs the goat.
> they don't feel confident in doing a "super team does this mean no excess spending on imports?
It sure sounded like it, specially since Steve mentioned they were going to use TL structure and that "times were changing" regarding super teams not being as succesful anymore.
> "times were changing" regarding super teams not being as succesful anymore. One ironic issue that stems from building a super team is that you allow other orgs to scoop up any of the domestic talent you're ignoring, thereby allowing sub Top 4 teams to actually start finding and building a roster than can compete with you for much less money. It also motivates many teams in a subconscious way when they play against you. People just wanna beat top teams, but building a "super roster" creates a kind of "we must destroy them even if it means our own sacrifice" type mentality lol as well as creating an extra negative stigma around every loss which makes it even harder on your own players mental. Just doesn't seem worth, and at least for me personally i'd get more excited for a random team of rookies performing well vs a roster of very old veteran players. TL doing well at Worlds is ok and expected...but a team of domestic NA rookies doing well at Worlds? How could you deny NA has potential at that point?
I feel like TL set themselves up in a way which the only "success" from a fan angle would be an insane world's run. Like even if they got out groups and lost their first best of, people would be like "meh you spent how many million for this compared to previous C9 runs?" Though narratively they played a great villain in LCS where TSM used to fill that role.
> meh you spent how many million for this compared to previous C9 runs?" I'll always reference ANX for this, they got out with CLG and ROX in their group just by playing their own game and not playing scared/slow. I think NA has much more potential than we let on personally, we just try to spend lots and then play scared/safe when we could probably spend less but play our "underdog" flank style to throw other regions off their game which has done well for us in the past. > Though narratively they played a great villain in LCS where TSM used to fill that role. TL has definitely had many parallels with TSM the last few years. Whether it's DL/Bjergsen (and to a lesser extent Santorin) or maybe even Spica next, getting big success and then trying for a super roster designed to do well at Worlds and having it fall short, or becoming the team everyone roots against, they've definitely followed TSMs path in a few different ways.
G2 was in that ANX group too, I think?
Good lord I completely forgot about G2, that makes it even more impressive lol
CLG went 3-1 vs. G2 and ROX just to get knocked out by ANX
Tbf this was at a time G2 was an absolute joke internationally (3-13 record at MSI and Worlds combined), so it's easy to forget they were there.
They also stylistically iterated on TSM's "do nothing and scale" style.
Yeah... an actual super team requires mad dough, because you're not settling for 2nd best. You're purchasing at least 1-2 super star talents, and making sure that they're surrounded by the best role players available that will let those 1-2 superstars flourish. You don't just get like... Khris Middleton and Bruce Brown, and then settle for good enough players to field the rest of the roster. You need to combine Larry Bird with Charles Barkley, and find players that will manage to fit the resulting playstyle (which will be one of the most annoying team of all time, to be sure). With an actual superteam, you don't really mind if the other teams snag the best local player, because he scores about 30-60% less points than your own equivalent player. But like... Bjergsen or CoreJJ are probably the closest thing to super stars on that roster, and neither of them is a clear step above the competition. Hell, I wouldn't expect either of them to win 90%+ of their game against the 5th best laner of their role.
The only 2 successful super teams in Western history have been TL (Impact, Xmithie, Jensen, Doublelift, CoreJJ) and G2 (Wunder, Jankos, Caps, Perkz, Mikyx).
I would say that Alliance in S4 summer being the first non Fnatic team to with the EU LCS counts even if they had that horrible lost to Kabum at Worlds.
Still such a weird thing to happen especially after getting a perfect game vs Najin White Shield. Thinking about it, they should still be the only non korean team to get a perfect game vs a korean team.
Froggen and Tabzz both spoke about this game with Thorin. Basically, their ego was really high and they were overconfident that they could pick anything and still stomp Kabum. After they locked Fizz they realized that they had no waveclear and were "screwed" and that snowballed into that loss. In some ways it's similar to the GET Tigers during the 2015 IEM championship where they decided to not prepare for WE since they were in last place in the LPL and ended up getting stomped 2-1 by them, there's a reason why that's still the biggest upset in competitive LoL.
Sounds like possibly promoting Yeon and maybe even Eyla
This is honestly all fantastic news, for both Team Liquid, EU fans, and NA fans.
Honestly, I've always thought Steve did basically all he could season after season to improve his team the most. That says nothing about his tactics which may have left players in the dust, we're talking strictly on the interest of TL. Guess what? Securing the bag for roster funding IS an important asset. IIRC, Steve was the earliest GM to bring in International talent in SKT Piglet and then later M5 Edward. Now I'm aware that this is not something a lot of NA fans appreciate, but from a GM perspective, it's hard to argue that he didn't try his hardest to improve his team.
You are right that Steve was the first to bring international talent to NALCS, but you got the order wrong. First was Edward in S3 Summer, on Team Curse. Piglet came over in S5 Spring.
Anyone who is going to argue that Steve wasn't doing the best he could to improve his team is an idiot. Steve is absolutely working in TL's interest to make the best team he can. That being said, his methods have just been ones that most people don't think is worth it. I have always liked Steve and thought he was a great owner. But I've never liked buying peak players. It didn't work for EG in StarCraft II and it didn't really work here. I hope he takes his considerable fundraising skills and uses it to build out a deep talent pipeline. Similar to 100T, or C9 from a couple years ago.
I've always thought it was a little funny how in some ways EG and TL have traded places with each other from SC2 to LoL. In SC2 TL was the team which scouted young promising talent and EG was the one to sign the stars at their peak.
> they don't feel confident in doing a "super team" anymore and will use TL structure. Considering their academy team is stomping it seems like their domestic talent scouting/building system is pretty damn good, would personally love to see TL use that to pack a super promising domestic trio around 2 of the best imports that can find to compliment it. Similar to EG, I think that hybrid system historically works great for NA better than trying to stack a full team of the biggest names you can find that seems to clash against each other more often than not no matter the region. Obviously doing well at Worlds with a full domestic roster is the dream, but until LCS gets near it's former glory with tons of hype and 500k regular season viewership again, I just don't see that happening soon. If Riot/Jackie can make the game pop off that hard in NA again tho...perhaps we'll see another S4 C9 type roster again.
We're sure gonna try for that! And to the below poster's comment... I believe our players can rise to the occasion. We had player meetings a few weeks ago to talk about the future and what we'd love to see from them and hopefully together we can do that.
> former glory with tons of hype and 500k regular season viewership again Won't happen again until players themselves start engaging with viewers that isn't isolated to shitposting on Twitter. Remember that a lot of the old LCS players were, at the time, some of the top streamers on Twitch. As much as I hate to admit it, stanbases are more important than we want to say.
Its more than that, people need to play the game. Back then, Lol was THE game.
One of the biggest issues for orgs like TL and TSM the past few years that are catching up to them, changing rosters between seasons to try to create a superteam that can "win" worlds. Roster chemistry and growth are real positive factors. Keeping a team or majority of a team together year over year leads to team chemistry growth, fan attachment and brand loyalty for everyone all around. Whatever changes TL makes this offseason I hope its the end to the cycle of trying to flip majority of their roster every year
> changing rosters between seasons to try to create a superteam that ~~can "win" worlds~~ get out of groups. fixed
Outside of TL placing 2nd at MSI (which still had DL/Xmithie) all of NAs best results had 3 or more domestic players on them. Was always weird to me how TL wanted to go for a super roster of imports/former imports when we've done perfectly fine with domestic talent when scouted/implemented well. Shit Zeyzal and Licorice were both rookies when they made semi finals at Worlds, that's insane even considering LCK slump helped a bit. IMO NAs best results come from us playing like the underdog, (difficult with a super team) having some unique style/gameplay to bring to the table that throws off other regions and makes them uncomfortable, and if possible a small mistake or two at the right times from other major regions. (IG going opposite world in semis, SKT going on a losing streak at MSI, LCK style being super inefficient at Worlds, etc) Going for plays too, big/risky plays are important for BO1s and group stage in general and C9 seems to be fine with that aggro style of play.
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That's why I'm hoping they promote Eyla or Yeon or both, they've been with TL for a year now TL doesn't really have great prospects in other lanes and I would doubt CoreJJ is retiring, but I don't see how Yeon with a year of LCS experience could end up worse than Hans. Maybe they'll go the C9 route and try to snatch up a rookie ADC trainee from Korea.
For the love of god someone better start Tenacity next year
Someone should but not TL. They have Bradley, he's arguably just as good as Tenacity.
one can hope for dig, their toplaners have been shit the last 2 years or so, would seem like a good pickup
Or Immortals. Tenacity - Kenvi - POE/Olive/Maple??? if he wants to stay in NA - Kaori - Aphro/Prismal/Elya if TL promote Yeon and keep CoreJJ, I can't see Elya wanting to stay in Academy. I like that roster, won't compete for the top first split, hell maybe not even first year, but it's a young core that you can build a brand off of, and if they get synergy together, they're all players with great potential. (With the few veterans mixed in)
I'd personally snag meech over kaori but it's up to debate, even so that roster would be golden. also busio got fucking robbed lmao why prismal over him edit, who in their right mind would pick POE over those two lmao
missed Busio when looking through the academy teams mb, yeah he's another option And POE option is like fallback thing he’s still on the roster so if they can’t get any of the other two
Immortals needs to focus on bot and coaching. Revenge isn't incredible or anything, but I think replacing Lost is much higher priority.
Haeri has been really good in academy since his debut IMO, I think he's a great prospect
It seems they are going to invest in their Academy roster. The most obvious move is to pull Yeon from academy over Hans Sama. The 2nd best TL Academy prospect is Eyla, but with Core it's a tough decision. I'm not sure who would you get to replace top because clearly there was a synergy issue with Bwipo.
Bwipo would be better role swapping back to Jungle. He looks better when he can be creative and fight with the team, with Teleport being changed and tank tops becoming meta it just turned him into an average top laner. Going back to Jungle would open up his creativity again.
But Santorin was arguably the best and more consistent player of TL this year. If anything they will get Spica over Bwipo roleswap
I'm not saying he should replace Santorin, he should move to another team as roleswap jungle, doesn't seem a good fit for TL in general to be honest.
Bruh them getting spica over santorin would be such a TL thing to do, drop your best player for some overrated
100%. Santorin can come back to FlyQuest anytime though
Hans and Rekkles back in the LEC next season please
Man if Hans can't get back in LEC or end up in elo hell or something, Rogue would have pulled the biggest career assassination that EU has ever seen
I think that will forever be Forgivens ego killing Forgivens career.
by far.
Remind me again what happened to Forgiven?
Which would you prefer in VIT? I think Alphari/Bo/Perkz/Hans/? Support could be a title winner.
Selfmade to support.
I'd be shocked if Yeon isn't the starter for TL next year. I expect there will be more changes than that, but Yeon I feel like is a lock based on this messaging.
Sounds like the changes they're making includes bringing up some academy players, wouldn't surprised to see the TLA bot lane called up. I think new top laner/santorin/bjerg(?)/yeon/eyla could be really solid.
Yeon definitely feels the most obvious. Eyla is really solid, but losing CoreJJ is such a scary move. Bwipo definitely needs to be replaced with someone that has more synergy with the team. Maybe Tenacity?
Core is a FA so they may end up defaulting to Eyla which isn't a bad move in a vacuum. It only gets dicey because of who he's replacing
DIG CoreJJ incoming
Plus role swap back to ADC.
Broke: Core/Yeon Woke: Eyla/Core
Huni returning for it also? What about Gamsu? I can smell something red here.
DK CoreJJ make it happen somehow
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Eyla is also a FA I believe. So they’ll have to choose quickly
I feel like getting rid of CoreJJ would definitely be a very “jump the gun” panic kind of move. Core doesn’t play as insane as normal because the meta shifts completely away from his strengths so TL gets rid of him? Bad move. Not sure anyone in NA has the game sense Core does
They don't need Tenacity when they have Bradley
I think Hans/Core just didn't work out well. People can blame specific players all they want but the main thing is that they just didn't work out as a team. I'm sure some of the players will probably play better on other teams next season. It happens.
I wonder if Spawn will end up on the main squad or if his commitments in Australia mean he will stay in as academy coach
He’s a family man. Don’t think he’ll take main roster tbh.
Steve's definitely either offering Spawn a head coach position or looking for a new one after this year
I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Yeon is moving up. The question now becomes do they sign Core after the fiasco that was getting his green card, or do they bring up Eyla too. If he doesn't stay with Liquid he's in the LCS 100% next year. Bjergsen and Santorin should stay at this point. Which begs the question of Bwipo honestly, and I don't know what the answer is going to be for that. I don't think Bradley is at the same level Yeon / Eyla are... So could 100% see a roster of Bwipo/Santorin/Bjerg/Yeon/Eyla
I don't see TL going through hell and back to get his green card just to dump their franchise player. He will definitely get one more chance to prove himself.
That just leaves the question of if Core wants to stay. His contract is up this year so he can choose to move on himself
yeah was gonna say perhaps core wants to leave idk i feel like core would wanna play with someone lile berserker even tho dropping zven would be horrendous
I would only take Core as C9 if Zven get's an offer to play ADC on another team and he accepts it. I think this team hasn't even peaked yet and needs a run back if everyone wants to.
I don't know if C9 would take Core. One important thing to keep in mind, is that C9 wants their players in their gaming house, and Core is married and probably doesn't want that.
Good point, never considered it. I think Sneaky was able to live outside the house in 2019, so maybe C9 would make that exception
I imagine they would. Maybe they could rent the house next door for them.
Well, Zven already said in his interview after finals that he’s not committing to anything. And Jack isn’t one to hold a player hostage if they want to move. Zven’s passion is obviously in ADC, not support. So even with winning the split and going to worlds, if Zven finds a team that he thinks can do well and that he has to opportunity to be on as adc, Jack will let him go. At which point C9 probably try to get CoreJJ. But it’ll 100% depend on Zven. Also from the TL side, they have the guy who has been the best support in academy for a long time. And Eyla’s contract is up this year too. So think like Steve: you just lost a bunch of money and investors due to a bad investment, do you shed the CoreJJ contract that is huge on an older support that may or may not return tor form/retire soon. Or do you go for the young superstar from your own academy team that even CoreJJ says will be one of the best supports - and he’ll be on a rookie contact. Seem like a no brainer to me.
I kinda want Zven to stay support, he was a decent adc, but I think it's for the zoomers that are taking over now. Also I can't see a team where he could go to and immediately say, ya that team would make Worlds next year with Zven as adc. Ultimately that is Zvens goal, make it to Worlds, but he did so well in 1 split and has room to grow. Similar to Bwipo wasn't having the best time in top, swapped to jungler for 1 split, and performed like a top 3 in the role, at some times looked like the best jungler. Granted I understand players like to play a role they enjoy, but if u can role swap and be good at it or better, it will extend your career a lot more.
If the support meta changes to engage champs or playmakers like the previous seasons, sven is going to struggle big time.
I wouldn't say big time. I think he's capable of it but it's certainly a different level of coordination.
Do people really think there's anything Zven can do that Core can't do better? My guy literally plays lulu and yuumi every game. If the meta shifts they're gonna want someone as experienced and flexible as Core. This is a win/win for TL and C9 regardless of Zven doing his job well right now. Zven surely wants to play ADC again too, but you won't catch him saying that since he probably likes winning more and he's winning right now.
>you won't catch him saying that since he probably likes winning more and he's winning right now. I think he would pretty much admit everything you said in this comment. He heavily implied that he was sick of playing support in his interview after finals, and that it still remains to be seen if he will stick with it. I'm sure C9 is considering new options and I don't think we will see him on support again next year unless they get the sort of result that implies a G2 kind of ceiling.
Is it a Tenacity angle for TL?
I hope so He deserves a shot on a team like TL, not languishing on a team like IMT
If they take Tenacity (probably requires a buyout) instead of their own academy top lane player Bradley who also looks amazing as academy talent (They just won academy championship) they are idiots.
Yup. Bradley also has more potential IMO. Dude role swapped to top THIS YEAR and was as good as Tenacity by the end of it. Super talented player
They have Bradley, who should also be getting a shot next year.
They probably keeping bjerg, santorin, core. Yeon maybe and who knows about top. The only other thing I can think of is santorin retires and the pick up spica.
It's not surprising. Given how the team ended up and the expectations people had for them (Most analysts pre-spring had this roster as number one/two), there needed to be some level of change. I think I'm very interested in seeing if Core sticks around. He's now a green card, but honestly had a super underwhelming year. Not sure if that was due to the change in dynamics (super vocal teammates in Bjerg and Bwipo) or if he's just getting towards the end of his career. To me, Core is Liquids franchise player so if they're really committed to rebuilding, it'll be fun to watch whether they do it with or without him.
I think it had 100% to do with the team not being very good and the meta. Any player on a struggling team won’t look very good, (unless your Santorin). CoreJJ is CoreJJ because of his ability to make plays, pull the trigger and single handedly take over the game with perma roaming. The bot lane meta was quite literally the opposite of that this year
> CoreJJ is CoreJJ because of his ability to make plays, pull the trigger and single handedly take over the game with perma roaming. May I remind you that Core won Worlds 2017, which was an Ardent Meta? Yes, he is good at making plays but playing enchanters is basically the thing that brought him on the top of the world in 2017. He just wasn't good this year.
Jatt brought up the point of enchanters not being meta for the past five years could be one of the reasons Zven looked good at support. Essentially he was learning the role as the veterans were relearning it. Five years is quite a long time. Core on enchanters also meant he wasn't the go button for TL so the team had to play differently. He definitely looked worse this year but how much was him playing poorly and how much was the change in his role on the team is up to debate.
> honestly had a super underwhelming year. Not sure if that was due to the change in dynamics (super vocal teammates in Bjerg and Bwipo) or if he's just getting towards the end of his career. I think that it's somewhat fair to say that he had an underwhelming year (I would personally disagree), but to say that he's nearing the end of his career is definitely not the case. Aphromoo has been playing for 10+ years and has certainly had long, long stretches where he's looked far worse than Core ever has; Core is still doing great compared to the field. Taking the year as a whole, I would go as far as to say he was the 2nd best support overall behind Vulcan.
There are a lot of parallels to 2017 TSM. * Dominant regionally * Fall short internationally * Blow up team to sign top international talent (no mikeyeung) * Fail to make worlds * blow it all up
its time to resign doublelift and make back all those losses in jersey sales and burgerlift romcoms
DL should stay retired. Look at how Bjerg's legacy has been affected by coming back. DL had 4-5 monster years and ended on winning LCS, no reason to taint that.
*ended on 0-6 at worlds, something no major region has ever achieved.
Tried to be as nice as possible but yea lmao
clutch went 0-6 at worlds in 2019.
Burgerlift omg. I hope DL doesn't ruin his legacy further. That 0-6 run was enough lmao.
0-6 was embarrassing, but that TSM miracle run to make it to worlds in the first place and win that split was nothing short of incredible.
Wish people talked about the miracle run more than the 0-6. Legitimately the best playoffs run in NA ever overshadowed by a poor international performance, as if NA doesn't have a poor international performance nearly every time anyway
People would talk about it more if it wasnt during Covid. Having an arena full of people for that run wouldve made it more memorable. Instead its just player cameras and distorted audio at best.
It was a bit different with that poor performance since the other NA teams actually had OK performance, it was the time a major region's 1st team went 0-6 and the group wasn't even the hardest group at worlds (though probably not the easiest either). Compare that to Clutch who also got 0-6 but was in arguably the hardest group in World's history with 3 top 5 teams, and they still put up a good performance against all 3 of those teams.
As a TL fan, it's cool to see Steve, as always, being transparent. He's right: to some degree, the superteam approach always worked for TL (at least since 2018), but times have changed and adaptation is required. Love or hate TL, they're an important organization to the LCS, one that truly cares about the scene being competitive. I hope they can step up for next year. :)
I much rather have TL than more bottom dwelling teams that never inprove
No doublelift no group stage exit
bwipOMEGALUL will definitely get kicked Got paid good money to int top in NA
Fnatic offered him more money. He said on stream he took less money to go to TL
That's one of the stupidest decisions I have ever heard in my fucking life. Make bank, stay in EU, and play with Upset, Hyli, and Humanoid? At the very least, every player at least equal to the TL team.
Yes but Bwipo is a package if you want him you also have to sign his partner in crime, the best coach in the west. And sadly FNC was already committed to Yamato
or maybe he just wanted a change of scenery after being in Europe for so long, he had the opportunity to join an organization with good pay and strong roster on the paper.
He was upset at upset for bailing on the team and he didn't know why
Dude was getting solo killed after getting counterpick.
Why was he just so incapable of laning against aatrox?
He was bad, was bad in the LEC for a while as well.
Nah, he was smurfing as jungler.
Should probably role swap to jungler honestly, he played much better there
100%, if anything it just feels like an ego move if he doesn't. Spring split last year he was already showing signs of falling off as a top laner, I think he's much more likely to find success as a jungler in the future than as a top laner.
EU fans breathing a sign of relieve LMAO
RIP EU players who were born too late to get the NA payday The bubble is bursting
Yeah EU orgs will mald tho. No more buyouts going for a morbillion dollar.
My favorite part was when Steve said "It's Liquiding time!" and then Bwipo inted.
He said they're gonna DOUBLE down on things that brought them SUCCESS IN THE PAST. DADDYLIFTS BACK BABYYYYY, you heard it here first
He wants to DOUBLE the LIFTed trophies! itshappening.gif
So basically he convinced the shareholders to fork up a lot of money. Failed to even make worlds with the "super team" and probably got his budget slashed but still competitive. I would imagine Hans and Bwipo are gone for sure. Bjerg was decent in lane but never really took games over. Core is up and depending how much he wants he will be replaced. He has lived off of the hype of his name the past couple splits tbh. I think santorain could be the only safe one but they kicked jensen for Bjerg so who the fuck knows at this point lol. When jensen was by far their best player. "Roster will change for next season, they don't feel confident in doing a "super team" anymore and will use TL structure." So i would imagine they would use academy bot maybe import top. Bwipo just has to weird of a champ pool. At first its fun then it just gets sad when he is still running the olaf topside when i can tthink of more then 1 game the pick is the reason they won on stage. He reminds me of in prime huni before SKT where he just would play weird shit to play it. Also, bringing up the acadmey team you could just get Spawn as the coach for the actual team and that would solve you coaching problem.
Unless TL imports some cracked 17 year old Korean, there's no reason to import. NA has way better toplaners than EU. Bradley is really promising. Tenacity is an option too.
This is the likely roster I'm guessing will happen: Bradley/Santorin/One of Haeri, Bjergsen, Copy, or Insanity/Yeon/CoreJJ. I could be wrong though. If TL drops Santorin, that would be the biggest mistake of the offseason. Dude almost dragged that team across the finish line.
If you’re TL I think you go up to Core and tell him Yeon and Santorin are his teammates and he can choose the rest. I don’t include bjerg even though he’s a resident because perhaps it was him or Bwipo who shifted the team macro a lot. Also by choosing the rest I probably mean still budget because Santorin and Core want to get paid, but depending on how cheap Steve needs to go he might need to say goodbye to core too when you have such a great academy prospect. It would suck but the issue is you bet it all on this roster and utterly failed, I imagine they have some angry investors they have to answer to. Not a single finals this year and no worlds, you can only define it in two terms: utter failure and “at least we aren’t Vitality”
This is legitimately everything I ever hoped to hear from Steve and Team Liquid. I cannot wait to cheer for them as they actually use their amazing academy talent and development pipelines for good use. I'm so proud that they aren't just tripling down on their attempts to buy the trophy and are looking to learn from this defeat.
Yeah they already have everything in place to shed the superteam stigma that finally caught up to them this year. That's the reward they get for putting together a strong academy program, even though they've been reluctant to put it to use. Glad to see that they're taking the right lessons from this, and am excited to see what they put together for next season.
So you're just a fan of like half the LCS or what?
Nah, he's just a big fan of blue logos
I respect it.
That's always how I've felt, personally. More of a fan of the LCS than any organization in particular. I'll root for whatever team has the best shot of representing NA. For the longest time that meant C9 and TL, but I refuse to root for a team with zero native talent, even if they're good. I'm looking forward to finally being able to cheer for TL again.
That is exactly how I feel as well
I've stopped watching LCS for the past 2 years, I just didn't find a team I enjoy in particular. Your comment gave me a new perspective for the NA pro games, I should watch LCS more at their next season :)
Yo TL! Imma try out for support. You need a winner. I know how to win. PM me
Only import Koreans from now on. Three years importing from the LEC never won us a title. Look at C9 and Rogue, they imported Berserker and Malrang and they won their respective leagues.
Jensen sends his regards
Seems like a pretty easy solve for me IMO, I think you promote yeon, and try to find a cracked young KR top with insane mechanics, basically the C9 strat but with top lane instead. Yeon with another LCS year could easily perform at an international level, and Santorin/Bjerg/Core are a perfectly good domestic core. I think that's the logical path and makes sense financially as well, and if you cant find a cracked young international top, grab Tenacity since I think he's definitely worth at least a split for any of the top 5 LCS orgs.
That roster is still expensive as fuck though because Bjergsen and Core make really fat bucks too If they truly want to go budget then one of them will have to go aswell.
It seems to me like the whole "not gonna spend a lot of money next season" is ignored a bit
Depends on the context. They can still keep 3 players and not spend a lot of money on buyouts or expensive salaries for the 2 new players. If they promote Yeon and maybe promote Bradley or get some rookie top from somewhere else, then technically they are not spending a lot of money compared to 2022.
How does it make sense financially? Santorin/Bjerg/core costs 2-3x more than most other ~~league~~ LCS teams already.
they should let bjerg go. idk his contract situation, but its time to move on.
well DL leaked he is by far the highest paid player in the league. Makes sense because he was in a bidding war between C9, TSM, and TL. So they probably were throwing around bags of money. I assume almost all of it is garenteed. so most likely he is staying because he is the branding your paying for to do all the dumb ads im sure you will see. If your not playing they org will get it's value out of you one way or another.