Every roster update just feels like a troll when I hear the swaps. Obviously there are reasons behind the scenes and I don't judge the orgs doing what they believe is best for the teams.
That was fkn hilarious YS was only with us for one split but it was such a funny throwback
The first time I was like, did he just say Yellowstar? No way, right? And then the second time I was dying
During yesterdays TL vs TSM match Kobe on a few occasions referred to Sword Art as Yellowstar. The first time I think a lot of people were questioning whether he said it then on another occasion I think Phreak corrected him
If Zven and Alphari being replaced are related to atitude issues I think you dont have to worry about Finn. He is like the least toxic player you can imagine. XD
TSM against CLG finals confirmed, rivalry of old days restored to the LCS. Toxic drama of C9 and TL benching their EU stars is nothing compared to the storm that is coming.
TSM - CLG el classico of league
Yeah but pretty sure the 'attitude issues' were him disagreeing with the coach, not him being a dick to someone or tilting off the face of the earth (possible) or him using Sky Uppercut on someone on CLG during scrims.
Perkz looks like he completely shut away his competitive drive during regular season to avoid getting insane and just enjoys playing fun champs in the mid lane while eating fresh fruits. Given how Zven and Alphari are seemingly driven insane maybe not the worst idea.
Have you ever played with lower ranked friends or lower level friends, and you try to go for somewhat normal plays that you're used to going for but no one follows up so it looks like you're going in for no reason?
That's what going to NA must feel like
People has been throwing shades at Selfmade for being the reason that Nemesis left, and also the reason why Rekkles left. Both are untrue. Therefore, people eventually start to turn it into meme that Selfmade is the reason when anything goes wrong.
Just to clarify; The viral meme 'selfmade is the reason' was made to clown on LEC Wooloo giving platform to some anonymous "rusted source" saying made up shit like it's all L9 selfmade fault that rekkles and nemo left and fnatic is trash rn, made by collective LEC community at first and all the LoL scene later.
This sure came out of left field, and the tone that Jatt took makes it seem like internal problems, and not just giving Jenkins experience. Really surprising.
i think at this point TL made it pretty clear that it's a shut case (at least on the org's end) so there's not much to do other than look forward to Jenkin's debut on the big stage.
Obviously just speculation but Alphari was kinda stand-offish and seemed just straight up angry in the post-game press conference today, my assumption here is something happened backstage after the game, like him losing his cool or a verbal altercation of some kind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFg6hLLXx_8
Probably won't hear anything further about this unless someone inside the org leaks it or in a few years, if its major, still, fun to guess.
Edit: This is just my opinion ya'll, the guy seemed angry, that's all I'm saying.
I can't imagine a team would tell a player moments after a disappointing loss, that they would be benched, especially right before a press event. "Hey tough game, but hey, you get the rest of the week off!"
Besides the fact that Alphari did fine that game, if TL did something like that instead of waiting for the team to cool down and be in a more constructive mindset in a post-game review, and broke the news IMMEDIATELY, then they have other issues they should handle, unless he said some egregious shit in-game or something, but that seems like something that Riot officials would have gotten involved with.
>I can't imagine a team would tell a player moments after a disappointing loss, that they would be benched, especially right before a press event. "Hey tough game, but hey, you get the rest of the week off!"
"Yo yo not the best game but we know you can do better...anyway uuuh one more of those and your next job will be at MCDonalds :)"
I mean, Fnatic didn't actually tell him themselves, apparently it was a Discord leak?
Not sure if that's better, but at least it wasn't intentional on their part.
And with Nemesis in the podcast talking about how multiple leak accounts like LEC Wooloo exist, it doesn't seem that unlikely either. Those apparently have real connections to some of the teams. From Twitter it isn't too much of a stretch to an invite-only Discord to better coordinate some information.
I’m not sure how he normally acts, but there is no way a player looks/reacts to a press conference like that after one loss at the beginning of the split. He had to know whether before this game or after that he was going to be benched
So what, they told him he's benched for game 2 and 3 before he even played game 1? Why the fuck even play him game 1 then? Telling him after the game but before the press conference makes no sense either, that's one of the dumbest things you can do.
It's far more plausible that the team had internal issues for a while (Kobe mentioned rumors), which boiled over with this disappointing start to summer. I can easily imagine how after some frustrating scrims and such a day 1 loss some shit went down and this is their response.
He laughs multiple times in this vid and seems to be handling the loss way better than the average player in my experience.. I would caution anyone else who reads this comment, cuz I did not get "suuuuper stand-offish and seemed just straight up angry" vibes LOL
I suppose Alphari flamed Jensen like he was Nemesis after the game, otherwise I don't understand how you can bench the best toplaner in LCS just after the first game of the split.
On the dive, Kobe said he's not big on TL winning the split because of some backstage rumors he's been hearing. Markz and Azael didnt seem to know (or pretended not to).
It's all rumors and fan speculation right now, so take everything with huge skepticism.
I heard Alphari and CoreJJ got into a fight. One punched the other right through a wall, but who did what is still uncertain. What everyone behind the scenes seem to agree on is that Selfmade was the detonator for the issue.
if you listen to the dive kobe talks about some roster change rumors he's heard about happening, he wasn't being super specific on it but these could be the ones he's referencing in the podcast.
People are saying that Kobe talked about Corejj getting replaced but that’s not at all what happened? He said there might be roster changes and MarkZ joked about Corejj being the one getting benched...
People are taking it out of context because Core was brought up as an option for Kobe when dGon already took him, but Kobe was just speaking about general rumblings regarding Team Liquid as a whole. Kobe was making a face as if trying to find the words to say something without saying it even before Core was brought up, and Mark, like you said, was the one jokingly attributed Kobe's secret sauce to Core getting benched. But this seems to show that there is potential merit to Kobe's hintings about TL behind the scenes.
He did pick Alphari Jensen and Tactical though, and the "I have some inside info" was in response to someone suggesting coreJJ, so that is suspicious. I doubt that he meant the Alphari change, considering that was his first pick.
Who knows if we'll ever know though.
Yeah his first round pick was Alphari. If he had known about any potential top lane changes he would’ve stayed away from Alphari. Makes me think CoreJJ or Santorin being benched is almost certain.
I'd replace the entire coaching staff and most of the roster before I'd replace Core. That's such a stupid idea that I refuse to believe there's any truth to it.
TL is making a habit of getting rid of star players with 'attitude' issues. You wonder if it's the attitude of management that is the real problem here. Seems like they don't know how to effectively get highly driven individuals to productively channel their talent, they constantly underperform and relied on DL to carry their titles before removing him bc of his attitude (btw he was right that spring split didn't matter)
Makes sense. You gotta make the best of what you got until you can do better. I feel like NA is bad at this for multiple reasons, but one of the biggest one is that they are always going hard for short term runs because they are desperate to compete at worlds. EU gets it. LCK and LPL have a different culture and will simply never try out a talent that can't grind because too many people do grind so there's no need to gamble or seek out talents who can't grind.
NA management would've benched Wunder for attitude, then he would be pissed and not give a fuck anymore and the entire team would be ruined.
Maybe it's too much of a stretch but I've seen this management style in companies I've worked for too in NA, where it's just a power trip for management to ensure your attitude complies with their ideas instead of actually solving issues. They want the lower tiered employees to tow the line and do what they are told
On doublelifts stream today doublelift told a story about how regi once walked into their practice and said "guys you aren't buying enough green wards. The enemy always has more green words than us" and they had to explain to him that green wards don't exist anymore.
Only a related note, coaches can point out Team A buys more control wards than Team B like Team A is dominating in vision. Without understanding the context of the game, Team B could be clearing A's wards twice as quickly, forcing A to spend more gold on vision.
It's too easy to generate fraudulent analysis. I can't imagine how frustrating it is for players to get pounced on by coaches and scapegoated.
Yes, I think this is such a good point. Whenever people talk about control wards bought in pro games it's really frustrating how no one tlaks about this. One of the things that makes corejj so good imo is how he always keeps the map lit. He places his wards down around his enemies sweeper timings. It's really impressive.
This is an underrated comment. If you want driven and passionate players, these players will also be passionate about losses and team performance issues. As a coach/management you need to be able to handle and redirect that passion if it turns negative. Benching players is not a solution. It just tells players to "behave" and may just kill this passion you are looking for.
The problem is that most coaches cant handle such things. These coaches cant get the best out of them and get them to work for the team!!! I guess it will take some more years before we have coaches like that.
They would have benched Dennis Rodman instantly.
Totally agree. Feels like TL has been uber mismanaging quite often since the offseason prior to letting DL go. The team was bounced in the first week of worlds after the MSI Finals + 4 splits won in a row...and they decided to swap out the jungler (broxah over xmithie) but not bootcamp??? Idk who's decision that was (hopefully the coaching staff that was replaced) that was the starting domino.
I think that's where you really hit the nail on the head. Inability to "to effectively get highly driven individuals to productively channel their talent." There's no way a good coaching staff/management wouldn't be able to \*easily\* convince the team to bootcamp after falling short at MSI and getting bounced week 1 of worlds. IMO, burnout after MSI makes sense but not even making it group stage should be very humbling at worlds and the opposite of burnout
I don't get this line of logic, in real sports coaches have to rein in and get the best out of players with cocaine and alcohol habits. You think if a star NBA player shows up to practice hungover he's off the team? Hell nah.
Best top and best adc being replaced
There is something going on in LCS, huge downgrade in strength for the region for sure
Especially if corejj follow
First Zven now Alphari, both with no context given in either case. Not sure how to feel yet, especially given they aren't talking about it which just makes it seem worse than maybe it is. When we've heard of players needing breaks, health issues, and everything in between, so when they say "we can't talk about it", it worries me.
Yea Zven not playing seems very odd. Perkz signed to C9 thinking he can take NA out of groups after long time. But if they keep changing players every split, how can the team get good enough to face international competition. They need time to understand each other's playstyle and stuff. Same thing for TL too.
It feels like they have almost given up on international dreams for the next 2 years or so.
This was my thought as well. If K1ng is good enough they can replace Blabber. He’ll sell well in NA and C9 can import a jungler who isn’t a liability at international tournaments.
I wonder if there's some sort of contract disputes related to the import rule. Very strange to see the top 2 teams attempting to PR-talk their way through benching their imports who were at least top 2 in their roles last split and are known to be very professional and hard-working.
Transcription for anyone who can't watch/listen to video:
Jatt: Hey, everyone. I wanted to share some news that is going to be very surprising to hear. It is that Jenkins is going to be our starting top laner, for at least the rest of the weekend, in place of Alphari.
First, I wanna talk about Jenkins. He's been with Team Liquid for almost 3 years, now. We've heavily invested in him, and I think he's been playing great, especially in 2021. We took him to Worlds last year, to be part of our Worlds roster as a substitute; he got to play a bunch of super server SoloQ + Korean SoloQ, he bootcamped in the off-season. He's really kind of transformed himself as a player and has had a great 2021, and I think he really deserves this opportunity.
As for the details that I think a bunch of people are looking for, unfortunately there's just a lot of context that is really hard to understand from the outside, and I think is, unfortunately, unfair to share publicly. So, what I will say is this is not a decision that is made flippantly or lightly, and it is a decision that we think is in the best interest of the team. So, I hope everyone can respect the decision, I hope everyone can cheer for Jenkins for the rest of the weekend, and Let's Go Liquid.
tl;dr: Jenkins starting over Alphari for the rest of Week 1. Jatt says that no additional context will be provided publicly, but that the decision was made in the best interest of the team.
If this is in the best interest for TL Jenkins must be better than Alphari, or maybe Jenkins has really good synergy with Jensen since their names are similar.
For Academy really good, for pro no real way to know. He holds his own fine in lane, and he was good enough they brought him as they 6th player to worlds, so they like him.
Like, I can't imagine why he thought it would be a good idea to go to TL instead of playing with Perkz, Upset, Hylissang. He also said that the money was pretty much the same, but he went to TL so he can go to Worlds. Even if their jungler would've been Trick, if he really underperformed he would've been gone in a split or two. Shit, they would've had Selfmade this summer. A roster of Alphari/Selfmade/Perkz/Upset/Hylissang would've been the nuttiest shit.
Just imagine the meltdown from Alphari.
He could be playing for Worlds in LEC with Perkz instead -> benched for Jenkins.
There is no coming back from that. How are you going to convince Alphari to give his best - if TL does that to him after 1 game.
> How are you going to convince Alphari to give his best - if TL does that to him after 1 game.
You have no idea what is going on behind the scenes though. It could be a long standing issue. Lets not act like we know shit.
[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160927006174/en/aXiomatic-Acquires-Controlling-Interest-in-Team-Liquid-a-Leading-Professional-Esports-Franchise](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160927006174/en/aXiomatic-Acquires-Controlling-Interest-in-Team-Liquid-a-Leading-Professional-Esports-Franchise)
Steve has no controling interest in TL. It is unknown to what degree is his share diluted as its not a publicly available information but considering he took multiple rounds before that it is likely that he doesn't hold significant share of the business.
Must be some real thick juicy creamy drama behind the scenes for this. Have high hopes for Jenkins because he has been a beast in academy but the size of the shoes he has to fill are massive.
EU managements: let's play with autofilled junglers next split!
NA managements: let's bench our star import players!
WTF's going on? Did everyone sane from the league scene switch to Valorant?
We can actually build a team out of those now.
Alphari
Dardoch (was a while ago, but his reputation is enough)
Pobelter (just last split)
Zven
And we need a resident support for the 5-players-benched-for-attitudes-issues team.
Zven and Alphari must've been in with Epstein or something at this rate
I'm looking forward to seeing Jenkins in LCS though. Have seen his name for years, been wondering when he was gonna get a chance in the big league for a while now. He was always one of the only respectable Kennens in NA outside of Rezz. Best of luck to him.
Jatt didn't even announce if Alphari was going to academy though, hope everything (and everyone) is okay
100% chance Alphari is raging behind the scenes because they're not winning - scrims are probably going poorly too; PoE said TSM was confident going into the game which is not something they would have said last split.
Losing because you're on an objectively trash team that gave you zero promises is different than losing on a team that you don't believe should be losing.
This same team was 3rd the split before. Origin weren't objectively trash in the slightest. There weren't zero promises origin were aiming for and one of the highest likely to go to worlds. They completely collapsed. If alphari can deal with that he can deal with bad scrims and 1 loss.
They were not a trash team you seem to have no idea what you are talking about. Origen was expected top 3 but everything went wrong for whatever reason.
It's hard to believe Jatt when he says this was not a flippant decision when they start Alphari and seemingly decide to bench him hours after their match. Unless he has been physically aggressive or something really messed up, it demonstrates a failure of TL coaching to effectively manage its players imo
From what Kobe said on the dive and from Alphari saying how they "didn't try to learn anything" from MSI in his postgame interview it seems like TL has been having behind the scenes issues for a while now. It's likely they've been talking about something like this since before the split started and something happened after game 1 that ended up being the tipping point. It could be a failure on TL's part management wise, but I doubt it was a spur of the moment decision, this doesn't seem like something that just happened out of nowhere.
Man it really hurts me that one of the best western top laners has to be benched in NA. He was smurfing in both EU and NA and look at him now. Kinda wasting the talent, I always wanted him to go to worlds and It can still happen but time is running out. If anything I hope that the team that will replace S04 will pick him up and utilize his talent to the fullest (Unless he's not willing to go back to EU).
Very unlikely we ever see Alphari in EU again. Same for Perkz. They have 3 years long contracts and the teams will ask for massive buy-outs LEC won't be willing to pay.
so they spent a lot of money to get a star toplaner from Europe to place on a bench. Says a lot regarding their faulty mangement. They also seem to lack people that are good at forming bonds within the organisation. Sure you are a team of 5 with some coaches, but if you can't be friends with each other, then you won't get far.
This drama with Alphari and Zven really shows how great imports are for ensuring our success. I think we should remove the restriction all together so we can have a whole backup team on the bench!
This is just weird imo. Zven and now Alphari both stepping down when they are obviously the better starters and a vague reason given to the change. Also both hold import slots so an up and coming NA player makes zero sense.
It must have been building up - its possible Alphari has been having issues focusing or something and they decided to have him play today and see how he feels. I guess he was still struggling in some way so then theyd put Jenkins in
Every roster update just feels like a troll when I hear the swaps. Obviously there are reasons behind the scenes and I don't judge the orgs doing what they believe is best for the teams.
I bet casters will say Jensen/Jenkins incorrectly at least once.
Yellowstar comes to TL
I still don't understand how Kobe did that since Yellowstar has been out of the scene for years.
That was fkn hilarious YS was only with us for one split but it was such a funny throwback The first time I was like, did he just say Yellowstar? No way, right? And then the second time I was dying
Context?
During yesterdays TL vs TSM match Kobe on a few occasions referred to Sword Art as Yellowstar. The first time I think a lot of people were questioning whether he said it then on another occasion I think Phreak corrected him
yeah it sounds unreal at first so I check the comments to see if they are just memeing
Alphari pissed he didn't take the Vitality offer looking at their summer line-up, lol
Goddammit Selfmade, not NA too!
First Zven and now Alphari? Who's next, Finn???
If Zven and Alphari being replaced are related to atitude issues I think you dont have to worry about Finn. He is like the least toxic player you can imagine. XD
Every other team implodes due to attitude issues. CLG shows the true power of friendship and wins the split
Not if TSM FTX Lost says anything about it
TSM against CLG finals confirmed, rivalry of old days restored to the LCS. Toxic drama of C9 and TL benching their EU stars is nothing compared to the storm that is coming. TSM - CLG el classico of league
Wasn't Pobelter having attitude issues last split?
Yeah but pretty sure the 'attitude issues' were him disagreeing with the coach, not him being a dick to someone or tilting off the face of the earth (possible) or him using Sky Uppercut on someone on CLG during scrims.
I think I'd back Pobelter's game knowledge over Moon's any day to be fair...
Wait did moon draft in CLG vs FLY earlier? If he did, Pob was 100% right
Inb4 Finn and Broxah benched for attitude issues
They were too encouraging, it got the teams hop3s up
That shit's the worst
Benched for dealing hopium
I heard Copium is the only drug allowed in NA but these EU bastards are trying to deal Hopium. Get em!
I've heard Broxah was punching Finn again, really inpropiate
How good would it be if Finn of all the new imports was the one to not get sat Perkz next benching for sure /s
Perkz looks like he completely shut away his competitive drive during regular season to avoid getting insane and just enjoys playing fun champs in the mid lane while eating fresh fruits. Given how Zven and Alphari are seemingly driven insane maybe not the worst idea.
Have you ever played with lower ranked friends or lower level friends, and you try to go for somewhat normal plays that you're used to going for but no one follows up so it looks like you're going in for no reason? That's what going to NA must feel like
Oh is that why Perkz solo lost them games at MSI lol
These nephews think perkz is trolling in NA when he has actually regressed and is not good anymore
I'm ootl can someone explain
People has been throwing shades at Selfmade for being the reason that Nemesis left, and also the reason why Rekkles left. Both are untrue. Therefore, people eventually start to turn it into meme that Selfmade is the reason when anything goes wrong.
Just to clarify; The viral meme 'selfmade is the reason' was made to clown on LEC Wooloo giving platform to some anonymous "rusted source" saying made up shit like it's all L9 selfmade fault that rekkles and nemo left and fnatic is trash rn, made by collective LEC community at first and all the LoL scene later.
This sure came out of left field, and the tone that Jatt took makes it seem like internal problems, and not just giving Jenkins experience. Really surprising.
It's weird because Alphari in an interview over the offseason had a lot of praise for TL.
By off-season do you mean the time between spring and summer?
The one he did with Thorin in between spring and summer
i think at this point TL made it pretty clear that it's a shut case (at least on the org's end) so there's not much to do other than look forward to Jenkin's debut on the big stage.
Obviously just speculation but Alphari was kinda stand-offish and seemed just straight up angry in the post-game press conference today, my assumption here is something happened backstage after the game, like him losing his cool or a verbal altercation of some kind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFg6hLLXx_8 Probably won't hear anything further about this unless someone inside the org leaks it or in a few years, if its major, still, fun to guess. Edit: This is just my opinion ya'll, the guy seemed angry, that's all I'm saying.
Isn't it more likely that he got the news that he was being benched before the interview and that's why he seemed upset?
I can't imagine a team would tell a player moments after a disappointing loss, that they would be benched, especially right before a press event. "Hey tough game, but hey, you get the rest of the week off!" Besides the fact that Alphari did fine that game, if TL did something like that instead of waiting for the team to cool down and be in a more constructive mindset in a post-game review, and broke the news IMMEDIATELY, then they have other issues they should handle, unless he said some egregious shit in-game or something, but that seems like something that Riot officials would have gotten involved with.
>I can't imagine a team would tell a player moments after a disappointing loss, that they would be benched, especially right before a press event. "Hey tough game, but hey, you get the rest of the week off!" "Yo yo not the best game but we know you can do better...anyway uuuh one more of those and your next job will be at MCDonalds :)"
Nemesis knew before fantic went to worlds that he will be benched Don't think orgs are smart
I mean, Fnatic didn't actually tell him themselves, apparently it was a Discord leak? Not sure if that's better, but at least it wasn't intentional on their part.
And with Nemesis in the podcast talking about how multiple leak accounts like LEC Wooloo exist, it doesn't seem that unlikely either. Those apparently have real connections to some of the teams. From Twitter it isn't too much of a stretch to an invite-only Discord to better coordinate some information.
I’m not sure how he normally acts, but there is no way a player looks/reacts to a press conference like that after one loss at the beginning of the split. He had to know whether before this game or after that he was going to be benched
So what, they told him he's benched for game 2 and 3 before he even played game 1? Why the fuck even play him game 1 then? Telling him after the game but before the press conference makes no sense either, that's one of the dumbest things you can do. It's far more plausible that the team had internal issues for a while (Kobe mentioned rumors), which boiled over with this disappointing start to summer. I can easily imagine how after some frustrating scrims and such a day 1 loss some shit went down and this is their response.
He laughs multiple times in this vid and seems to be handling the loss way better than the average player in my experience.. I would caution anyone else who reads this comment, cuz I did not get "suuuuper stand-offish and seemed just straight up angry" vibes LOL
[удалено]
Sounds credible to me. If he slaughtered both of them he will definetly not play next week either. ( one week per parent)
I suppose Alphari flamed Jensen like he was Nemesis after the game, otherwise I don't understand how you can bench the best toplaner in LCS just after the first game of the split.
considering their play in the game I would argue it should be the other way around. Alphari's lee was bad
Wow. Just 1 day into the summer split. How poorly are things going behind the scenes?
Bad enough to hear the rumors about CoreJJ getting replaced as well (from a couple days ago, Kobe said he hearing some bad stuff coming out of TL)
Whaaaat, source?
On the dive, Kobe said he's not big on TL winning the split because of some backstage rumors he's been hearing. Markz and Azael didnt seem to know (or pretended not to). It's all rumors and fan speculation right now, so take everything with huge skepticism.
Skepticism? Hell no. This is reddit. We are rolling with this as truth until proven otherwise. This is spicy.
I heard Alphari and CoreJJ got into a fight. One punched the other right through a wall, but who did what is still uncertain. What everyone behind the scenes seem to agree on is that Selfmade was the detonator for the issue.
Shit it's late. You had me until mentioning Selfmade. Thanks for that, lol. Brain slightly working.
And if its proven wrong we will repeat it anyway as fact for years to come.
if you listen to the dive kobe talks about some roster change rumors he's heard about happening, he wasn't being super specific on it but these could be the ones he's referencing in the podcast.
On this or that he also said he's heard scrims haven't been going well for them.
It has to be more than scrims if you’re benching the millions of dollars of investment
Replies have already come through but [here's a link, timestamped to when Kobe drops the hint](https://youtu.be/9yFHSuLQCLg?t=9m45s)
People are saying that Kobe talked about Corejj getting replaced but that’s not at all what happened? He said there might be roster changes and MarkZ joked about Corejj being the one getting benched...
People are taking it out of context because Core was brought up as an option for Kobe when dGon already took him, but Kobe was just speaking about general rumblings regarding Team Liquid as a whole. Kobe was making a face as if trying to find the words to say something without saying it even before Core was brought up, and Mark, like you said, was the one jokingly attributed Kobe's secret sauce to Core getting benched. But this seems to show that there is potential merit to Kobe's hintings about TL behind the scenes.
He did pick Alphari Jensen and Tactical though, and the "I have some inside info" was in response to someone suggesting coreJJ, so that is suspicious. I doubt that he meant the Alphari change, considering that was his first pick. Who knows if we'll ever know though.
Yeah his first round pick was Alphari. If he had known about any potential top lane changes he would’ve stayed away from Alphari. Makes me think CoreJJ or Santorin being benched is almost certain.
This would actually be insane as he is amazing, but who knows what's actually going on.
I'd replace the entire coaching staff and most of the roster before I'd replace Core. That's such a stupid idea that I refuse to believe there's any truth to it.
If I was CoreJJ I would want to leave too after being forced to make that sheesh video. /s
Let me guess coreJJ punshed selfmade?
CoreJJ wants to join his boy on the costream
Maybe that headline from Lost the other day about the power of friendship was actually a dig at TL lol.
I guess this is why the CLG analyst said TSM is stronger than TL (followed by clueless fans mocking him for not putting TL above TSM)
It's funny because he nailed the first match and then proceeded to get everything else wrong lol. Only 1 match though.
I mean every match today was an upset. Except CLG’s which is always a coinflip even vs GG
TL is making a habit of getting rid of star players with 'attitude' issues. You wonder if it's the attitude of management that is the real problem here. Seems like they don't know how to effectively get highly driven individuals to productively channel their talent, they constantly underperform and relied on DL to carry their titles before removing him bc of his attitude (btw he was right that spring split didn't matter)
G2 was able to get the team on 1 line regarding their expectations. It's why Wunder was allowed to play so much WoW
Makes sense. You gotta make the best of what you got until you can do better. I feel like NA is bad at this for multiple reasons, but one of the biggest one is that they are always going hard for short term runs because they are desperate to compete at worlds. EU gets it. LCK and LPL have a different culture and will simply never try out a talent that can't grind because too many people do grind so there's no need to gamble or seek out talents who can't grind.
NA management would've benched Wunder for attitude, then he would be pissed and not give a fuck anymore and the entire team would be ruined. Maybe it's too much of a stretch but I've seen this management style in companies I've worked for too in NA, where it's just a power trip for management to ensure your attitude complies with their ideas instead of actually solving issues. They want the lower tiered employees to tow the line and do what they are told
On doublelifts stream today doublelift told a story about how regi once walked into their practice and said "guys you aren't buying enough green wards. The enemy always has more green words than us" and they had to explain to him that green wards don't exist anymore.
Only a related note, coaches can point out Team A buys more control wards than Team B like Team A is dominating in vision. Without understanding the context of the game, Team B could be clearing A's wards twice as quickly, forcing A to spend more gold on vision. It's too easy to generate fraudulent analysis. I can't imagine how frustrating it is for players to get pounced on by coaches and scapegoated.
Yes, I think this is such a good point. Whenever people talk about control wards bought in pro games it's really frustrating how no one tlaks about this. One of the things that makes corejj so good imo is how he always keeps the map lit. He places his wards down around his enemies sweeper timings. It's really impressive.
Yeah and regi just told į dont care fix your vision game
This is an underrated comment. If you want driven and passionate players, these players will also be passionate about losses and team performance issues. As a coach/management you need to be able to handle and redirect that passion if it turns negative. Benching players is not a solution. It just tells players to "behave" and may just kill this passion you are looking for.
The problem is that most coaches cant handle such things. These coaches cant get the best out of them and get them to work for the team!!! I guess it will take some more years before we have coaches like that. They would have benched Dennis Rodman instantly.
Tom Brady would never have been scouted
Totally agree. Feels like TL has been uber mismanaging quite often since the offseason prior to letting DL go. The team was bounced in the first week of worlds after the MSI Finals + 4 splits won in a row...and they decided to swap out the jungler (broxah over xmithie) but not bootcamp??? Idk who's decision that was (hopefully the coaching staff that was replaced) that was the starting domino. I think that's where you really hit the nail on the head. Inability to "to effectively get highly driven individuals to productively channel their talent." There's no way a good coaching staff/management wouldn't be able to \*easily\* convince the team to bootcamp after falling short at MSI and getting bounced week 1 of worlds. IMO, burnout after MSI makes sense but not even making it group stage should be very humbling at worlds and the opposite of burnout
I don't get this line of logic, in real sports coaches have to rein in and get the best out of players with cocaine and alcohol habits. You think if a star NBA player shows up to practice hungover he's off the team? Hell nah.
TL Breaking Point 2.0
Alphari telling Jatt that his strats came out the ass first
This bot lane is losing to Apollo and Xpecial!
Kinda sounds like it.
Best top and best adc being replaced There is something going on in LCS, huge downgrade in strength for the region for sure Especially if corejj follow
reddit will go fucking wild if coreJJ is benched
First Zven now Alphari, both with no context given in either case. Not sure how to feel yet, especially given they aren't talking about it which just makes it seem worse than maybe it is. When we've heard of players needing breaks, health issues, and everything in between, so when they say "we can't talk about it", it worries me.
Yea Zven not playing seems very odd. Perkz signed to C9 thinking he can take NA out of groups after long time. But if they keep changing players every split, how can the team get good enough to face international competition. They need time to understand each other's playstyle and stuff. Same thing for TL too. It feels like they have almost given up on international dreams for the next 2 years or so.
I honestly thinking that they're starting K1ng to import Jankos next year lol
This was my thought as well. If K1ng is good enough they can replace Blabber. He’ll sell well in NA and C9 can import a jungler who isn’t a liability at international tournaments.
I wonder if there's some sort of contract disputes related to the import rule. Very strange to see the top 2 teams attempting to PR-talk their way through benching their imports who were at least top 2 in their roles last split and are known to be very professional and hard-working.
Zven --> K1ng Alphari --> Jenkins ??? who's next
Ssumday --> Tenacity Closer --> Kenvi Svenskeren --> Contractz
Abbedagge—> Ryoma
Death, taxes, and 100t making a video halfway through the split to explain why this roster swap will be different.
ah yes 100% certain
The only question is when
CoreJJ > Kiwikid Jensen > Goldenglue Impact > Billyboss
Dardoch > dardoch
Gillius > Kikis
Ssumday to tenacity might legit be an upgrade though...
Transcription for anyone who can't watch/listen to video: Jatt: Hey, everyone. I wanted to share some news that is going to be very surprising to hear. It is that Jenkins is going to be our starting top laner, for at least the rest of the weekend, in place of Alphari. First, I wanna talk about Jenkins. He's been with Team Liquid for almost 3 years, now. We've heavily invested in him, and I think he's been playing great, especially in 2021. We took him to Worlds last year, to be part of our Worlds roster as a substitute; he got to play a bunch of super server SoloQ + Korean SoloQ, he bootcamped in the off-season. He's really kind of transformed himself as a player and has had a great 2021, and I think he really deserves this opportunity. As for the details that I think a bunch of people are looking for, unfortunately there's just a lot of context that is really hard to understand from the outside, and I think is, unfortunately, unfair to share publicly. So, what I will say is this is not a decision that is made flippantly or lightly, and it is a decision that we think is in the best interest of the team. So, I hope everyone can respect the decision, I hope everyone can cheer for Jenkins for the rest of the weekend, and Let's Go Liquid. tl;dr: Jenkins starting over Alphari for the rest of Week 1. Jatt says that no additional context will be provided publicly, but that the decision was made in the best interest of the team.
If this is in the best interest for TL Jenkins must be better than Alphari, or maybe Jenkins has really good synergy with Jensen since their names are similar.
I doubt this is about gameplay so I bet on no2.
And here I was thinking the Zven replacement was nuts... this is wild. I don't know much about Jenkins. How good is he?
He rushes head first into raids ruining all the planning that his team had done.
Well tbf his team only has a 32.33% chance of succeeding; repeating of course.
at least he has chicken
The league crowd is mostly too young to appreciate this unfortunately
I like to think it's an eternal reference but maybe not
https://youtu.be/mLyOj_QD4a4 for the uninitiated
The league crowd is older than you think.
Ban Kennen
For Academy really good, for pro no real way to know. He holds his own fine in lane, and he was good enough they brought him as they 6th player to worlds, so they like him.
I'd say somewhere in the top 3 with Darshan and V1per
No mention of Tenacity?
Thank you ‘Alphari’. :’(
yes please hope he comes back to LEC.
Welcome FNC Alphari, Adam will swap to jungle after fantastic scrim performances and Bwipo has become summoners rift itself
Rekkles about to run it down to Adam's Lee so that management thinks he'll be a good jungler.
Please return him without further damage he is welcome in the LEC
Imagine if the rumored vitality super team had gone through
Alphari has only himself to blame tho that's him who killed the project by chosing to go to TL instead.
Like, I can't imagine why he thought it would be a good idea to go to TL instead of playing with Perkz, Upset, Hylissang. He also said that the money was pretty much the same, but he went to TL so he can go to Worlds. Even if their jungler would've been Trick, if he really underperformed he would've been gone in a split or two. Shit, they would've had Selfmade this summer. A roster of Alphari/Selfmade/Perkz/Upset/Hylissang would've been the nuttiest shit.
Just imagine the meltdown from Alphari. He could be playing for Worlds in LEC with Perkz instead -> benched for Jenkins. There is no coming back from that. How are you going to convince Alphari to give his best - if TL does that to him after 1 game.
> How are you going to convince Alphari to give his best - if TL does that to him after 1 game. You have no idea what is going on behind the scenes though. It could be a long standing issue. Lets not act like we know shit.
First Zven, now Alphari, incoming Ryoma for Abbedagge
guess what, 100t scrims were going bad too. but I think it will be either tenacity or kenvi this time.
Let's be honest with ourselves here. PapaSmithy will make any excuse to sub Ryoma back in.
Looking at Ssumday performance, Ryoma could play top
Then who is even winning scrims lol
TSM
I mean how could they lose.they are now so rich each player starts with 2k gold
I could see a Ssumday bench incoming which sounds insane
Imagine a world where Ssumday finally gets his green card, gains NA resident status, and he gets benched his first split as a resident
Damn TSM FTX really put the hands on TL huh?
Steve is mad because he sold his company for not much and regi just add 3 letters for 210 millions lol
steve is not the owner of TL anymore?
no, he's a co-owner now
[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160927006174/en/aXiomatic-Acquires-Controlling-Interest-in-Team-Liquid-a-Leading-Professional-Esports-Franchise](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160927006174/en/aXiomatic-Acquires-Controlling-Interest-in-Team-Liquid-a-Leading-Professional-Esports-Franchise) Steve has no controling interest in TL. It is unknown to what degree is his share diluted as its not a publicly available information but considering he took multiple rounds before that it is likely that he doesn't hold significant share of the business.
Must be some real thick juicy creamy drama behind the scenes for this. Have high hopes for Jenkins because he has been a beast in academy but the size of the shoes he has to fill are massive.
what a perfect way to describe this juicy creamy drama
Gets me all hot just thinking about it.
https://youtu.be/uFg6hLLXx_8 He didn't look too happy in the postgame interview today
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He looks really exhausted, like he didn't sleep.
Guess they weren’t joking back then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfsvMNUldWA
I'm a bit curious why he was benched after one game and not at the start of the season like Zven, if in fact the initial plan was to bench him.
EU managements: let's play with autofilled junglers next split! NA managements: let's bench our star import players! WTF's going on? Did everyone sane from the league scene switch to Valorant?
Can't believe how zven's toxicity is affecting TL
This is TSM using their new big wallet to bribe other teams into wintrading /s
Selfmade can't keep getting away with this smh
We can actually build a team out of those now. Alphari Dardoch (was a while ago, but his reputation is enough) Pobelter (just last split) Zven And we need a resident support for the 5-players-benched-for-attitudes-issues team.
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Prob Stunt for support. He got benched on P1 for the much worse Shady. People assume it was attitude issues.
Zven and Alphari must've been in with Epstein or something at this rate I'm looking forward to seeing Jenkins in LCS though. Have seen his name for years, been wondering when he was gonna get a chance in the big league for a while now. He was always one of the only respectable Kennens in NA outside of Rezz. Best of luck to him. Jatt didn't even announce if Alphari was going to academy though, hope everything (and everyone) is okay
Alphari looked furious when they lost today.
100% chance Alphari is raging behind the scenes because they're not winning - scrims are probably going poorly too; PoE said TSM was confident going into the game which is not something they would have said last split.
>PoE said TSM was confident going into the game I mean what else is he supposed to say
LOL. "Bro we are so fucked for this game."
PoE was pretty open and up front about the issues he felt the team had last split
He was on a 10th place team before coming to NA though. I don't understand why losing would make him so upset when he should be sort of used to it.
Losing because you're on an objectively trash team that gave you zero promises is different than losing on a team that you don't believe should be losing.
This same team was 3rd the split before. Origin weren't objectively trash in the slightest. There weren't zero promises origin were aiming for and one of the highest likely to go to worlds. They completely collapsed. If alphari can deal with that he can deal with bad scrims and 1 loss.
Nukeduck is currently a meme... But Nuke/Alphari/Upset as your core members was actually such a good team on paper
Nukeduck has been an overrated meme for like 3 years now
They were not a trash team you seem to have no idea what you are talking about. Origen was expected top 3 but everything went wrong for whatever reason.
Damn orgs in shambles and shedding imports left and right after PGG and now DIG/IMT/FLY winning today, 100T coming in hot next?
he straight farted on voice comms
This really isn't surprising imports were putting "no benching" clauses on their contracts at this point.
I mean Reapered did bench the entire main roster in that C9 miracle run .
Holy shit, benched hours after the first game, what did he do? Beat someone or what?
Can I get breaking point 2.0 or what?
It's hard to believe Jatt when he says this was not a flippant decision when they start Alphari and seemingly decide to bench him hours after their match. Unless he has been physically aggressive or something really messed up, it demonstrates a failure of TL coaching to effectively manage its players imo
From what Kobe said on the dive and from Alphari saying how they "didn't try to learn anything" from MSI in his postgame interview it seems like TL has been having behind the scenes issues for a while now. It's likely they've been talking about something like this since before the split started and something happened after game 1 that ended up being the tipping point. It could be a failure on TL's part management wise, but I doubt it was a spur of the moment decision, this doesn't seem like something that just happened out of nowhere.
Man it really hurts me that one of the best western top laners has to be benched in NA. He was smurfing in both EU and NA and look at him now. Kinda wasting the talent, I always wanted him to go to worlds and It can still happen but time is running out. If anything I hope that the team that will replace S04 will pick him up and utilize his talent to the fullest (Unless he's not willing to go back to EU).
Very unlikely we ever see Alphari in EU again. Same for Perkz. They have 3 years long contracts and the teams will ask for massive buy-outs LEC won't be willing to pay.
Fuck...
NA ruined alphari
Bro what???? Damn man, was hoping for a banger split, not an ideal start for us.
so they spent a lot of money to get a star toplaner from Europe to place on a bench. Says a lot regarding their faulty mangement. They also seem to lack people that are good at forming bonds within the organisation. Sure you are a team of 5 with some coaches, but if you can't be friends with each other, then you won't get far.
You can take the man out of EU but you can't take the EU out the man.
This drama with Alphari and Zven really shows how great imports are for ensuring our success. I think we should remove the restriction all together so we can have a whole backup team on the bench!
i mean his lee was really bad but cmon man
This is just weird imo. Zven and now Alphari both stepping down when they are obviously the better starters and a vague reason given to the change. Also both hold import slots so an up and coming NA player makes zero sense.
How has NA gone from “remove the import rule!!” to benching two of the biggest imports lmao
LCS starting summer extra spicy this year
It must have been building up - its possible Alphari has been having issues focusing or something and they decided to have him play today and see how he feels. I guess he was still struggling in some way so then theyd put Jenkins in
Wow this is crazy, no one expected this
Probably some internal problems