Doublelift looks to counter his doubters

With a new season comes new stars and new stories. Here is one of the players you should look out for in 2015! Team: Counter Logic Gaming Region: North America Position: ADC Ever since CLG first travelled to Korea to play in Champions in 2012, Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng has been one of the most respected AD carries in the world. But in all that time, Doublelift has never won a single offline title and hasn't been to Worlds since 2012. 2015 may be Doublelift's best chance to attain LCS glory and finally play in the World Championship again.

"It’s incredibly frustrating never to have won anything, and it will always be used as ammo against me or CLG when we aren’t doing well. I think I can easily contend with the world’s best ADs and have simply never gotten the right roster and structure to do so. Regardless, nothing I say should hold any weight until I prove it through another year of good performances." - Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng

Despite all the individual praise for Doublelift, now and in the past, he remains hungry to win. "In previous seasons, I had a realistic approach of just making Worlds," he explained. "This year, I want to prove to everyone that I am the premier AD player in the West, regain our disappointed fans, and take first for once in my life. Going into Worlds as the first seed from NA should be much more reachable now that we have the correct infrastructure." 2014 Summer looked like it would finally be Doublelift's breakthrough; but the team was never quite right. "Dexter was a strong jungler out the gate and had the support of the entire team behind him," Doublelift said. "However, as the season went on, he became increasingly hard to work with for our solo laners due to their personality differences." CLG's personality conflicts became public when CLG was featured as part of the Chasing the Cup series. While personality conflicts in 2014 contributed to the team's poor performance, Doublelift thinks new coach Scarra will help assuage this issue. But regarding the roster changes, Doublelift thinks they were unavoidable. "I think some of our rosters were simply unworkable because of certain players' lack of motivation and inability to put in the work necessary to be a top team," he said. "One of our biggest problems is the team has gone on tilt and certain players stopped practicing enough." Though Doublelift hasn't been heavily criticised for being part of his team's problem, he is still taking a lead role in preventing internal problems this time around. "I want to improve on a team level, and the first step is trying to understand my teammates more," Doublelift stated. "If I can really understand and click with the rest of the team as much as I do with Aphromoo, I know we won’t fall apart as we have in the past." It's clear that CLG still has faith in their star ADC. When I asked Doublelift about confidence in his own ability and if retirement was on the horizon, he had a surprising response. "The only reason this year would be my last is if I thought without a doubt that I wouldn’t be able to make the next World Championships. I am extremely confident in my ability and am looking forward to proving all the ignorant anti-Doublelift and anti-CLG sentiments wrong." Editor's Note: This article originally stated that Doublelift had not been to Worlds, but went in Season 2 as part of CLG Prime. This has been corrected. Check out the full list of players to watch in 2015 right here.