Taipei Assassins: Second Dynasty
Riot·8/21/2014, 8:51:52 PM·0 votes·26,084 views
At one point, the Taipei Assassins were the best team in the world. It was a title hard-fought and contested, torn forcefully from the grasp of Moscow 5 and Azubu Frost in the prime of either team's careers. But TPA winning’s the important thing, and with it Southeast Asia's place in League of Legends esports legitimized. Or so it seemed at the time.
But he wasn't the only one to leave. Stanley's worsened performance over IPL 5 and thereafter and Toyz's claim of carpal tunnel damage to his wrists led to their departure. Both ended up upon the shores of Hong Kong, as HK Attitudes acquired them as consultants. Though plans were for Toyz to join the roster after recovery and therapy, his continued health issues coupled with the team's loss of a GPL spot led to his announcement of a permanent retirement earlier this year.
Only jungler Lilballz and AD Carry Bebe were left, with Bebe temporarily taking the mid lane position out of necessity. Soon, Lilballz was also forced out – account-sharing accusations led to his ban from the GPL.
That left Bebe in the leadership position, in charge of four brand new players. It would've been a surprise if they had managed to somehow cling onto success in the wake of such a massive turnover – and in the end, nobody was surprised. For the first time ever, the Taipei Assassins ended a GPL split outside of the finals, succeeding only by preying upon the weaker individual talents of non-Taiwanese and non-Singaporean teams. And when it came for the Taiwan Regional Qualifiers, they were swiftly knocked out.
They were rapidly learning the ways of dominance espoused by their predecessors, starting with how to handle their inherited rivalry with fellow Taiwanese team AHQ. The two were placed in the same group, and squared off immediately in the very first game of the split. As a harbinger of things to come, the new Assassins secured a psychologically important victory and lesson -- that as comparatively new as their roster was, the team had the potential to take back the GPL crown.
They took that lesson and ran with it through playoffs. The games against the persistent Saigon Jokers and their own increasingly storied peers on the Taipei Snipers were all close sets, but the Assassins came out of each stronger and wiser, eventually taking the title.
Then they took the spring title as well without dropping a single group stage match. And as if that impressive feat wasn't enough, they've just recently taken the summer title too, securing the #1 Southeast Asia world championship seed without dropping a single game in the grand finals.
It has been a very long time since the Taipei Assassins have been this dominant – and the very first time for this roster. Southeast Asia is now ruled by a second TPA dynasty.
To play at the highest level, they needed experience from the highest level. Former NaJin Black Sword coach Sim Sung-soo's seen his team through the world championship just last year – more than sufficient credentials for a Taiwanese team eager to recapture the old magic. To play at the highest level, they needed their players to be among the very best – so former Gamania Bears and Taipei Snipers jungler Winds was recruited first to replace DinTer, and former Singapore Sentinels ace Chawy was plucked out of his island nation to strengthen the critical weaknesses in TPA's mid lane.
It is clear now that the Taipei Assassins are Garena and Southeast Asia's biggest bet. They will try anything, recruit from however far away, and scrim for however many hours as Coach Sim mandates. Because of the team's implosion, the fame and honors that were once bestowed upon their region's dissipated.
They intend to win it back.
FALL FROM GRACE
It's a long, hard fall when you've reached the summit, and it leaves you plenty of time for regrets. The Taipei Assassins' miraculous World Championship run was the cumulative outcome of a year's worth of hard work by the team, but it seemed as if the tension of their work was all that was keeping them together. Post-Worlds rumors of internal strife between players and dispute on prize allocation among their substitutes illustrated an increasingly bleak picture of the team, and it certainly didn't help matters when MiSTakE, the captain of the world's best team that year suddenly announced his departure from the roster, all to form a second team.
But he wasn't the only one to leave. Stanley's worsened performance over IPL 5 and thereafter and Toyz's claim of carpal tunnel damage to his wrists led to their departure. Both ended up upon the shores of Hong Kong, as HK Attitudes acquired them as consultants. Though plans were for Toyz to join the roster after recovery and therapy, his continued health issues coupled with the team's loss of a GPL spot led to his announcement of a permanent retirement earlier this year.
Only jungler Lilballz and AD Carry Bebe were left, with Bebe temporarily taking the mid lane position out of necessity. Soon, Lilballz was also forced out – account-sharing accusations led to his ban from the GPL.
That left Bebe in the leadership position, in charge of four brand new players. It would've been a surprise if they had managed to somehow cling onto success in the wake of such a massive turnover – and in the end, nobody was surprised. For the first time ever, the Taipei Assassins ended a GPL split outside of the finals, succeeding only by preying upon the weaker individual talents of non-Taiwanese and non-Singaporean teams. And when it came for the Taiwan Regional Qualifiers, they were swiftly knocked out.
FIVE PHOENIXES
Even as the team was effectively on its second generation, its original and now world-famous players parted ways, it refused to stay irrelevant in SEA affairs. Season 3 might've been a total washout, but 2014 brought with it change – change in the game, change in their roster, and change in the team's synergy. The winter of the 2014 season was, paradoxically, a time for growth and rebirth. The Taipei Assassins were having an early spring.
They were rapidly learning the ways of dominance espoused by their predecessors, starting with how to handle their inherited rivalry with fellow Taiwanese team AHQ. The two were placed in the same group, and squared off immediately in the very first game of the split. As a harbinger of things to come, the new Assassins secured a psychologically important victory and lesson -- that as comparatively new as their roster was, the team had the potential to take back the GPL crown.
They took that lesson and ran with it through playoffs. The games against the persistent Saigon Jokers and their own increasingly storied peers on the Taipei Snipers were all close sets, but the Assassins came out of each stronger and wiser, eventually taking the title.
Then they took the spring title as well without dropping a single group stage match. And as if that impressive feat wasn't enough, they've just recently taken the summer title too, securing the #1 Southeast Asia world championship seed without dropping a single game in the grand finals.
It has been a very long time since the Taipei Assassins have been this dominant – and the very first time for this roster. Southeast Asia is now ruled by a second TPA dynasty.
RELEARNING RULERSHIP
But the second dynasty remains in the shadows of their predecessors. Whereas the Taipei Assassins were unexpectedly dominant in the Season 2 World Championship, the current team has been unexpectedly weak in the face of international competition. In both IEM Katowice and All-Star Paris 2014, they were bluntly outmatched in every aspect from every other team, be they from North America, Europe, China or Korea. The formerly respected organization's now become the weakest of the world representatives. Their initial clashes against the rest of the world demonstrated critical developmental weaknesses. Though the Assassins were among the most successful SEA teams to adopt the Korean paradigm for objective control, their dominance was actually working against them – until Katowice, they've not faced a team that could apply sufficient pressure on the same strategic level to highlight deficiencies and weaknesses in their assumptions. While their experiences with combat-happy teams like AHQ was useful in small engagements – as shown by an unexpected game off of Gambit Gaming, led by Morning's devastating Ziggs play – their weak vision control and phase transitions were readily exploited by their Chinese and American counterparts. So, in the wake of Paris, they splurged.
To play at the highest level, they needed experience from the highest level. Former NaJin Black Sword coach Sim Sung-soo's seen his team through the world championship just last year – more than sufficient credentials for a Taiwanese team eager to recapture the old magic. To play at the highest level, they needed their players to be among the very best – so former Gamania Bears and Taipei Snipers jungler Winds was recruited first to replace DinTer, and former Singapore Sentinels ace Chawy was plucked out of his island nation to strengthen the critical weaknesses in TPA's mid lane.
It is clear now that the Taipei Assassins are Garena and Southeast Asia's biggest bet. They will try anything, recruit from however far away, and scrim for however many hours as Coach Sim mandates. Because of the team's implosion, the fame and honors that were once bestowed upon their region's dissipated.
They intend to win it back.
