Why TSM continues to fail at Worlds Over and Over and OVER

Hi, I have been playing league of legends, since its inception in 2009. I missed closed beta by a week a think. I've been a TSM fan since all support meta was played, since Heimerdinger was bugged and could create insanely large super minion creep waves. I own every champion. I have watched, TSM at every international event, period. I have never posted about TSM, or their team, but I would LOVE to say that Reginald is one of my favorite people, he is an icon. He took a team, and made it a fucking brand, on 1 Esports team, and built a dynasty.

 So what is going on?  Why is TSM consistently losing every year at worlds.  Well, there's a few things, things that TSM do not do.  They just don't play the way they normally do when they go to any tournament.  Consistently, they have to be one of the worst Group Stage performers hands down.  They just don't beat the format.  Period.  Why is that though?  What have they consistently done?

 There are growing, known trends with their team internationally.  It is NOT a year to year thing.  They have consistently had the same issue that for some reason they do not have in NA, or even at some other tournaments.  So what is the issue?


 The way I see it, there are three consistent issues that have been with TSM for a extended period of time.

Champion Select.

This year completely showed it too. I do not know how these get decided. I don't. I can't look at their decisions and understand the thought process. I can break it down somewhat for you, Lets look at the last game of worlds this year.
Bans: Misfits Banned lulu, Galio and Jarvin , decent bans, they know Galio is a great flex pick for bjergsen/hauntzer, not sure on the Jarvin as you'll see in one of my later points, TSM bans Janna, Kalista, Rakan- Great first ban, kind of sad it took you so long to do it though, Kalista I dont understand really but I guess you do you, I would've banned Xayah, every time you've played them HanSama has picked it and outclassed you. Misfits first pick Taric. Perfect, they left Xayah open, Doublelift can play it, pick it.

TSM picks Sejuani/Kogmaw. Ok why? You picked sejuani, you dont need the jungler at this point, you have plenty of junglers up, including Lee Sin, Sejuani, Gragas, and you still have another pick before the ban phase. PICK YOUR BOT LANE. At this point, you know Han is GOING TO GO XAYAH if it is available. Hell If you had been watching WE and other teams, there was a great strat that was lane dominant for bot lane, Caitlyn/Karma would've been great. Hell, anything was better than Kogmaw, you guys have consistently LOST with kogmaw. Doublelift got demolished on it. It hasn't been a consistent pick for you. BUT, you think you can scale and win late game. ON top of that, your last two games against Misfits, they have played the exact same champion, and you lost.

Misfits pick Gragas/Xayah- No surprise there, Gragas is a great counterenage and engage, can split their team, and farms the same speed if not faster than sejuani, and can impact early game. Xayah, yup. Picked it the last 2 times you faced us, Get it again. DOUBLED Doublelifts damage in one game. but you got it again.

TSM pick Karma. Fair enough, solid support, I would've thought about Nami, see as BioFrost has practically no recent games with Karma, none of the other teams are picking Karma, and you haven't PLAYED Karma in forever. Sounds good.

Second ban phase- TSM ban ..... Sigh... Power of Evils Cassiopeia. Really? Really guys? He likes Orianna. Pretty much every other team knows this, Its his preferred mid lane pick. He tried Cassiopeia against WE, and LOST. He went 0/3/7. Why would you ban that? This leans into another point but lets leave this here. Its at this point I want to throw my remote at Parth's head.

Misfits Ban Gnar - Look at that. The enemy team analyzed your team. They know what Hauntzer likes to play top lane, and they banned it. They did the same thing with Galio.

TSM ban Maokai- Cool, its a strong top laner and you DO play it, and there ARE counters to it that OTHER teams have DONE, but lets ban Maokai. (Hint: your about to see WHY I'm SO MAD about this TERRIBLE BAN)

Misfits ban Leblanc- Cool, They know that Bjergsen used to play it a lot. They forgot TSM isn't proactive in the first 20 minutes though. They play reactive. Picked Leblanc is saying "we want to be aggressive early game." That's not their style.

TSM Pick- Whew. Something smells. There is this stench coming from somewhere. To you smell that? Holy shit. Its like a burnt used baby diaper wrapped in dead rat. Oh, there it is. Jayce. JESUS H CHRIST ON A HAMBURGER DID YOU JUST PICK JAYCE? I JUST.... WTF?!? WHY NOT JUST PICK TEEMO? BETTER YET, PACK YOUR SHIT AND LEAVE THE ARENA. THANKS. YOU LITERALLY JUST HANDED MISFITS THE GAME.

Misfits Pick Cho'gath and Orianna- Ok, now they have a solid bot lane that has consistently won, and is very normal for them. They have POE on one of his most comfortable champions, They have a solid jungle in Gragas, They have their tank, chogath for their late game protection, and they have Taric, who can single handedly change the scope of a game with a single ult. They can pretty much win this game early, mid, and late. Consistently.

TSM Pick- Ryze............................................................................................................................... . . . . . ..

. . .. . . .... Fuck you. Fuck you TSM. Number 1, Ryze doesn't outpush a Orianna early game. Which you will need to assist your top laner in shutting down chogath. You have had some decent games on Ryze, for sure, but he isn't your best roaming champion that you have. Taliyah is a better, faster roamer, provides zone control, walls, and can outfucking push an Orianna. But sure Go with Ryze. Have a nice quarterfinals Misfits. Let us know how Worlds is outside of the group stage. Thanks!

I mean they picked sejuani, who clears at basically the same rate as gragas, moves slower than gragas, and doesn't gank well before level 6. She ganks OK but shes not as good as Gragas IMO. Especially on Sven. Sven has been out of character this worlds. He is just not consistent. Its very frustrating. Not sure what the issue is there.

So this team composition from TSM is so out of character for them, it begs the question. Did they throw it on purpose? Was Parth paid off? I mean wtf guys. There is no one keeping tabs on the enemy teams, and you arent even Adjusting your stuff game to game. You are playing incredibly passive. The first blood in this game came at 16:43. To Cho. From a roam, from Orianna. I'm sorry, what? Cho had first tower? He's against a Jayce. He should have had Sejuani, and Ryze, cough, UP HIS ASS ALL EARLY GAME. Jayce should be zoning him from minions. He should be at least consistently behind Jayce. Not getting first tower. Not getting First blood 16 minutes into the game. He should've died three times by now. He should've been CRUSHED. How do I know this? Because Longzhu did this EXACT thing to a CHOGATH TOP with GRAGAS AND TALIYAH as his Jungler and MId. First blood was at 453, with Mid Jungle and Jayce all there, and Jayce was given the kill. In FACT, it was a BREAKDOWN with JATT video that showed me this. Watch that! Have someone watch it, break it down, and disseminate it for your players. Teach them how to play this strategy. Show them how this strategy works! Or not. and they did this 3 times in 9 minutes, 853 first tower went down to JAYCE. Game at this point was getting the other towers down. Pushing them out with consistently pushing lanes with ward control.

You wanna know the difference between NA and the LCK?? Watch that game. You want to know the ISSUE with TSM? Watch that game. They have tailored themselves, to ONE strategy, and they do not adapt, they don't adjust. They don't change their playstyle. They don't play their playstyle. I don't even really know what their playstyle WAS for worlds. You pick a late game ADC who Loses lane early, but will outdamage a Xayah MAYBE, in the late game. You could've picked a strong bot lane that pushes consistently with Caitlyn, Ashe, Xayah was available.

So, picks bans, yeah, Awful.

Coaching. Honestly, Coaching. Really. Coaching. Truly. Coaching. 2015, 2016, 2017. Who has been your main head coach? Champion Select - Parth. Parth has been your guy standing out there doing picks and bans. He's been pretty awful. In fact, this year was one of the worst. That last game? The rage sharks in my head literally made me want to punch him in the face for that Jayce pick.

Strategy - Your player, should NOT BE YOUR MOST KNOWLEDGEABLE PEOPLE. There are people out there that know a TON about this game. They didn't come up with the weirdest way to end a twisted treeline game by figuring out the best strategy for it, they were too busy playing and doing other more important things. Like coaching in the LCK.

Analysts - Who watches the games? No really, who watches them? Who keeps track of all the stats. Who breaks down the video into segments and goes over it? Who sees the key issues going on and addresses them with players? This isn't a "after the day is over." thing. THIS IS ALL THE DAMN TIME. Every single session of play should end with this. If it is happening, your people suck. I've watched more TSM than some of your analysts. I'm positive of that.

Reginald- When the Owner of TSM has to take over certain segments of the strategy and analysis, there's a fucking problem. You should NEVER have to talk to those players except to tell them how awesome they are, how much you love them, and occasionally tell them "ask your coach." They should be looking at your coaches as your leadership. NOT YOU. I don't see Tom Brady going above Coach Bellicheck to the owner of the Patriots to ask strategy questions regarding Football. Theres a fucking reason for that. If you don't think that your current people aren't doing their jobs right, its not up to you to help them, its your job to REPLACE THEM. Its tough but its true. And when a player shits the bed, the first people you should be looking to are the coaches.

Gameplay - TSM plays amazing at home. They do. But, who are they playing? They are playing against the teams that haven't beaten TSM in the finals in YEARS. They have been the #1 seed coming out of NA almost every single time. 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017. They have played in EVERY NA LCS championship game. That is a ridiculous streak.

But they have never done anything on the global stage. Group knockouts? 2013-2015-2016-2017 2015 MSI, 2015-2017 MSI. 2016 MSI they missed, due to CLG beating them in the finals. CLG got out of groups and Lost to SKT 0-3. A better appearance than TSM. To say they are regionally dominant would be an understatement.

What I'm trying to understand, is where is this game play when they come to worlds? Why don't we see things like early game roaming. Why is the game play so good at home, and so shitty at worlds. I've never understood it. Missed opportunities, missed flashes, lack of warding, lack of respect for the enemy. I'm sorry, but if you have time to do interviews and tweet stuff, and talk crap about your opponents, how bout you step up your fucking game. Playing jilted and reactive for the first 40 minutes until someone on the enemy team makes a mistake you can capitalize on, is not a fucking strategy. Whoever developed this "wait til they screw up" strategy. Plays in NA. Trying this shit in Korea? Is how you get your ass handed to you by better prepared teams. SKT was attempting this with mixed results in their region. Who btw, are a MUCH BETTER TEAM THAN TSM. in a much better region than tsm. They don't make huge mistakes, unless its in Champion Select, or overall Game strategy.

2016- You tried being overly aggressive at a time when teams were waiting you out and waiting for that NA mistake to capitalize and beat you. once they got their foot on your throat, you choked. They just waiting for you to lie down and throw yourself under their foot.

2017- You tried being overly passive and teams picked early comps and routed the fuck out of you early game. And played the game smart, and never gave you a chance to comeback. That first day exposed your "strategy", the other teams adapted. Across the BOARD in almost every other group, the teams that made it out of that group, adapted something from their previous games, worked on that strategy, and made it out. EDG were probably the only ones who Didn't make it out, but MAN that caitlyn Janna combo was ridiculously strong. Tailor it with early winning lanes across the board and its nigh impossible to deal with. They just shove you in all game get gold leads so you can't fight back, or you die. They were crushing it, then they tried it against SKT. AND SKT do what they always do. They played a clean game, EDG made a mistake, and SKT capitalized the shit out of it. 1 mistake led to an ACE and a baron and an inhib and towers for SKT. 1 mistake led to SKT taking a 10 thousand gold deficit and cutting it to less than 3. Then to a lead. Then to the nexus.

Everyone always asks which region is better. NA or EU. I'm sorry, they both suck. We have huge gaping mistakes in our decision making that literally would end a game, happen all the time in NA/EU. There are throws galore out there, for all to see. In both regions. The sad thing is, we build our strategies and our ideas, and our analysis off of this. We don't see all the other things. We don't see the missed opportunities. We don't see the macro mistakes that other countries see, because if they made them, they'd fucking lose. They have better analysis over there. They have better warding over there. Its not just "oh the players are better." No the fucking organizations are better. The strategies are laid out for these players. If you make those mistakes, you don't get to fucking Challenger. In NA, you have people get to challenger all the time, who make those mistakes. Consistently.

End of the day, its not Svenskeren's fault that he had a bad worlds appearance. It's not Haunzters fault, or Bjergsen's fault or Doublelift's fault or Biofrost's fault. It was TSM's fault. As an organization you failed these people. If I was Bjergsen, I would honestly wonder why I stay with this organization any longer. Seriously. I would think about leaving TSM. I would go home and spend time with my family. Maybe join a EU team that needs a Mid Laner. That way I can spend time with my family and still play a game I love. Svenskeren too.

Some messages to some players.

Bjergsen. Mad love bro. You are an incredible player. Your micro skills are next level. You can do some insane shit. I hope you stick around.

Hauntzer - My favorite moment of this World's was your five man Gnar ultimate 35 minutes into the WE game. Holy shit. That was the most EPIC thing I've seen you do this season. That was awesome. Good shit buddy. I hope you stay

Svenskeren - Ooo buddy. I feel bad for you. You had some rough games. You mechanically didn't do anything crazy wrong, but you also just didn't do anything. I don't believe that is a player issue buddy I've seen you do work.

Doublelift - You came back :D. I was sad a little bit when you left. You were a solid ADC for CLG and now for TSM. You've been a part of this community for years. This appearance was not that good buddy. Not all of it was your fault, but that one death against Misfits where you were walking out to lane. Ooo buddy, that was rough. You had just died too.

Biofrost - You were a solid support. That outplay mid with Bjergsen with Nami, EPIC. Just walked out and plopped the bubble on them and saved Bjergs life. That was pretty amazing. I look forward to seeing you next year.

Parth- You know how I feel about you Parth...

TL:DR - Read the damn post. This is a long post. But it is an important post. I hope some find it informative. I hope that Reginald takes the time to read it. If they don't I understand, but I really really hope they read it. Huge Fanboi :P