The TL Firesale!

Miror B·Feb 23, 2017·1 votes·1,677 views

Team Liquid announce tryouts for LCS team, cast doubt on Goldenglue's future on starting roster

With IEM happening for the next week or so, news in the regions themselves will probably grind to a halt barring the extreme cases, one of which I managed to find/am choosing to share. As everyone knows, TL has managed to defy the odds of practically everyone and ~~fail with the almighty god reignover on their team~~ be tied for last with the TDK-incarnate NV. Sporting a roster which statistically is on pace to deal the lowest damage per game of any team in the "LCS-era", the owners spoke out about it and have "hinted" that change is a coming. According to a few reports, TL is apparently doing full-scale tryouts with the idea being that they want to revamp the roster and potentially avoid relegation, with goldenglue being a potential "scapegoat" should the team want to make changes. Would really reccomend that people watch the AMA, as although it gets ridiculously repetitive it says a lot about the mindset of the organization. This news itself is huge though, as in almost stereotypical fashion they've managed to hit another giant low in a season.

11 Comments

Miror BFeb 24, 20172 votes

I'd may as well give my two cents on the whole issue as I was not only a fan of TL to start the season (really thought goldenglue would be more than just mid-lane santorin) but also know exactly what their problems are. I'll go down the list from best to worst:

Reignover- Oh how a split changes people. Once regarded as one of the greatest western jg's of all time (even though his roots are from korea), one split on TL has plenty of people (especially on here) trying to shirk 90% of TL's woes on him for some reason. While his effectiveness hasn't been as good as previous splits and his champion pool has been called into question (because hey, apparently you need to be able to play lee sin to be considered "top-tier"), unlike past splits he hasn't really had a lane to gank due to none of his lanes being able to play aggressively without dying. Replace lourlo/goldenglue with huni/fenix or give piglet the right meta, and reignover would probably be in the discussion for mvp right now. Sadly, that is not the case but still doesn't make him to blame.

Piglet- So much hatred for him on here, and I really don't understand why. While yes, he hasn't been "good" this split and has had the meta excuse haunt him for a while, why exactly should TL replace him? On his best days, Piglet is an absolute monster who not only provides veteran leadership but can dominate games as he chooses. Considering the same can only really be said about 2 or 3 NA adc's right now (sneaky, arrow, "possibly" altec?), I'd argue that TL has to keep him as the replacement talent for him is far far worse.

Now that I've talked nice about some of them, it's time to do the exact opposite on the members I personally feel should/need to be replaced ASAP.

Lourlo- Sporting probably the greatest white-guy name of all time (seriously, I'm surprised that he hasn't gone into a game and said "get these m-----ing ganks out of my m----ing lane!" ), lourlo has probably had the biggest stretch of unnoticed mediocrity on an LCS team of all time. Despite posting somewhat weak stats in a 2016 season featuring little toplane competition, TL chose to keep him instead of pursuing the likes of Balls (who wasn't under contract) or Seraph (who despite having slightly worse stats is far more knowledgable). If TL is looking to replace someone in the off-season, Lourlo is probably going to be that guy. As of right now though, they "kinda" have to keep him unless they want to risk going with the likes of RF Legendary (who was replaced by perennial Challenger guy Cris) or bring in a rookie.

Matt- Speaking of unnoticed mediocrity, oh how I really do enjoy it. While I could make another lengthy paragraph about it, I'll just keep it short since, well, tiredness. While Lourlo had the "little top-lane competition" excuse to buff up his stats/go unnoticed, Matt had not just that in spring (let's not forget that it was the period in which people were forced to start players due to visa issues and C9 was doing the hai/fufuu experiment) but also had an ADC carousel to sorta mask up the weaknesses. Considering support is a pretty "bounteous" role and TL have had a potential sub on their roster for a while, we could very easily see him be replaced quite soon with who I thoroughly expected IMT to sign in as their support, a guy by the name of Painless.

Goldenglue- Oh boy do predictions backfire sometimes. Back in the offseason, I was excited to see goldenglue on TL and went on to suggest that because of the stuff I saw on his stream (which was pretty badass, the guy was literally getting a quadra every other game) and with the way the roster was built, he could not just lead TL to around 3rd place but potentially help reignover secure another MVP title. 5 weeks later and it's kinda the same old story that it's always been with him: forced onto mid-lane wave clear mages while being down around 20cs at 15mins and exerting almost no lane pressure allowing guys like keane to look better than they are. While it's almost certain that he will be replaced at some point (it looks like they might try to do the whole "2016 yellowstar" on him), the big question is with who? Link is a weird option as we've heard very little about him recently, Ich could be an interesting option as he showed some quality in a limited sub role for NV, and they "technically" have arcsecond on their roster should they want to allow him to show what he can do on his main role for a change. In either of these cases, I entirely expect TL to spend/go big in the offseason at this position, as they've lacked a top-tier mid in quite some time and would really allow them to exploit reignover's strengths (namely helping out agro lanes).

hotarseFeb 25, 20172 votes

Three deleted posts by Baku. How mysterious.

I love that liquid is looking to double down on piglet. I think we will see him playing mid. I think he'll be crushed and it'll be hilarious. One more 0-2 week into another and finally, we'll get to see how that doubling down does in the promos. Will piglet accidentally lock in Rammus? Please, for the love of me, take off your blinders. Look at win loss rates with and without piglet. Look how much better the team works together without him! He knows how to play the management for fools. I know the guy doesn't want to win. His primary goal is to screw the team as he sees that they screwed him. But he's really smart about it. Probably doing amazing in scrims. Probably doing just enough in LCS to make it look like he's the star. But the guy does NOT want to win. Dardoch wanted to win. He pushed his team to win. He gave Liquid one of the best seasons they've had, if not the best. Go Immortals! Go Dardoch! That series against TL was amazeballs.

III BAKURYU III Feb 26, 20173 votes

I deleted my own posts if you wanted to know because I was getting around 3-4 - negative arrow things each time I logged in. The funny thing is, most of my posts that I had got responded too was people saying exactly what I was saying but the arrows didn't show it, so I deleted them so there wouldn't be any fuss over what I was saying and was for the best as I wasn't cautious about what I said.
In short this was what I said

TL wasted their whole break with this lineup that I knew would fail. Everyone knew Reignover and Huni were a package deal and 1 wouldn't work with the other in the Western scene and yet TL got 1 while the other(Huni) left for a much better horizon SKT so the risk of failing is slim to none.
Goldenglue is bad. Said this when TL picked him up and his W/L record shows that he doesn't know what a W means, before being picked up he had like a 7-10 game losing streak from previous years.
Matt and Lourlo - One dies 24/7 and has become the new KiwiKid where he gets picked off from his team because of warding areas that he has no business being at or Lourlo who just doesn't do anything, can't tank and can't ever seem to win lane. His TP plays are bad and his KDA is good but who cares when you're losing.

I agree with your comments about Piglet. TL wins more games without him than with him. He went to the challenger scene and looked horrible as well on TL itself so it goes to show even on 2 teams he couldn't get over the hump on both LCS stage and CS stage.
He's been in NA for about 3 years now and has been slowly declining as far as being reliable goes as well as TL performance. Is it all Piglet's fault that TL is losing NO- and YES. No - because TL has 2 big problems

Matt and 2. Goldenglue Both aren't good at all and I'll keep it at that without much need to explain unless you want me to explain my reason then I will.

Yes - because he carries too much baggage. He's been raged at by teammates andcoaches, he's been the cause of rage, sent to the challenger scene, benched, etc. He doesn't care about winning or losing anymore and it's obvious.
Do I think TL would be better without him ? Yes, yes I do!

hotarseFeb 27, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=III BAKURYU III ,realm=NA,application-id=9hBQwnEU,discussion-id=rP6E2O2n,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2017-02-26T05:58:06.327+0000)

I deleted my own posts if you wanted to know because I was getting around 3-4 - negative arrow things each time I logged in. The funny thing is, most of my posts that I had got responded too was people saying exactly what I was saying but the arrows didn't show it, so I deleted them so there wouldn't be any fuss over what I was saying and was for the best as I wasn't cautious about what I said.
In short this was what I said

TL wasted their whole break with this lineup that I knew would fail. Everyone knew Reignover and Huni were a package deal and 1 wouldn't work with the other in the Western scene and yet TL got 1 while the other(Huni) left for a much better horizon SKT so the risk of failing is slim to none.

Goldenglue is bad. Said this when TL picked him up and his W/L record shows that he doesn't know what a W means, before being picked up he had like a 7-10 game losing streak from previous years.

Matt and Lourlo - One dies 24/7 and has become the new KiwiKid where he gets picked off from his team because of warding areas that he has no business being at or Lourlo who just doesn't do anything, can't tank and can't ever seem to win lane. His TP plays are bad and his KDA is good but who cares when you're losing.

I agree with your comments about Piglet. TL wins more games without him than with him. He went to the challenger scene and looked horrible as well on TL itself so it goes to show even on 2 teams he couldn't get over the hump on both LCS stage and CS stage.
He's been in NA for about 3 years now and has been slowly declining as far as being reliable goes as well as TL performance. Is it all Piglet's fault that TL is losing NO- and YES. No - because TL has 2 big problems

Matt and 2. Goldenglue Both aren't good at all and I'll keep it at that without much need to explain unless you want me to explain my reason then I will.

Yes - because he carries too much baggage. He's been raged at by teammates andcoaches, he's been the cause of rage, sent to the challenger scene, benched, etc. He doesn't care about winning or losing anymore and it's obvious.
Do I think TL would be better without him ? Yes, yes I do!

I'm sorry you've getting down voted a bit. You make good well thought out posts and you definitely deserve some upvotes so here's one from me at least. Surprisingly I got a couple upvotes on my post? I usually get down voted a lot. I don't care much about that. I don't even care about it on reddit even though I can only post every 10 minutes or something like that there. I don't do reddit too often anyway. Mostly the good ol' boards here. It's not very lively in the esports boards, but I still check it out usually once a day.

III BAKURYU III Feb 27, 20172 votes

The Esports boards is the only section I actually care about and mainly focus my attention to because it's different than just the same o' same o' "My team sucks" or " I can't carry" etc etc in the gameplay boards.

I don't mind if people don't agree with me but what does bother me is when 8-9 people down vote people's opinions or the topics but don't give a reason or their own thoughts. It's cowardly honestly, because if you just downvote someone you don't agree with them but you don't give an opinion or a statement to correct that person but by doing so you too can be proven wrong etc. So people don't take that chance to be proven wrong.
Thank you with your compliments means a great deal to me.
" Surprisingly I got a couple upvotes on my post"?

I upvoted your posts from time to time if I too agree with them or if they make sense even if they counter my points.

xJLx MCHammerFeb 23, 20171 votes

They dropping players left and right hoping they get lucky with a hidden talent. What a shame. Sure GG is not the best mid laner but it's called nurturing the players.

III BAKURYU III Feb 23, 20171 votes

[deleted]

AzureDragoonFeb 23, 20172 votes

The thing that is disappointing about Reignover is that we know he can be awesome, but he's got absolutely zero lanes he can rely upon. It's at the point of causing hesitation in him, because I think he looks at all the lanes and it's like seeing three different wildfires blazing completely out of control, and he has absolutely no means of handling it properly. I certainly agree that without his fellow Bash Brother, Huni, Reignover looks lost. But problem is, he's stuck with 4 others who are just as lost as he is, if not more so.

Lourlo certainly needs to step up, and start putting more pressure on the enemy team, and stop being so afraid of fights.

But what's most disappointing about this announcement, is the fact that there are three players that need to be seriously questioned about their future as a member of Team Liquid. And one of them I feel has been given free pass by Team Liquid's Management and does not deserve it.

GoldenGlue and Matt should be up for consideration of replacing. GG because he's playing like he's just along for the ride. When it's time for a game winning fight or pressing the advantage, he's not providing the firepower needed. Matt, he just has so many awful stats as a support right now combined with this lack of urgency in his actions.

But why has Piglet been already effectively granted immunity by saying they're reaffirming their commitment to him? He should be up on the chopping block for consideration as well.

"Bad Meta" does not explain why Piglet is consistently caught out of position, especially in his infamous "behind Baron pit wall, inside the red buff back wall brush" habit, while his team is trying to kill or bait Baron. "Bad Meta" does not explain why they haven't put him on more Crit-ADC picks over a Lethality Sniper-meta pick, if he's truly incapable of adapting to the Lethality builds. "Bad Meta" does not explain why he has the second lowest kills, Most deaths, and Lowest KDA among all ADCs. "Bad meta", at this point, is just bad excuses.

Piglet has to step up and start accepting some responsibility here. But so long as the TL management is completely willing to make every excuse for his performance, and willingly continue to toss other players to the wolves to keep blame off of Piglet, it is going to continue to negatively affect the team. No one likes hearing that their jobs on the line, while seeing someone else who has been failing at their job is safe because they're management's favorite. And Piglet certainly isn't going to learn from his mistakes if he's not going to be held accountable for them. But that is effectively what I see in this announcement.