Liquid/NA

That was kinda my point... to remind liquid team members and staff that even when they were win-less, to not get down on each other in a negative manner. I know these players and the team are capable of great things. Focus on improving without finger-pointing or making it out like one person or lane threw the entire match... because it's a whole team effort. Losing a ton and getting humbled at msi can actually be the best thing for this team if they take it with the right mentality and learn from it. Because then come worlds - I have no doubt Liquid can make it there with their starting roster - they can be closer together as a team and be honed to a keen edge. And then it will be the world's turn to wonder what hit them and why isn't it just c9 representing NA after group stage.

Fans don't need to know every detail, it's just nice when we can be sure nobody in the org is behaving the way Adrian was reported to have acted... flaming teammates and just tearing them down (last season was mentioned on air in some sort of vid). People will always make presumptions - right or wrong - trying to figure out what's happening. Ultimately whether I'm right or wrong about a presumption doesn't matter and shouldn't matter for other fans either - what does matter is if people are treated fairly and with respect. Players, coaches, staff, etc. The players especially should be focused on building each other up and connecting outside of required practices/scrims too... and not just when the season or split is starting. The more you connect with your teammates, the better you can get a feel for how they are mentally, physically, etc. both in game and out of game. Which is very important in such a stressful environment with such high expectations on you.

I was very happy to see in the later games how Liquid played better to their strengths - especially the jungle picks for Xmithie. He's an awesome player and the champs he was put on were better suited to his role in Liquid than some of the earlier picks like graves. Like I said before - it's not that he can't play other stuff well, but the team plays better when he's on a tank or bruiser with cc and/or engage potential. Like last year at world's when he kinda felt forced onto playing ezreal in some of the later matches... he would have done better (and the team too) if he'd sacrificed a bit of early jungle power and safety to go something like gragas. And that would have given the team better scaling for those later fights... potentially enabling them to better compete and turn some games around. But the team went too focused on what was meta rather than... what is OUR strengths and how can we best play to them IN this meta. Hopefully liquid keeps this lesson in mind when it comes time for worlds. Cuz they did it at msi and it turned around their wins/losses to help them have a decent showing. I'm not thrilled with the final result of their msi performance, but the IMPROVEMENT they showed via stuff like I just described... I'm very happy to see that kind of growth... provided it STAYS fresh in their minds when it next matters most - at worlds.

Double has consistently failed to win lane 2v2 internationally. He CAN win lane, but it involves massive support from... Pobelter and Xmithie to give him a lead he can snowball off of. You look at truly top tier international adc's and they do this stuff... in fair 2v2's or even DESPITE being focused heavily by the other team's jg and given little support from their team. From what I saw at msi, this has not changed all of a sudden from all years past.

Olleh has proven himself a top tier player in multiple regions, he's easy to get along with, good for team morale, and a world's tier player. He's proven it time and again. Double needs to focus more on his own play and worry about how to improve his laning skills when left 1v2 or 2v3. How to punish opponents even when put on the back foot by being on a losing matchup in lane or due to enemy team's focus... like Uzi. Till he can do that, he honestly doesn't stand anywhere above any of his teammates - if not possibly below some of them. He can carry sure - and so can any of his teammates, but it's when you are put in a shitty situation... how you handle it is what really matters. It isn't going to be an adc solo carry meta forever (I hope)... and when it isn't, being so needy in order to be in position to carry vs other world caliber players puts his TEAMmates at a severe disadvantage. It limits the champs and team comps they can play. It puts them behind or limits their ability to capitalize elsewhere on opportunities to grow leads because they have to worry about HIM. This has always been the case and it's why I honestly haven't considered him in the discussion with the likes of Uzi, Pray, or other top adc's. He's world's class, but he's not cream of the crop.

Pobelter similarly has a lower skill limit than other top tier world's midlaners. But while I this is true, again, he is much more chill and friendly with his teammates. It's not that being critical isn't a good thing at times, but you need trust and constructive feedback. Not just "fix your shit" type of feedback. And Pobelter offers this. He has great synergy with Xmithie and Olleh and when they are on the same team together, they are much more positive and perform better than they do on their own. It's like they give each other a +10 in performance on a scale of 100. Thus, removing one or more of these core players would overall probably severely hurt the team. Especially if they go through a loss streak. You could see that kind of thing happen with Xmithie when he was on CLG near the end there. He was getting blamed for all these bad plays and it was killing his desire to keep playing professionally. But when he got on a different team and started playing with Pobelter again, it was like he was a new person. He got the support from his teammates he wasn't getting on clg, he didn't have to suicide to save them from their stupid overextensions (looking at aphro and stixxay here), and he had teammates who built him up. This moved him from being one of the 3 worst jg in lcs to being considered for mvp. Remove those teammates of Pobelter and Olleh and you lose that synergy they have for playmaking and the positive atmosphere those three bring for each other and the team as a whole.

Sure you could get a better team stat-wise on paper by changing stuff around, but I think in practice it would be one of those failed super teams that just ends up losing playoffs in their own region. Like Immortals with Huni and Reignover.

Honestly if you were to replace anyone - no offense to the guy because he is still really good and seems to be a chill person - but Impact seems the most expendable part of the team. He and double seem less integrated to the team and honestly while impact is solid, there's potential for others who can be nearly as good when left on an island and called on to be a tank but also have more carry potential when given non-tanks toplane.

Will they win worlds ever? Probably not, but they can sure as hell make quarter finals or even semi's if they play to their best. And I'm perfectly okay with a performance like that. You tear apart their core though, and you lose out in group stage at best... potentially don't even make it out of NA.