Cover-Credits:
League of Legends pro Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng bashed his former organization TSM (Team Solo Mid) for alleged roster issues during the League Championship Series 2021 pre-season, where the organization threw away its chance to qualify for Worlds this year. Doublelift takes issue with how Taiwanese player Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Chieh was signed by the organization.
Hu was rumored to join TSM during the off-season and Doublelift blames TSM owner Andy "Reginald" Dinh for taking too long to sign the player. Due to the alleged delays and management issues, Doublelift left the roster and retired from pro play.
Why did the SwordArt not stay in TSM
SwordArt was signed last year for a whopping $6 million USD, which made the deal the highest paid contract in League of Legends’ history. During his time at the roster, SwordArt experienced a mixed bag of results with the team finishing third at the Mid-Season Showdown after being taken down by Team Liquid.
During TSM’s run at the Summer Split Playoffs, the team missed out on competing in Worlds 2021. In the offseason, TSM decided to overhaul the roster and let go of SwordArt. The player expressed his interest to continue playing in the roster and Doublelift claims that Reginald took too long to make an offer, which affected TSM’s chances of making it to Worlds 2021 during the off season.
Doublelift’s take on the situation
TSM was considering Vietnamese support Nguyễn "Palette" Hải Trung for the off-season according to Doublelift, but the North American player wanted a teammate who could communicate in English comfortably. Doublelift said on stream, “SwordArt called me afterwards and said ‘I’m coming to TSM’. He still wanted to play with me, and then I called Andy and told him ‘SwordArt still wants to play with me and I would love to continue to play for the org’ and Andy said no because he’s got too much of an ego.”
Doublelift said last year that part of the reason why he retired from pro play was because TSM took too much time to sign SwordArt. The former TSM pro said on stream that he hates TSM and hopes that the org does not win anything again because of how poorly the players were treated.
Doublelift allegedly called Reginald and and he said no because “he’s got too much of an ego.” There are rumors of Doublelift returning to pro play next year and it remains to be seen where he and SwordArt end up in the next LCS season.
