TSM Academy Player Yursan Replaces LCS Support Shenyi

Team SoloMid (TSM) Academy Player Wang “Yursan” Sheng-Yu will play for the organization’s League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) team, according to a statement by TSM FTX’s Esports Vice-President Dominic Kallas. His statement follows an announcement posted on TSM’s social media that Wei “Shenyi” Zi-Jie would play support for TSM Academy in the coming days, in order to help him get accustomed to the North American (NA) pro scene.

TSM has had a rough start in the league, the worst in its LCS history, after going 0-4 in the first two weeks of the LCS. Following this, the team has announced that it would be subbing out Shenyi to better acclimate him to the American environment.

Confusion around Yursan and Shenyi’s places in the roster

Initially, TSM’s fans were confused by the way the official statement was worded. There was ambiguity around whether Shenyi would be playing in both Academy and LCS games. LCS caster Barento "Raz" Mohammed commented on the Twitter post, “The wording here isn't the best. Is Shenyi still playing in the LCS this week or not.”

Another user wrote, “Does this mean Yursan will be playing in LCS or just Shenyi playing in both?”

Kallas addressed the confusion through a message on TSM’s Discord channel. Throwing more light on TSM’s decision to promote Yursan to the LCS and move Shenyi to the TSM Academy team, Kallas said, “Shenyi needs more time to adjust to NA and improve within the TSM team environment. We feel that him working with the academy team will help him adjust and settle. This will smooth out some chemistry issues, taking off some pressure from the current communication structure."

He assured the community that he would be more clear with such statements in the future and wrote, "To clarify for the time being Shenyi will be playing with our academy roster and Yursan will be playing with our LCS roster. Due to Academy rosters being locked today we had to make a public statement. Understand everyone's request for clarification and I'll do a better job going forward."

Problems continue to plague TSM’s LCS roster

TSM’s flagship team – its LCS roster – has been under the lens of the community ever since the preseason rejig. The team has also been on the receiving end of criticism after placing last in their group during the LCS Lock In tournament and failing to win games in the ongoing LCS Spring Split. Despite roping in Chinese rookies Shenyi and Zhu “Keaiduo” Xiong, TSM has not been able to translate its strengths into wins.

Earlier, TSM’s top laner Heo "Huni" Seung-hoon said that he expected the team to struggle in the Spring split but come back stronger in Summer. In an interview with the Upcomer, he explained that the team was facing language barriers while communicating and also fewer hours were put in for practicing.

Earlier today (17th Feb), League of Legends interviewer and content creator Travis Gafford took to Twitter to reveal that TSM allegedly fired one of the members of the coaching staff this week. He said, “Sounds like there are additional shake-ups that are happening within the organization because my sources have told me that there has been a member of the LCS coaching staff that was dismissed from the organization this week. Additionally, the LCS team was said not to be scrimming this morning and early afternoon.”

Gafford added that there was no detailed information on why TSM’s LCS team was asked not to scrim against other teams.

TSM’s fans and the League of Legends community were quick to react to the organization’s decision to move Shenyi to the Academy. Most of them pointed out that TSM brought in Keaiduo and Shenyi to build a rounded roster, but two weeks in, it has already subbed out the support player. One Twitter user wrote, “Brings in two Chinese rookies for a development year and after two weeks starts axing people. Lmao.”

It will be interesting to see how this roster swap pans out in the coming weeks. TSM will hope to break its rough spell of losses in the LCS in Week 3 of Spring Split as it goes up against the likes of Immortals and Cloud9.

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