TSM Criticized for “Careless” Statement About Shenyi Amidst LoL Roster Changes

The last split in the League Championship Series (LCS) has been extremely taxing for the Team SoloMid (TSM) camp. The once heavyweight of the league was at the bottom of the barrel and made numerous roster changes. Towards the end of 2021, TSM announced that it was roping in two Chinese players – mid-laner Zhu “Keaiduo” Xiong and support Wei “Shenyi” Zi-Jie – to round out its League of Legends roster but constantly struggled to make the composition work. Amidst all the problems inside the camp, the organization also had to deal with all the negative narratives spun on social media.

On 12th June, TSM again announced significant changes to its roster ahead of week four of the LCS 2022 Summer Split. However, the announcement made by TSM’s Assistant General Manager Glen Yang on Reddit drew massive flak from the League of Legends community.

Changes to the TSM League of Legends roster

The biggest announcement was that TSM’s veteran top laner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon is stepping down from the team due to wrist injuries.

It also revealed other changes to both its starting lineup and the LCS Academy team. The new LCS lineup is built around Mingyi "Spica" Lu and mid-laner Huang “Maple” Yi-Tang. Additionally, TSM has promoted Academy top-laner Cheng "Alex" "S0ul" Luo and attack damage carry (ADC) Tony "Instinct" Ng to the LCS team and also roped in Golden Guardians’ Academy support Jonathan "Chime" Pomponio to join Instinct. Meanwhile, Edward “Tactical” Ra and Choi "Mia" Sang-in have been moved to Academy.

Soon after, Shenyi took to Twitter to announce that he had also stepped down from the TSM Academy team.

LoL community unhappy with the careless statement about Shenyi

Many League of Legends esports personalities and fans alike have lashed out at TSM for its careless statement about Shenyi. In the Reddit post, Yang wrote that Shenyi was becoming a “liability.” He said, “Unfortunately, Shenyi is becoming a liability to our Academy team's development. We originally believed that Shenyi could be our starting support for our LCS team. However, we quickly realized that MIA had a better champion pool and laning skills than Shenyi, earning MIA the LCS starting spot.”

Yang added that Shenyi also became demotivated and that he did not meet expectations when he was moved to the Academy roster. “This lack of motivation combined with the absence of shot-calling stunted the development of the Academy team as a whole. Instead of waiting until the end of summer, we thought it would be best to make the necessary changes now so we can properly evaluate our junior academy players going into the next offseason,” the post further read.

Commenting on this, former pro player and League of Legends streamer Christian "IWDominate" Rivera wrote, “Imagine this is what your org types about you 3 weeks into summer split on a f**** Reddit thread. Man, I hate that disgusting org.”

Meanwhile, Jacob Wolf stated that there was a difference between “honesty and classlessness” and that this was not the way to let go of a player.

Evil Geniuses’ Head Coach Peter Dun also commented that this was not the way to let go of a player who was imported from China. He said, “This is not how you release a CN player if you want to recruit more CN players to your team in the future. I don't care [about the] process that led to TSM acquiring KDO/Shenyi, once they are your players, and you bring them from LDL to LCS treat them with respect.”

Fans also pointed out that there was no reason for TSM to publicly call a player a liability and that it could potentially hurt his future in League of Legends esports.