Cover-Credits:
For the first time in the history of Team SoloMid (TSM), the organization is staring at a bottom of the barrel finish in the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS). The once heavyweights of the North American (NA) league finished the first round-robin with a 1-8 record. Now, before the start of Week 5 of the LCS Spring Split, TSM made yet another interesting announcement. It revealed that it was bringing back Wei “Shenyi” into the starting roster for the LCS team for Week 5. TSM also said it was shifting mid-laner Zhu "Keaiduo" Xiong to the Academy team temporarily and that he would be replaced by TSM Academy mid-laner Ji "Takeover" Cha Hyeun-min.
TSM wrote on Twitter, “We're making changes to our League rosters this week: Shenyi will return to the LCS team, while Keaiduo will be moved to Academy.” It also detailed some of the behind-the-scenes action happening back at its camp in an interview with the Upcomer.
Insights into Shenyi’s benching in TSM
TSM’s head coach Wong "Chawy" Xing Lei, in the interview, said that Shenyi would return to play on stage with the LCS squad in Week 5, when TSM goes up against FlyQuest and Golden Guardians. He added, “I think Shenyi has made several improvements in addition to communication. We believe he’s ready to come back to the main roster.”
According to Chawy, Shenyi locked in a champion during a game without communicating with his teammates and coaches which caused tension behind the scene. His attitude was considered “negative and disrespectful.” Chawy clarified that Shenyi was benched for this sole reason and not for his gameplay.
“It was more of his attitude and respect toward the team and [the] criticism we give him… I think these two weeks he has really shown a lot of improvement,” Chawy stated.
TSM Assistant General Manager Yang “Glen” Po-Jen also revealed that the players requested Shenyi’s return to the starting roster.
Meanwhile, TSM also announced that it was temporarily moving Keaiduo to the Academy team. Glen said, “This change was made as the team feels that Keaiduo needs more time to train in a less stressful environment. We are aware it is not ideal to be making this many roster changes mid-season, but in our current position, it’s critical that Keaiduo be given time to work on several key development areas as we try to end the season on a high note.”
Community reacts to the roster change, yet again
The community was swift to point out the fact that TSM could have addressed certain narratives very early on to quell the situation. Earlier last week, some of them speculated that Mingyi "Spica" Lu and Shenyi have not been getting along very well and that the team was against Shenyi’s shotcalling. Fans immediately victimized Shenyi.
In the interview, Chawy stressed the importance of looking out for his players despite the public’s desire for information.
LCS analyst Mark Zimmerman wrote on Twitter, “So Shenyi was benched for disciplinary reasons, org said it was for development (which was ???), Shenyi makes it sound about shotcalling, org doesn’t comment on who benched him so fans assume players had input, spica needs to defend himself… What a ****** mess.”
However, the community has widely appreciated TSM for being transparent at least at this juncture in the tournament. With Shenyi back in the starting roster now, TSM shall be looking to bounce back and win some games in the second round-robin.
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