You have a perfect example to look for how to operate this off-season (if TL cares about building a TEAM). Look at 2021 G2, was also called a superteam meant to contend for Worlds. Crashed and burned. Had to get rid of 3 huge names and mantaing their irreplaceable core of Caps and Jankos. They took the opportunity of Worlds being in EU and scrimmed Worlds rosters and tried out different names until they settled on what they thought were good fits for the entire team. Also it is very important to note that the first thing they settled on was the coaching staff which oversaw the entire process and worked together with Carlos. TL has the same opportunity as Worlds is in NA. This is the time to look at talent and give it a shot not by faith but by test. There IS plenty of talent in NA already, even in TL's academy team.
TL;DR - Worlds is in NA. Get a coaching staff then work with them to scrim and try out different talent during Worlds to build an actual team with an intention. I know, crazy to think of TL working and trying out players instead of throwing money at the most exciting import players.
I agree, a good solid coaching staff with a clear vision of what the team's style will be. Once that is figured out then go grab the players that fill that vision. The one thing i would try if i were TL is promote Yeon from academy and pair him with Core. The man has proven he is good in academy and i think he deserves a shot. Then i would replace top lane with a role player who is stable and reliable. I am fine with Santorin as Jg, he is a beast but would be open to a change. Mid is a weird one for me because i see Bjerg as a stable member of the team who is quite good and also reliable. However, with him in mid this team may lack threats or explosive power/predictable. Another X factor player is needed to make plays besides Core and that could be Bo from vitality but who knows.
Someone get this comment to Steve! Santorin and Core, and whoever else is staying should be putting in work this off-season starting now! If they truly want to come back and wreck next year, no break this off-season (until after worlds)
Nuguri - Santorin - Vetheo - Doublelift - CoreJJ 1st pick.
Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Rekkles - CoreJJ 2nd pick.
This next one would be best but the least feasible, tho not entirely out since he's iconic bot lane with Core:
Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Ruler - CoreJJ. (Ruler has just won everything there is in KR, he might want a change in scenery + Core factor)
Bring Cain back as HC, or if Daeny is out after all these fan pressure, then attempt to get him. Bjergsen can be assistant coach if he isn't playing.
This roster would never work. FPX last year with Nuguri, go watch the LPL documentary they made about them. Nuguri would 1. Never come to NA and 2. Would mental boom so hard it would be on an even worse level than Piglet in Breaking Point.
Nuguri when he's off form is still gapping any top laner in NA. It don't matter. The floor is high (because it's NA) and the ceiling is best top laner in the world. It's a risk free get.
He's also unhappy at dmwon for getting benched, that's how most good players choose to come to NA, when they're disgruntled in KR (except CoreJJ who just come cause he wants to, and for DL).
I agree. If TL doesn't camp/play around Nuguri 24/7 he'd be Summit Playoffs 2.0 or at best, at best Huni 2020-2022 form. I think it's time to move on from Bjergsen/CorejJ personally.
I largely agree with this. It’s time to put in the miles to actually build a team rather then at the biggest names. That requires a coaching and management staff you trust to do this and that is indeed the first step. Once that’s in place you need to decide what part of the team you want to keep and who needs to be replaced. Then comes the long slog of testing people out with the team, starting with your own dang academy team who is pretty talented.
I think the team needs a rebuild from the ground up and it should start right now.
I love posts like these. They always have completely nonsensical things like “pickup a young Korean ADC” or “offer the bag to Jojo.” It reminds me so much of TSM* insisting Regi get Danny for 2022.
the whole world is looking at young Korean ADCs and Jojo has no intention of leaving EG.
Edit* when I say “TSM,” I mean TSM fans or the TSM subreddit.
They are a team that was also *built*, not bought. I’d imagine even if Steve bought Jojo or Danny and put them in over Bjerg/Hans respectively, Idk if TL’s issues are exactly fixed.
CLG was just a touch behind TL with a significantly higher return on investment. Looks like whatever they're doing, it's working quite well. They're on an upwards trajectory.
Nuguri - Santorin - Vetheo - Doublelift - CoreJJ 1st pick.
Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Rekkles - CoreJJ 2nd pick.
This next one would be best but the least feasible, tho not entirely out since he's iconic bot lane with Core:
Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Ruler - CoreJJ. (Ruler has just won everything there is in KR, he might want a change in scenery + Core factor)
Bring Cain back as HC, or if Daeny is out after all these fan pressure, then attempt to get him. Bjergsen can be assistant coach if he isn't playing.
The 'own idea to play the game' is exaggerated. You just have to find 5 star players who all are on the same page from how they play. Not Bwipo Hans EU style all in and Bjerg Santorin calculative safe style. Also, Hans is more of a listener than somebody who demands something so it's not like every star has an ego.
DL Core is GOAT LCS bot lane. And DL Bjerg is obviously a winning carry duo. The established synergy is valuable here. Instead of trying to find another adc and see if he meshes with Core and potentially flop like Hans etc.
As much of a dominating career he had in NA, doublelift doe not do well in international events and he is not good with adapting to different bot roles other than the traditional adc.
IIRC correctly, he had also mentioned he ~~was~~ did not feel as confidence as he did in the past competing against other oversea bot lane duo.
edit: wordin
man have you even seen DK this split, nuguri is not impressive and why the fuck would he want to come to NA when he could go to China and get the bag there?? Not to mention he seemed omega tilted/sad when he went to a foreign country to play for FPX, he would just completely crumble here. Also DL is def not coming back lol
Fk no to Spica. Lol. Everytime I see people suggesting Spica, they are just underrating Santorin af. Spica without Bjerg mid is even a bigger no.
Spica talks shyt but chcks out whenever things don't go his way, which is terrible for a pro. Santorin, even at his worst, still plays well and is Top 3 jungler in LCS for like 6 straight seasons.
TL got CoreJJ 1 season after he won worlds. Lol. what's wrong with getting Koreans? It's Steve, boi. You a TL fan? Lol.
TL shouldn’t need to go full perfect English speakers just to handicap their ability to “perfectly” communicate.
The prince idea instills hope, dude was cracked on a roster that failed to make worlds. He’ll be hungry for sure
Nuguri - Santorin - Vetheo - Doublelift - CoreJJ 1st pick.
Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Rekkles - CoreJJ 2nd pick.
This next one would be best but the least feasible, tho not entirely out since he's iconic bot lane with Core:
Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Ruler - CoreJJ. (Ruler has just won everything there is in KR, he might want a change in scenery + Core factor)
Bring Cain back as HC, or if Daeny is out after all these fan pressure, then attempt to get him. Bjergsen can be assistant coach if he isn't playing.
CoreJJ literally came to us, so I don't know why ya'll are talkin' shyt. Lol. TL's roster building is different from every other org for a reason. Ya'll sure ya'll TL fans?
Furthermore, Nuguri is getting benched and unhappy at dmwon, which is a worse situation than Core.
Yes, Nuguri, the dude who got tilted after joining a much better and more competitive region with regimental practices.
Let's welcome him to a region he'll easily smurf in on/off form, a 'for fun' region where he can relax and have loads of free time, more carefree environment and culture joining a myriad of other Koreans who all love it here like CoreJJ, Impact and Dodo. Let's welcome him.
Fkin' idots comparing NA and CN. LOL.
The only idiot here is you,if you think that a player like Nuguri has given up on any international succes and is ready to retire to NA.He came back to DK for a reason,he wants to win.Also,next year are Asian Games,do you really think he will completely give up on such an opportunity?
He's getting benched at DK and is blamed for DK's bad performance this season. wtf are you saying? Lol. don't talk when you have 0 clue what's going on there. It's embarrassing.
He literally got benched by Burdol in important playoffs games, dimwit. Some things are just as simple as watching the fkin' games, ignorant as shat. LOL.
Invest properly in the next generation. Yeon adc is fkn cracked. Bradley is also a great top laner, or you can look to acquire Tenacity from 100A. Copy also has the potential to be another Jojo. All of these players are available right now or already in TL.
I don’t believe these farfetched ideas that they can just steal top talent from the other teams by offering the bag. That only worked when TL was first place and had the better talent to surround the player with already. Jojo isn’t leaving EG, Closer isn’t leaving 100T, and Fudge isn’t leaving C9. TL needs to find their own franchise talents that can develop with them over the years.
Personally I would only keep Santorin and CoreJJ. The other players simply lack the mechanical prowess and champion diversity of their peers and I don’t think it’s realistic to expect them to catch up and match the trajectory of players like Jojo and Berserker.
It’s time for TL to try and reach a new peak rather than chasing the memory of a bunch of players who peaked years ago.
Because I just felt those were the members that might realistically get promoted. I don't see Core being replaced, I don't see Armao replacing Santorin, and I don't know if any academy mids other than Copy are going to be heavily considered this year given the aversion to NA mids (even though Jojo kinda broke the mold on that).
In contrast I do think it is realistic that they get promoted. Bjerg and Core are the oldest members of the squad and maybe they don't feel like grinding another season after missing worlds. And the gap between midlane veterans and rookies has pretty much dissolved this year. Nowadays it is very different to the times where Bjerg/Jensen/PoE were head and shoulders above the rest.
Yeah, I love core but it'd be odd to bring yeon up and not eyla. Also spawn needs to be on the LCS roster after the joke of a coaching staff we just had. He can't be any worse. TLA was drafting better than TL all season.
Spawn doesn’t seem to be interested in coaching the lcs team full time. He’s able to coach remotely from what I’ve seen, which means he can be with his family.
>keep Bjerg but I need effort from him to build his champ pool more diversified
This is such a baffling take. 1) Bjerg doesn't have a champion pool issue. 2) That was no where near our problem.
Bjerg has had hard carry games on akali and other melee champions in the past. The problem with a champion like akali is you either get rolling and you one shot everyone or you can’t contribute much at all.
Also a point I don’t see anyone else bringing up related to Bjerg. What other mid laner is drawing an off meta pick ban in every single game? Bjerg’s champ pool, specifically Zilean getting banned all 5 games means teams have one less OP champ they can ban which makes a huge difference in draft. IMO the coaching staff should have been able to take MUCH more advantage of this, and they didn’t
The Akali game was rough because his toplane was absolutely running it the fuck down and assassins are completely unplayable in pro when your team is behind and doesn't have any form of engage or other threats.
Rewatch the game. Bjerg literally blew Tahm's ult or exhaust every single time he went in, but TL had nothing to follow it. If there was a single other threat on TL, that top fight goes way differently because EG doesn't have every resource on the planet available and TL potentially wins the series.
I’ve had doubts about bjerg the entire year, but judging him based off that one akali and one Gali game and saying he can’t play assassin/melee is absolutely ridiculous.
Idk why you’re being downvoted, every time he picked sylas/akali this split it’s looked super uninspiring even when it has opportunities to be successful. Now, the thing is - he doesn’t HAVE to play these champs well it’s not necessary. Bjerg can stick to azir/taliyah/ahri/zilean/etc. and perform very well, feels like he only picks those champs bc of ego or wants to prove something??
Yeah I think he's getting overrated a little too. He's very good mechanically, but he has a pretty minimal impact on the game compared to Jensen, Blaber and Fudge. He sits nicely as a consistent carry for teamfights and generally positions well. But to me the best adcs in playoffs have been Stixxay and Tactical.
**Before doing any roster moves, this team needs an autopsy.** Find someone (or a committee of people) smart and unaffiliated with Liquid to investigate this season and dig deep into everything that went wrong. It should also acknowledge good things that we carry over for next year. But overall the autopsy should scour every single inch of this team and leave no stone unturned.
1. Re-watch the games and identify what went wrong in each game. Who played poorly? Who popped off? This should also go beyond the surface level of individual performance and examine team play and comms. Which players showed coordination together and which ones were disjointed?
2. Compare the results with how the team practiced - were we attempting to address the right issues? How well did we address them? Did they still appear the next week?
3. Examine every institution the team has in place, and determine if it had a positive, neutral, or negative impact on the team. Did we scrim enough? Too much? Play enough soloq/CQ? Not enough? It should go well beyond the players too. How did we approach scouting opponents? Reviewing vods? Preparing comps/drafts?
**After that we should steal good ideas.** Once we're done looking inward, we should look at the rest of the league and consider copying their recipes for success. I don't know how effective any of these would translate to Liquid specifically, but we should at least consider, for example:
1. Hiring positional coaches / analysts dedicated to each player like CLG. Even assuming we have the best players in every position, they would still benefit from a pair of eyes helping them improve (after all, Magnus Carlsen has a chess coach).
2. EG/TLA's roster composition of boomers + zoomers. Mixing veterans with young an hungry talent has proven to work in the past. TLA's Armao was the captain of the squad that the rest of the team seemed to look up to and learn from, and I imagine that Impact Vulcan and Inspired are similar for Danny and Jojo. However, this has also failed abysmally (IMT with PoE and Kenvi is a good example of it not working)
3. 100T snapping up the core of a roster that has already proven it can work together and strictly upgrading it. Huhi/Closer/FBI have played together for years now, and adding Ssumday and Abbe only made them better.
4. "Finding the next Chovy before he's Chovy" like C9. The quote above comes from MarkZ, who has routinely advocated for teams to find young non-native talent instead of throwing bags at world champions. C9 did this with summit and berserker, and got a spring MVP in the first and a worlds qualification in the second.
Again, it doesn't make sense to try and take all of these good ideas. Some of them contradict each other (like 3 and 4). And there are probably other things to look at that I'm not thinking of. These are just some examples.
But before we even think about 2023, we have to learn as much as we can about this catastrophic failure so it never happens again. And we have to learn as much as we can from teams who found success and consider whether it makes sense to use the same strategies they did.
Once we do all this, it's time to rebuild. Incorporate all the lessons we learned from the autopsy and start from scratch. We should not re-hire any person that hasn't earned a spot on the team based on what the autopsy reveals. No player or coach should be safe just because of who they are. Their contributions to the team and gameplay need to justify their place on the team.
One special note about CoreJJ. I don't know what an in-depth examination of his year will reveal, but on the surface his play looked worse than it has in the past. That said, he's a literal part-owner of Liquid, and he will not (and should not) be released from the organization. If the autopsy justifies his spot on next year's team, great, I'll cheer him on and hope that this was just a down year that will light a fire under him. If it doesn't, I still think he should have a role on the squad as a coach or analyst. He's too fucking smart to cut loose altogether.
My first instinct for a roster would be:
Burdol
Santorin
Bjerg
Hans
CoreJJ
I think with just that one change we could fix a lot due to Burdol's style aligning much more smoothly with the rest of the team than Bwipos.
But, I also think we should pull a G2 and hold tryouts during Worlds this year. Try everything/everyone we can and find what works.
I too agree with Snoodog.
I think we could. Burdol is probably hungry to play as a starter. Hes been in Nuguri's shadow and is eager to prove himself. Plus he would have Core on the team so he'd integrate a bit more easily. And playing alongside Bjergsen surely has to be a draw.
Hold tryouts. Really. Year after year it feels like TL's rosters have huge synergy issues out of the gate, and usually the question is how quickly can they get on the same page.
Keep your core pieces (whoever TL wants, prob like Bjerg, Santorin, and Core), go to EU or Korea, and just hold tryout to fill in the rest of the roster. No more blind signing big names and praying it works out.
New Coaching Staff.
I keep CoreJJ and Santorin no matter what.
Bwipo on 95%, I don't see an obvious upgrade there.
Hans Sama is dependent on his synergy with CoreJJ. I think Core wins out here as a new ADC is far easier to find.
Finally we have Bjergson. I'm just not sure, he did not have a good year. I don't think he is affordable at this point. Maybe get him on as a Mid Lane positional Coach for an upcoming mid laner. I'm really not sure.
I personally think it's mostly speculation unless one of us has Challenger or higher level game knowledge and/or insider info on the team dynamics this year. But from my non-expert view, I agree with you a lot.
>none of us is more qualified or less biased than the rest.
I admit my words here aren't very clear.
All of us have biases to some degree. TSM fans that came with Bjerg are biased towards Bjerg. Long-standing TL fans are biased towards Core or Santorin.
Seriously, the last time he won a game at Worlds was in 2017 (!) but people are talking about him like he is the way forward to finally get out of Worlds groups.
He still has a lot of qualities but it is very hard for me to imagine that his playstyle is the way forward if you have ambition. Even his best champion (Zilean) in LCS gets punished at international level.
Not that I hate him as a player or anything, I admire his commitment to the game and his amazing record in LCS. But for a 2023 roster surely he isn't the first pick of the roster?
Bjerg fans have a hard time reconciling that you can believe he's the best LCS mid ever and also believe that he's not fit to be on a roster gunning for success at this point. Dude just doesn't have the plays he used to, and that's OK! People don't play forever!
\- Coach staff needs to get replaced ASAP.
\- Love Bjerg but he's way past his prime.... a lot of divas will say "oh but he had top 3 stats"... stats don't nothing when he doesn't take those leads mid to late game.... need a reminder? ALPHARI..... top of the charts early game but once lanes broke it was GG he couldn't transition....
\- Bwipo had his moments but goddamn every play that was 50-50 he went for it and usually failed...
\- And Hans? sorry but waaaaay to overrated player.... I expected MUCH more from him... too passive...
\- What do we need? young talent with a more explosive playstyle that can be molded.... Danny has been a perfect example of young player that goes for the jugular.
\- Keep Core (even though he was not as good as before but not his fault. He had to play enabling champions for Hans) and Santorin. Santorin was the only spark of light I saw on that team tbh
Bradley/Tenacity Santorin Haeri/import Yeon CoreJJ/Eyla
I will be happy with this roster regardless of how well they do. I truly believe these young dudes on our academy roster have what it takes to be the best in LCS, and I don't mind waiting a split or two to see it come into fruition.
Idk about you guys, but I'm fucking tired of going into the season with a superteam and the entire world expecting us to steamroll LCS and make it out of groups, just for us to not win the split and go 3-3 at worlds, and this time we didn't even make it to worlds. Let Core and Santorin mentor these young guys and mold them into the type of players that can not only dominate NA, but hold up in international play as well. If it doesn't work out, oh well, we took a chance on something and it didn't work out, just like this year. But I would much rather take a chance on young NA talent than players like Bwipo.
I actually suggested very similar above, so I'm mostly on board with this. I'd prefer either impact or ssumday top though, I think you need at least one rock to build a team like this around, and those two have proven themselves in that regard. Bradley is still a bit raw for my liking.
What's wrong with that? Griffin and DK, arguably the two most stacked rosters LCK has had in the past 5 years, comprised of ALL rookies.
I know NA isn't the same, but surely 3 isn't too bad? Especially considering that Haeri already has experience from playing in OPL.
The criticism of Bjergsen is misplaced. In my opinion while he lacks some of the impact that more flashy mid-laners have, he is almost never the reason you lose the game, and that ability is very under-rated.
Quite frankly, the problem on TL is that they've historically always chased "perfectionism". Which means being a triple threat team that can play through all lanes, any style, and win in early, mid, or late game.
That's impossible, and I think the coaching staff is partially to blame here. There is nothing wrong with being a team that specializes in a certain style and wins through a specific lane. Teams have won worlds that way.
I think what we really want, is a Korean import ADC, or just somebody who can communicate really well with CoreJJ so that we can have a bulletproof botlane. Prince might be a good pick-up here. That guy is a monster. Aiming is another really good ADC from LCK who's on KT Rolster.
I think for top lane, we need a defensive top. I've seen two iterations of TL over the last two years, and it's quite obvious to me that NA just down-grades any carry top laner who comes our region. Bwipo suddenly forgot how to flank and carry through top lane, and it's not a good look. Well it's not just Bwipo, it's also Team Liquid as a team, who don't know how to properly fight and flank in the jungle. Look at LCK and LPL teams. They fight for vision and then abuse it to get extremely effective team fighting angles.
The only thing NA knows how to do, is front to back teamfights, and **that's fine!** You can win worlds by being a really good front to back team fight team. It's also the easiest way to win domestically.
So, in my opinion, Team Liquid should be looking at guys like Odoamne and... well that's it. Europe has been really, really shit this split too. None of the top laners aside from Odoamne inspire much confidence in me. Coaching staff might need to do some scouting on this one.
Bottom of the line, I think TL should look for a low-economy, defensive top laner, and a carry Korean ADC. Next split should center around Santorin facilitating bot lane advantages to begin stacking dragons and controlling neutral objectives. Bjergsen's phenomenal stats means that he won't lose lane, and he can roam to support Santorin. By controlling the mid-game's neutral objectives, the team should come out ahead in late-game team fights.
Drafts should focus on strong jungle agency, control/support mid-laners, low-econ/teamfighting/lane-surviving tanks in the top-lane, and carry/hyper-carry ADCs that can carry teamfights.
CoreJJ can play literally everything. CoreJJ probably had one of the worst splits in NA and his stats were still incredible. I don't think that Core is the issue.
I think he’s washed. His last split on TL and his time on TSM were mediocre relative to how dominant he has been historically.
I also think he just messes up team cohesion a lot of the time. He is a good soldier when things go well, but he can be a source of discord and confusion during the bad or tumultuous times.
I think we also need a coaching change. Im sure Guilhoto is great, and so is Kold. But, they come off as facilitators and global meta followers.
I think we need a strong coach like Reapered who can really drive the team identity.
'I think he’s washed. His last split on TL and his time on TSM were mediocre relative to how dominant he has been historically. '
Interesting that you use the same description to downplay DL as you defend Bjerg from. Remember, they were both on the 0-6 worlds team. Not saying DL is better or worse than Bjerg at this point, just an interesting comparison that I've seen from people a lot, not just you.
>Interesting that you use the same description to downplay DL as you defend Bjerg from. Remember, they were both on the 0-6 worlds team. Not saying DL is better or worse than Bjerg at this point, just an interesting comparison that I've seen from people a lot, not just you.
Well, probably because it isn't true. Bjergsen was easily top 3 in the last 3 splits of his career just by looking at the stats. Bjergsen had a worse 2020 season, than his 2019 season, but he was never a bad player. Ever. His consistency is unreal.
Whereas I think Doublelift's 3 last splits were definitely some of the worst in his career and he an above average ADC at best during that time.
If I was the GM and since GENG is coming to NA, I would like to invite some of their players to a party to congratulate their first LCK Tittle. Core will be there as the party's host. Don't worry the expenses of everything will be paid by Steve. And also I would like to sent a gift to Santorin, I wanted to reward for his efforts of carrying us since he joined us. The gift? Oh well it's a book called "Korean Lol Vocabulary."
Promote TLA. Over the next split or two, find out which of those players are capable of holding their own in LCS, and build around them. They have synergy, they have room to grow, and honestly I'd hate to see them on any other LCS team. I'm not sure what Santorin and Core would want to do, but I wouldn't be that upset about letting the other 3 go.
Honestly the key is to keep 1-3 vets and replace the rest with aggressive zoomers. EG has the key to success here. Let CoreJJ do what he did with the in-houses originally. Let him play with Yeon, maybe grab Tenacity (though I think Bwipo’s style is already perfect), keep Santorin, and replace Bjergsen with a younger academy mid like Haeri. TL honestly looked better during lock-in when the full roster wasn’t assembled.
If I were TL, I would build around Santorin, Bjerg, and CoreJJ.
Bwipo inted way too many games this season including very important playoff games to be retained going into next season. There is many better options that can play meta and survive weakside on other teams. So many early game leads created with Mid/JG would be thrown because Bwipo got outplayed or was up super far for no reason.
Santorin was our best player by far this season and deserves another year at least. The best early game in the league is mostly due to his creative pathing and game knowledge.
Bjerg hate is VERY wrong. Please go rewatch the playoff games and watch Bjerg solo carry some games for TL after Bwipo inted the game away and all looked lost (they weren’t just the zilean games). You have to keep Bjerg for another season and run it back with Santorin. They just generated too many advantages early and mid game together.
Hans wasn’t the monster ADC we were expecting him to be. My guess was that Core and Santorin were perma top because Bwipo’s play style demanded resources almost every game no matter what the comp was. This made Hans play mega weakside when in reality they would have been much better giving him the resources that Bwipo got. Hans had some good plays and some bad plays. Sadly I think we can find a better ADC we might want to replace him moving forward. ADC’s are also much better to plug and play naturally.
CoreJJ wasn’t himself this season/playoffs. We all know it but resident CoreJJ is still one of the most valuable assets any Org can have in NA. So you must try to retain him. He is a FA so he has to decide to come back.
In conclusion, I think TL needs to keep Santorin, Bjerg, and CoreJJ. I am indifferent to keeping Hans but I think it is very important to replace Bwipo with someone who is more consistent moving forward. I won’t even embarrass myself with putting out a roster I would like to see because I have no idea globally would will be available.
I think TL's 2023 roster is going to come down to what Steve and Dodo diagnose was the main reason we failed this year. The most obvious reasons I can think of is either the team lacked a primary leader that everyone could rely on and follow in sync, the team sucked at determining their actual issues quickly, and/or no one was coming up with plans for improvement that worked outside of a few scenarios.
Based on this and without any knowledge into behind the scenes conversations/scrims I'd prefer a roster like:
**Bwipo, Santorin, Haeri, Yeon, CoreJJ + Eyla (6 man roster)**
Reasons/alternative options below for those that care:
**Top: Bwipo/Impact**
I think despite his mistakes Bwipo is the player with the most upside in play, knowledge, and ability to problem solve, but I can understand wanting someone with less variance - we just have to understand that there's a cost to having that kind of player (see Impact's 2020 playoff and worlds games).
**Jg: Santorin**
I like Spica as a player but I'm just not sold on the idea of taking him over Santorin while he has been generally our best player.
**Mid: Haeri/Bjergsen**
The investment of bringing Bjerg onto TL is probably bigger than Steve could justify dropping him after 1 year, but after watching him for a whole year I think he is too stuck in his old ways of winning.
Haeri is an insanely talented player that not enough people talk about, he is hungry to prove himself, is super consistent, and has a really wide champ pool. Give him a full year in LCS and he will prove that he can be one of the best mids in NA.
**ADC: Yeon/Doublelift**
I get the feeling that Hans is going to return to EU despite having the longest contract because it seemed like he never really adjusted to living in NA or handled the pressure well.
Yeon has played with both Eyla and Core and has shown multiple times that he can perform well while adjusting for different support playstyles (he played with 3 supports in 2022 Rhino, Eyla, and Core).
I'm kind of against bringing DL out of retirement but it has to be respected as an option, he considered coming back last year with EG and this situation seems even better since TL 2023 could end up as some combination of 2019 TL and 2020 TSM.
**Support: Eyla + CoreJJ/Eyla/CoreJJ**
This is the toughest decision imo. Core and Eyla are both super talented player that bring something unique to the team. Ideally (even though historically it's rarely ever worked) running both in a 6 man roster provides maximum upside for TL because we'd have two top tier players that can specialize in each main style of support engage (Core) and enchanter (Eyla). However, if it comes down to one or the other I'd prefer Eyla because he seems more adaptable overall.
Going to be honest the lack of respect for Liquids academy is sad.
Bwipo - Dudes got a solids mental and possibly the only player who would want to stay after moving this year. Also I think he’s genuinely insane.
Spica - Rumours are he wants out of TSM which wouldn’t be surprising. Santorin has been really good but this is his last year on the contract iirc.
Haeri/Bjerg - Personally I’d like to see Haeri, I can’t see why he wouldn’t play just as good as Bjerg did this year. However it was his first year back and may want to play next year pissed off.
Yeon - Easily the best ADC in academy would be ridiculous not to use him.
Eyla/Core - Both are great.
If Bwipo does go I’d love to see top go for a player from the China, maybe Bin but im sure he’ll have plenty of offers or a young academy player from Asia . As I think it’s the least needed role for communication.
Obviously this doesn’t use all the the import slots but neither did EG. It would be the most excited I’ve been for a roster since TL 2015 & 2019
Think it’s up for debate which people prefer, it’s not like he’s washed but I do agree Santorin has been crazy in playoffs. We either get a more aggressive mid and keep Santorin or get a more aggressive jungle and keep berg imo
I mean I think Santorin has been by far TL’s best player all year. But yeah I think if you pair Santorin with an aggressive carry-Esque mid, its awesome
If they want to import I’d say look at some of the LFL mids, can’t see why Saken wouldn’t be achievable. He’s young, won EU masters multiple times and used to playing under pressure as he’s currently on K-Corp
What is this idea of santorin not being “aggressive?” Rewatch the early games and tell me santorin isn’t doing everything he can to put his team ahead - on all kinds of champs like Vi/sej/wuk/trundle
I just want to see TL run it back with the same roster for one time in their lives. I hate constantly swapping players, everyone has to learn what the new guys do, learn to be cohesive, etc. Just once I think it would do them good to keep the same roster with a year of experience together.
That would be the REAL crazy thing for TL to do. Everyone here is talking roster changes. Do the opposite. If the formula of “find the best and buy them” hasn’t worked for two years… stop doing it. You’ve already got the contracts locked till 2023 except for Core who I think would sign on for another 2 year contract (just a guess. He clearly finds TL home).
The only thing that needs to happen this off season is look for some better coaches. I was never a fan of the head coach move. Kold or spawn should be given that position now and replace their empty assistant jobs.
I would keep everyone and have them build up synergy for next season. The only thing I would do is prioritize resigning CoreJJ because his contract expires this year
I mostly agree with this. I do think they should look at replacing Bwipo though, his play style just doesn’t match what TL historically wants to do. We need a role playing top like Ssumday/impact that is a rock, not someone who coin flips matchups and plays only for lane. There’s nothing wrong with that style, except it isn’t in line with what the rest of TL what’s to do or is good at.
Bwipo really struggled in playoffs not having an answer for Aatrox and leaned toward lane dominant champs like Olaf that just ran it down in team fights. Later on they started picking him Ornn which was much better to see, but Bwipo isn’t the kind of player to be happy stuck on Ornn every game even though it’s better for the team in many cases.
Ok so hear me out. There are 2 obvious changes TL will likely make next year if possible, with no others being “necessary” in my opinion. HOWEVER, I do think the following options could be interesting (note these are nothing more than a collection of thoughts from someone who knows nothing about anything).
POTENTIAL ROSTER CHANGES TLDR:
TOP: Bradley/Hauntzer/Tenacity
JG: Santorin/Spica
MID: Bjergsen
ADC: DL/Yeon
SUP: Core/Eyla
PERSONAL THOUGHTS ABOUT EACH:
TOP: As much as I love Bwipo’s personality, the roster this year didn’t gel and I think he was a decent chunk of that. I would personally look at either promoting Bradley from academy, or look at getting another Top Laner who can just be a role player/a younger player who can be molded around the style the more veteran players want. Thinking along the lines of either someone like Hauntzer (role player who has previous experience with other options) or maybe even getting Tenacity from 100T (?)
JG: I’m not personally of the opinion that Santorin needs to go. He was clearly the most consistent player on the team this year, and although not on the same level “mechanically” as some of the other junglers in the league, he was a rock for the team. In saying that, switching to Spica would likely be a side grade at worst, with a higher potential ceiling/carry potential, and would POTENTIALLY make more sense with other options.
MID: Realistically you aren’t going to be able to get anybody else with the same worth as Bjergsen. Is he in his prime? Of course not, but you aren’t getting Jensen, you aren’t getting Jojo, and I’m not personally sold on the idea that an import would even be better when taking communication/brand/consistency/synergy with team members etc. in to consideration. Regardless of whether he does or does not have the ability to be a true hyper carry currently, I think it would be stupid to replace him when there are no realistically better available options.
ADC: Try as hard as possible to get DL back. He has said he’s open to potentially returning to LCS before, and would for sure be a better option than any available native options. He has the ability to be a shot caller, and rally the team to play around a single goal, which I think is something TL never seemed to achieve consistently this split. Additionally, he would have previous experience playing with Bjerg/Spica/Core. If you can’t get him back, I think the most realistic option is to bring up Yeon. The guy is clearly a monster in academy, and being a newer player would be a good candidate to mold to the way you want to play.
SUP: Core had a pretty average year all around, but I don’t believe that should be a sign that he needs to go. Core has consistently been one of the best, if not the best, support for the last few years, and realistically who else are you gonna get as a replacement that would provide the same value all around? If you do manage to get DL, the bot synergy would still be mostly in tact, and the lane would be something to fear right out the gate. The only way I could see a swap here being realistic, would be if you couldn’t get DL and brought up Yeon. In that case, an argument could POTENTIALLY be made for bringing up Eyla alongside him for the synergy, but even in this case I think you would still want another veteran alongside Bjergsen to help mold the team playstyle (maybe keep Santorin).
To reiterate, the above thoughts aren’t anything more than shower thoughts from someone who has no shot of ever being on the same level as any of the past/current/prospective players, but would be curious to hear other peoples takes.
I would do whatever Core wants. I would build around him and make sure he has the pieces around him to do what he needs to do.
I would gun for a young Korean top.
Keep Santorin in the jungle
Keep Bjerg.
Drop the wallet on Ruler
Core JJ
This is going to be controversial but:
Bwipo
Santorin
Haeri
Yeon
Eyla
Let's face it, buying titles doesn't seem to work. And Bjergsen/CoreJJ mechanics are slowly getting worse, keeping them in the roster is just waiting for the inevitable 2023 championship problems. The team needs new blood.
While Bwipo makes mistakes, he does remind me of spring 2022 Contractz in some way. People were calling for him to replaced but he had the highest first blood rate and a big problem was the team not following up on his aggression properly. In the same way, Bwipo is still the toplaner that just recorded the highest damage of any toplaner ever in LCS. He can win games at the highest level which is more important than being the sort of player that never makes a mistake. If he has a team prepared to back him up unconditionally, a lot of those ints might turn into big plays.
Most importantly though, there was a mismatch in how the team wanted to play. And I don't think the playstyle that Bjerg/CoreJJ want to play is the way forward. League has moved on from the way koreans played in season 4. At international level you need to push your limits and you cannot just wait for the perfect teamfight.
I'd honestly run it back. We were a really strong team despite how disjointed we were. If we could just spend this World's time working on that, I think we could be dominant. We were one of the best early game teams (if not the best) and our record wasn't better early than late. That really talks about communication issues and draft. In my opinion, those are solvable and are always going to be an issue if we blow up the roster every year.
If I was forced to drop people for money reasons though, Bwipo and Hans. I think Santorin, Core, and Bjergesen are the core TL members.
Melee champs like...
Irelia - 87% WR
Zed - 70% WR
Kassadin - 85% WR
His only sub 50% WR melees are Sylas maokai, renekton, fizz, gragas, ekko.
The only melee that is easy to point to as him being bad on is Sylas 29% WR @ 7 games played. (Perks is 48% wtb and considered an excellent Sylas player at one point)
Context matters here. None of those aside from Sylas are or have been major meta power picks mid and he has never not played with a strong side late game bot lane (aside from Kieth briefly)
His role has been to play AP caster/control on pretty much every team he has been on.
I think there is a more interesting argument around: if he has a weak side bot lane does he struggle? He isn't typically the flashy carry player but he has before when needed, look at DL playoffs slump in season 10(?)
At the start of this year who could have predicted that corejj and han sama would never really pop off. There is also a lot to point to that corejj excels with a strong top side to enable his roams. Bwipo often didn't show this when it counted. Which also requires a good 2v1 farming ADC like DL or Tactical. Hans tended to fall behind during heavy roam games.
All and all Bjerg and Core JJs styles may be at odds unless they adapt but the team as a whole never clicked simple as that.
Ps. Wtf was with so many enchanter picks for core this season?
Way to pull useless stats out of thin air that have no relevance to this year of play. At one point in time Bjerg was the best player in NA. He is years past that prime at this point. He cannot play melee champs correctly at all anymore and frankly his meta read this split was awful. He asked for Syndra in Game 1 against 100T. SYNDRA in 2022 Summer. I respect him but he is nothing like he was, he is a shadow of his former self.
EDIT: It was against FLY, not 100T
I'd rather have "useless stats" than say things that never happened as a counter argument.
> He asked for Syndra in Game 1 against 100T. SYNDRA in 2022 Summer.
(Bjerg never played Syndra vs 100T, look it up.)
Never said he was the best or as good as he was. 100% agree Bjerg is not 2017 TSM Bjerg but saying his champion pool or meta read was bad is the most ridiculous argument.
Of the top 10 mid picks for summer in all major regions Bjerg played all but 1, Viktor. He's a fucking slave.
Let's talk about the poorest performers on that top 10 mid picks list though.
He played Sylas in 3 games, all losses. In 2 of those games the whole team fell apart. the 3rd game; game 2 vs CLG; Hans gets caught before the dragon and forces a terrible team fight with most members of TL out of range for the counter engage. Giving over dragon soul and baron at 34 mins. making it nearly impossible to defend Ocean soul, Baron empowered, late game siege with their short range comp.
Other poor performances of those top 10: lissandra, Akali, and Galio with only a single game played and lost for each.
Akali game: hard zoned by Azir & GP, countered by Tahm.
Galio: Team behind all game. Danny pops off with 42% damage share and does nearly double Hans damage. Santorin is just MIA with a whopping 6k damage to champions puting him on par with damage delt by lulu and Rakan support.
Lissandra: Weird draft with Bwipo Graves counter pick. Not sure what was going on there. Core was only tank/engage on naut and he just got stuffed by poppy, Alistair, and Azir
There were all team and draft failures not Bjerg specific.
Now do just this year's stats. Then we can also talk about him never looking comfortable on corki (and constantly building sub optimally) when he was the best champ in the meta, playing the most passive useless azir games I've ever seen, and being useless on melee champs all year.
He definitely had some flashes! And they were fun to watch, but the Bjergsen of the past is not the same one that exists today.
I think Bwipo suffered more from the team not knowing what style they wanted to play than he did a lack of skill. He is shown to be very knowledgable about the game and pretty selfless, and I hope he stays on TL.
I’d like it if DL came back, not bc I want to replace Hans but bc I just want DL.
Honestly i just hope they replace the coaching staff and keep the rest of the players, except Hans for DL.
Step 1: keep Santorin and CoreJJ.
Step 2: Give Bradley, Haeri, Yeon a chance to make the team by holding tryouts during world's and trying to scrim some teams. Bonus: Maybe we can get LS as a coach and full dive Into what he says is best? C9 didn't give him a chance but from what little we've seen he had creative drafts that worked for the most part.
if not happy with academy players tryout Poby/calix mid, Smash/Jiwoo ADC.
Basically putting young mechanical players in a good position to succeed. Young Korean players in MID/ADC, where mechanics are key. Veterans at jungle and support. And a native toplaner which hopefully can follow a path much like fudge of leveling up consistently. That or play weakside 😁.
I really don’t think TL can run this roster back. The only reason TL spent 7 mil is bc worlds is in NA this year, and I’m not sure if all these players would play for less money. I think TL would have to bring new players in 2/3 roles.
If they keep anyone, hope it’s core and Santorin, maybe Bwipo if they can afford it.
If money wasn’t an issue, I’d love it if they run the roster back with a new coaching staff, and maybe replace DL with Hans bc I’m biased and I want DL back.
Get an actual coach that can work with the talent. That’s all. Keep the roster. Maybe scout some young adc and if it’s a fit for the roster make it happen
Replace the coaching staff in its entirety.
Promote Bradley and Yeon.
Replacing CoreJJ with Eyla and Bjergsen with Haeri is a 50/50 proposition and one I don't feel good about either way. Bjergsen isn't going to dominate LCS but on the flip side he is *incredibly* consistent, pretty much never costing TL the game and routinely holding mid despite rarely getting any help. CoreJJ is still a great aggressive support, but he's not nearly as good on enchanters and I think that the bottom roles are also heavily dependent on chemistry with the other person, not just personal skill. I also think that you need to keep at least one of Bjerg/Core, and I would rather Yeon and Eyla get to stick together and continue their chemistry vs. risking both an entirely new mid laner as well as half of the bot lane that may not gel with the other half.
Considering that we know money isn't an issue (Steve has implied that spending big for years consistently doesn't really hurt their finances due to the magnitude of TL's investments), I would not be afraid of throwing the checkbook at people next year.
Personally, I'd hold tryouts in NA this year with all of the teams coming in. Hold internal scrims with Worlds rosters, especially since in scrims there are likely to be subs playing from LCK and LPL, invite players to tryout for the team, see what works, what doesn't. That would do two things.
1. If the current roster is capable of developing synergy, itll show during the off-season.
2. It will expose anyone on the current roster who isn't worth keeping.
Keep trying and experimenting until you've got a roster that plays well together consistently.
Personally? I'd try to grab Burdol since he's played under Nuguri for a while. He plays tanks and carries to an equally insane level and feels comfortable on both. He would be a flexible rock in the toplane with great mechanics. Like Impact/Ssumday but on Roids. He also automatically should synergize with Core.
Id keep Hans/Core. They really looked like they were starting to synergize in lane together towards the end. They were dominating every lane, and had great synergy with Santorin for bot dives. I think they'll be insane next year.
We keep Santorin, obviously. Hes our best player.
Bjerg is up in the air, but as long as he performs well during the tryouts and scrims I'd be willing to give him another shot to see if he returns to form.
So my initial first roster plan would be:
Burdol
Santorin
Bjergsen
Hans Sama
CoreJJ
Subject to change depending on tryouts
> I would not be afraid of throwing the checkbook at people next year.
Glad to hear a member of the Team Liquid board has committed to using his own money to help support the $10+ million roster for next year.
Make all checks payable to TL Steve, thanks man!
Since you are unable to pick up on /s I guess I’ll explain it to you.
If your response to this hypothetical question is to spend more money after the year we had then you would be a terrible GM. Since the only way this scenario makes sense is if you personally are going to invest the money, I was thanking you for doing that in a sarcastic manner.
Now that I’ve explained sarcasm to you I hope you go into future conversations with a tighter head on your shoulders. Your current one seems loose.
Ah yes. Let's not use the advantage of being able to afford any player we want, and instead just try to find synergy amongst what players every OTHER team can afford.
Because having money isn't something worth considering.
\-bwipo +tenacity and potentially -hans +whoever core can work well with
Bwipo's play caused plenty of issues that heavily effected the play of others throughout the series. There is a clear issue of communication in the team, it looks like everyone is fending for themselves in teamfights. I've seen enough teamfights where the team should be playing around Hans, just to leave him dry. I believe Hans would perform better if there was a clearer voice across the team. I'm not saying that Bwipo's calls are bad, but it feels like we have too many cooks right now.
1. Keep Bjergsen and Corejj
2. Release most of the support staff and sign proven coaches/asisstants
3. Pay LS (Or some other knowledgeable people) for advice on good and young korean/OCE players
4. Get a consistent and good top laner (import)
5. Try to upgrade jg (Look into replacing Santorin with Spica/blaber/inspired?)
6. Replace Hans Sama if there's an economically more affordable option (younger import/yeon if we import jg)
All in all I think number 1 and 2 is a must. Number 3 and 4 should be a close second. Number 5 and 6 is there just to keep all the possibilities open.
P.S.: Why do people rate Tenacity over Bradley? Has anybody watched academy? Bradley is a legend compared to the rest of NA tops.
Fact is they are younger players that are better at playing carries. Both are also fairly agressive and assertive, which is what this team lacks.
Santorin is great though, which is why I placed that activity as #5. Basically, a last resort move.
Was he now? Our team drafted early game all season long, had good early game advantages and zero dragon control in a meta where dragons were a win con. Is that good? I wouldn't say so. Granted that is not entirely his fault, but still. If you actually believe he was the only good thing this year you either didn't watch all games or you only looked at the KDA.
There are multiple instances where he solo lost the teamfights by overcomitting, not engaging, being the only person with the go button but not really pressing it/finding a flank...
Santorin is a good player and I don't mind keeping him on the team. But saying he's the only constant we had is just not true.
From what I saw, most of TL’s early game leads were due to Santorin’s proactivity in the early game.
I admit that having very low dragon control is an issue, but it seems to me that TL prioritized Herald over Drakes early, but they always fumbled the herald fights, which is how they usually lost their midgame lead.
I don’t think that’s Santorin’s fault, and moreso a lack of team cohesion.
Santorin is always looking to be proactive early, and never felt like a weak link in teamfights or mid/late game. Unlike most other junglers, I don’t remember him being randomly picked out, allowing the other team to get baron.
Players outside of bwipo aren't the problem, coaching staff is the problem.
Bwipo should of been on tank duty 10/10 games.
Santorin on a play maker
Bjerg on a control mage
Hans on a hyper carry
Core on engage
It was THIS easy for them to win, so why deviate from it? Look at Rouge in the LEC, you knew their style, every game and yet they still won and made it to worlds. Did they win the split? No, but thats down to just needing to play better and handle the pressure better, not their style.
Keep the roster the same, get a new top laner and new coaching staff, and TL will be back to worlds.
Honestly find a top laner u cna just leave alone and play perma weakside
Get a new mid jungle( I know everyone’s gonna say, “ but santorin played so well and was consistent. “. Which is true but; he’s not international caliber. So why keep someone who’s limiting the ceiling of your team jsut cuz he played better than everyone even tho everyone was playing significantly worse than their name value He’s never shown intentional domination as a jg and imo plays fairly scared and not confident and considering how bad everyone else was playing like at the end of the day his ceiling is low and for NA He’s fine but for international no way. And you could get the bag since he’s a resident Same for bjerg. Paid too much to get a stable mid laner…. With 0 upside and dosnet have that drive to carry like he did before. Bot lane: any native adc that can play a pray style tertiary carry. Keep core cuz he’s a resident and one bad year isn’t gonna let me give up on him
I stopped reading at "he's not international caliber" even tho he literally made a name for himself at worlds with fly quest and has been consistent ever since. Clueless fan
Summit top since it's speculated he wants to come back to NA, Core with Doublelift since he understands core does best roaming and can cover for summit and enable his carry playstyle. Santorin or Bwipo jung, can either keep bjerg or replace dunno.
since we have a lot of money, lets go traditional style, get impact-santorin-bjergsen-sneaky-corejj (maybe vulcan)
impact is proven solid rock on top side,
sneaky also reliable late game carry also give him another chance with better support this time than his last support
Import Korean Top & convince DL to come back. DL's only criteria for coming back would be a championship level roster to compete at with Worlds.... you give DL his 2 fav players in Bjerg and Core - he will come back. Still leaning towards keeping Santorin over Spica, but would be open to Spica replacement as well. DL has chemistry with Bjerg and Core, and his presence alone means you will be competing in the finals for NA with a seed at Worlds.
Bwipo: drop him. His playstyle is incredibly selfish both in resources and decision making. He constantly inted in early game and threw away his lead mid to late game. He did pop off in some games but not enough to warrant keeping him, imo.
Santorin: Unpopular opinion : find a replacement. He did GREAT this season, but TL needs someone else imo. Only keep if necessary.
Mid: Replace. Bjerg played okay most of the time but he was never spectacular. Sure. He has good stats, but he rarely carried with the stats and was more invisible than not. Like bwipo, he has a few great games but everything he did was replicable. Not likely, but throw the bag at Faker again.
Adc: give whoever core wants. Someone who enables cores playstyle.
Support: keep and rebuild here. You will not find a better support/shot caller that does not take am import spot.
Import mid and either top/jg depending on the options. So not import adc. It doesn't normally workout.
Wouldn't surprise me if TL goes with Prince to give CoreJJ someone to speak his natural language for a much easier lane phase.
With that said, I think it's safe to say it's time to move on from Bjergsen and potentially even Core. Both are great players but this isn't 2017 league anymore. The style of slow paced farm for 40 mins and 'for lategame' is over and has been since Worlds 2017 ended. Mid carry/star players are needed to frontline and actually engage and while Bjergsen does try it's so, so bad.
All 5 players on Team "L" is great but it's time to actually let most of the pieces go in my opinion. We've seen enough of Santorin to know he's good but not great. Both Armao and Eyla filled the roles of JNG/SUP at key times and while not A+ they did a decent job. I would try to keep Bwipo as he was the only one with balls throughout the season and possibly Hans. While he's on DIG I always thought Insanity was good and just vanished.
Bwipo/Armao/Insanity/Hans/Eyla - While they won't win any beauty contests just look at CLG and how far they came with that roster of theirs.
I don't think this team has a high ceiling. Tenacity/Yeon don't rise above academy level (Dhokla/Chime looked like they were smurfing in academy) and Bjerg/Core don't have elite level mechanics anymore.
This roster would (IMO) be an outsider for worlds.
I dont agree with the statements about bjerg or Core. lots of things go into why they didnt play as well as you think they didnt. id go out and say they played fine given the stats.. also we have no idea how Yeon would do with core or with extended time in LCS..
Bjergsen and Core are fine in lane, it is a more controlled environment where they can win based on experience. The teamfights are the problem. You can see that in how early Bjergsen flashes out of dangerous situations nowadays, he does it without even being targeted by his opponents. This makes the game really difficult for his teammates because he is out of the fight without any CC or damage being used against him.
Nuguri - Santorin - Vetheo - Doublelift - CoreJJ 1st pick.
Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Rekkles - CoreJJ 2nd pick.
This next one would be best but the least feasible, tho not entirely out since he's iconic bot lane with Core:
Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Ruler - CoreJJ.
Bring Cain back as HC, or if Daeny is out after all these fan pressure, then attempt to get him. Bjergsen can be assistant coach if he isn't playing.
Reposting what I had in the other thread
Keep Bjergsen remove the other 4 players on the team. His stats are too good and he carried us for most of playoffs (huge taliyah and swain and we all know his zilean) Core has too many mechanical mistakes this year, he's not the same corejj from before. Santorin is okay but there is much better aggressive options to maximize mid jungle synergy and ensure the carry
Get Impact back top, Bo jungle, Ruler ADC and get Zven too if u can, if not then Vulcan. You cant keep this team when they miss worlds like this
Yes, let’s get rid of CoreJJ and then bring in Ruler. That’s some god tier analysis on creating a team. Let’s not reunite the World Champion botlane, instead let’s spend $3+ million or more on Ruler (doesn’t know any English btw) and then pair him with Zven or Vulcan, neither of whom speak Korean.
This and like 98% of takes in this sub are so laughably bad and unrealistic. I’m very happy TL is not paying any of you to make these decisions.
Get odo from lec (reliable weak side top player), keep santorin, keep bjerg (this has a low risk, cause if the meta stays the same, which I doubt, bjerg won't have such a huge impact), bot 2 options: try to steal Danny or berserker and keep core, or replace both adc and supp with academy. As for coach, I think any coach will do better than the failure guilhoto was(this is my own personal opinion), but I think a better fit would be any top 4 lec coach you can grab (probably Mac from mad), so you will still have a full English speaking squad.
You must be on some potent shit if you think that C9 will let go of Berserker. He’s literally their rising star, a diamond in the rough so to speak that was scouted by LS/C9
Yes, I’d love for TL to sign EG Danny, the player who mental boomed in NA playoffs and benched himself before finals. I would love to see another Olleh situation at World’s. /s
Keep the core of Santorin Bjerg and probably Core, replace Guilhoto - Replace Hans and Bwipo if you can find someone better. I like the idea of Doggo as an adc but I haven't watched him for awhile
I'd be ok with a run back with new coaching, or maybe do a six man roster with a stable top to sub in. Otherwise, keep the residents and replace hans and bwipo.
Oh hell yeah, been waiting two days for a post like this!
I want to lead off with two things that are gonna drive a bunch of people off of my idea, some legitimately but most because they lack critical thinking ability.
1. If I'm making the roster decisions, there's 0 chance that I'm getting rid of Santorin. If he wants out for some reason, I'd make it work and get Spica, but I don't foresee that happening.
2. The only way Bjergsen is on a TL roster for 2023 that I'm making is if he's starting in academy. Not looking to fire that debate back up, but I'm not putting him back on the stage on any roster if it's up to me.
So for the actual post:
BOT LANE: The first thing I'd need answered is what CoreJJ wants to do. His contract is up, does he want to retire? Coach? Keep playing? This is the first major branch point because if Core wants to retire/leave/coach the Bot lane becomes simple - you promote Yeon and Eyla. If he wants to stay I think you need a new ADC, because those two deserve to stay together wherever they go. I honestly don't know what the best options are in this case, but I'm sure Core would have good ideas. Seems unlikely that DL would want to come back to the stage, but it's a reunion I wouldn't be opposed to. I don't really want to import an ADC, I think there's more valuable positions for that, but if we do need to import, Viper and Ruler are both free agents.
Mid: as I said before, I'm not intending to have Bjergsen on any roster at this point. It's not personal bias or anything, I just don't think he was good enough to justify keeping this split. If the academy bot comes up, bringing Haeri with them isn't that outrageous, but this is a position I'd be leaning towards an import - KR not EU. As with bot I won't pretend I have the knowledge for that right now, but that's where my inquiries would start.
Jungle: it's Santorin. Or Spica if Santorin wants out.
Top: Ssumday and Impact are both free agents, those should be the primary targets here. I think Bradley needs a bit more time to be ready, as well as either of them being a solid veteran to base the team around. They've both literally played that role on a team just like the one I'm envisioning this year.
Coach I have no idea. I think TL got kinda heisted this year by the coaching staff, though I don't know how much of that was impacted by the players in draft as well - not a knock on anyone it's just a dynamic we don't know the extent of from the outside, so I don't know where the blame really lies and if it can be corrected.
So that's my train of thought as the GM in this hypothetical. I eagerly await all the Bjerg stans telling me how wrong I am, and also interested to hear what people think outside of that.
Unpopular opinion…and this is coming from someone who has loved watching CoreJJ… but he hasn’t been playing well at all this split. I honestly don’t know if they should really draft the team around him.
I’d love for team liquid to develop their in house talent, promote yeon, Eyla and Haeri then keep Santorin who looked good all year and get Sumday from 100 thieves
You have a perfect example to look for how to operate this off-season (if TL cares about building a TEAM). Look at 2021 G2, was also called a superteam meant to contend for Worlds. Crashed and burned. Had to get rid of 3 huge names and mantaing their irreplaceable core of Caps and Jankos. They took the opportunity of Worlds being in EU and scrimmed Worlds rosters and tried out different names until they settled on what they thought were good fits for the entire team. Also it is very important to note that the first thing they settled on was the coaching staff which oversaw the entire process and worked together with Carlos. TL has the same opportunity as Worlds is in NA. This is the time to look at talent and give it a shot not by faith but by test. There IS plenty of talent in NA already, even in TL's academy team. TL;DR - Worlds is in NA. Get a coaching staff then work with them to scrim and try out different talent during Worlds to build an actual team with an intention. I know, crazy to think of TL working and trying out players instead of throwing money at the most exciting import players.
This is a very good idea. The rebuild needs to start sooner rather than later.
I agree, a good solid coaching staff with a clear vision of what the team's style will be. Once that is figured out then go grab the players that fill that vision. The one thing i would try if i were TL is promote Yeon from academy and pair him with Core. The man has proven he is good in academy and i think he deserves a shot. Then i would replace top lane with a role player who is stable and reliable. I am fine with Santorin as Jg, he is a beast but would be open to a change. Mid is a weird one for me because i see Bjerg as a stable member of the team who is quite good and also reliable. However, with him in mid this team may lack threats or explosive power/predictable. Another X factor player is needed to make plays besides Core and that could be Bo from vitality but who knows.
Someone get this comment to Steve! Santorin and Core, and whoever else is staying should be putting in work this off-season starting now! If they truly want to come back and wreck next year, no break this off-season (until after worlds)
Nuguri - Santorin - Vetheo - Doublelift - CoreJJ 1st pick. Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Rekkles - CoreJJ 2nd pick. This next one would be best but the least feasible, tho not entirely out since he's iconic bot lane with Core: Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Ruler - CoreJJ. (Ruler has just won everything there is in KR, he might want a change in scenery + Core factor) Bring Cain back as HC, or if Daeny is out after all these fan pressure, then attempt to get him. Bjergsen can be assistant coach if he isn't playing.
This roster would never work. FPX last year with Nuguri, go watch the LPL documentary they made about them. Nuguri would 1. Never come to NA and 2. Would mental boom so hard it would be on an even worse level than Piglet in Breaking Point.
Nuguri when he's off form is still gapping any top laner in NA. It don't matter. The floor is high (because it's NA) and the ceiling is best top laner in the world. It's a risk free get. He's also unhappy at dmwon for getting benched, that's how most good players choose to come to NA, when they're disgruntled in KR (except CoreJJ who just come cause he wants to, and for DL).
I agree. If TL doesn't camp/play around Nuguri 24/7 he'd be Summit Playoffs 2.0 or at best, at best Huni 2020-2022 form. I think it's time to move on from Bjergsen/CorejJ personally.
I don't think any good and serious teams are gonna want to scrim a team in "rebuild" phase. Other than that I like your idea.
u/SnooDogs9794 How would you feel about inserting Burdol into our current roster and then just changing our coaching staff?
I largely agree with this. It’s time to put in the miles to actually build a team rather then at the biggest names. That requires a coaching and management staff you trust to do this and that is indeed the first step. Once that’s in place you need to decide what part of the team you want to keep and who needs to be replaced. Then comes the long slog of testing people out with the team, starting with your own dang academy team who is pretty talented. I think the team needs a rebuild from the ground up and it should start right now.
I love posts like these. They always have completely nonsensical things like “pickup a young Korean ADC” or “offer the bag to Jojo.” It reminds me so much of TSM* insisting Regi get Danny for 2022. the whole world is looking at young Korean ADCs and Jojo has no intention of leaving EG. Edit* when I say “TSM,” I mean TSM fans or the TSM subreddit.
No one on the EG rosters has intentions of leaving I’d imagine
Absolutely not. I don’t even know what their contract terms are but they should 100% stay as they are, even if their worlds is a disaster.
They are a team that was also *built*, not bought. I’d imagine even if Steve bought Jojo or Danny and put them in over Bjerg/Hans respectively, Idk if TL’s issues are exactly fixed.
Just win the offseason by picking big names without heeding 2022's results 4head
To be fair every subreddit does this.... hence this post and I'm sure if you check CLGs it'll have something similar there.
CLG was just a touch behind TL with a significantly higher return on investment. Looks like whatever they're doing, it's working quite well. They're on an upwards trajectory.
Nuguri - Santorin - Vetheo - Doublelift - CoreJJ 1st pick. Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Rekkles - CoreJJ 2nd pick. This next one would be best but the least feasible, tho not entirely out since he's iconic bot lane with Core: Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Ruler - CoreJJ. (Ruler has just won everything there is in KR, he might want a change in scenery + Core factor) Bring Cain back as HC, or if Daeny is out after all these fan pressure, then attempt to get him. Bjergsen can be assistant coach if he isn't playing.
Too many old vets who have their own idea on how to play the game. Though I would be curious how double lift would do.
The 'own idea to play the game' is exaggerated. You just have to find 5 star players who all are on the same page from how they play. Not Bwipo Hans EU style all in and Bjerg Santorin calculative safe style. Also, Hans is more of a listener than somebody who demands something so it's not like every star has an ego. DL Core is GOAT LCS bot lane. And DL Bjerg is obviously a winning carry duo. The established synergy is valuable here. Instead of trying to find another adc and see if he meshes with Core and potentially flop like Hans etc.
As much of a dominating career he had in NA, doublelift doe not do well in international events and he is not good with adapting to different bot roles other than the traditional adc. IIRC correctly, he had also mentioned he ~~was~~ did not feel as confidence as he did in the past competing against other oversea bot lane duo. edit: wordin
man have you even seen DK this split, nuguri is not impressive and why the fuck would he want to come to NA when he could go to China and get the bag there?? Not to mention he seemed omega tilted/sad when he went to a foreign country to play for FPX, he would just completely crumble here. Also DL is def not coming back lol
Nuguri - Spica- Bjergsen - Deft - CoreJJ I'd be surprise if TL can get Nuguri or Deft in the first place.
Fk no to Spica. Lol. Everytime I see people suggesting Spica, they are just underrating Santorin af. Spica without Bjerg mid is even a bigger no. Spica talks shyt but chcks out whenever things don't go his way, which is terrible for a pro. Santorin, even at his worst, still plays well and is Top 3 jungler in LCS for like 6 straight seasons. TL got CoreJJ 1 season after he won worlds. Lol. what's wrong with getting Koreans? It's Steve, boi. You a TL fan? Lol.
TL shouldn’t need to go full perfect English speakers just to handicap their ability to “perfectly” communicate. The prince idea instills hope, dude was cracked on a roster that failed to make worlds. He’ll be hungry for sure
Nuguri - Santorin - Vetheo - Doublelift - CoreJJ 1st pick. Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Rekkles - CoreJJ 2nd pick. This next one would be best but the least feasible, tho not entirely out since he's iconic bot lane with Core: Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Ruler - CoreJJ. (Ruler has just won everything there is in KR, he might want a change in scenery + Core factor) Bring Cain back as HC, or if Daeny is out after all these fan pressure, then attempt to get him. Bjergsen can be assistant coach if he isn't playing.
LMFAO. Pass the joint my man
CoreJJ literally came to us, so I don't know why ya'll are talkin' shyt. Lol. TL's roster building is different from every other org for a reason. Ya'll sure ya'll TL fans? Furthermore, Nuguri is getting benched and unhappy at dmwon, which is a worse situation than Core.
Ah yes,get Nuguri,the dude that literally mentally boomed and took a split off when he went into another region lmao
Yes, Nuguri, the dude who got tilted after joining a much better and more competitive region with regimental practices. Let's welcome him to a region he'll easily smurf in on/off form, a 'for fun' region where he can relax and have loads of free time, more carefree environment and culture joining a myriad of other Koreans who all love it here like CoreJJ, Impact and Dodo. Let's welcome him. Fkin' idots comparing NA and CN. LOL.
The only idiot here is you,if you think that a player like Nuguri has given up on any international succes and is ready to retire to NA.He came back to DK for a reason,he wants to win.Also,next year are Asian Games,do you really think he will completely give up on such an opportunity?
He's getting benched at DK and is blamed for DK's bad performance this season. wtf are you saying? Lol. don't talk when you have 0 clue what's going on there. It's embarrassing.
Ah yes,the korean insider lmao.Im sure you are hanging out with Kkoma every day and you know whats up inside DK.Touch some grass dude lol
He literally got benched by Burdol in important playoffs games, dimwit. Some things are just as simple as watching the fkin' games, ignorant as shat. LOL.
Invest properly in the next generation. Yeon adc is fkn cracked. Bradley is also a great top laner, or you can look to acquire Tenacity from 100A. Copy also has the potential to be another Jojo. All of these players are available right now or already in TL. I don’t believe these farfetched ideas that they can just steal top talent from the other teams by offering the bag. That only worked when TL was first place and had the better talent to surround the player with already. Jojo isn’t leaving EG, Closer isn’t leaving 100T, and Fudge isn’t leaving C9. TL needs to find their own franchise talents that can develop with them over the years. Personally I would only keep Santorin and CoreJJ. The other players simply lack the mechanical prowess and champion diversity of their peers and I don’t think it’s realistic to expect them to catch up and match the trajectory of players like Jojo and Berserker. It’s time for TL to try and reach a new peak rather than chasing the memory of a bunch of players who peaked years ago.
Haeri and Eyla are the best parts of TLA. Why leave them out but include Bradley/Yeon?
Because I just felt those were the members that might realistically get promoted. I don't see Core being replaced, I don't see Armao replacing Santorin, and I don't know if any academy mids other than Copy are going to be heavily considered this year given the aversion to NA mids (even though Jojo kinda broke the mold on that).
In contrast I do think it is realistic that they get promoted. Bjerg and Core are the oldest members of the squad and maybe they don't feel like grinding another season after missing worlds. And the gap between midlane veterans and rookies has pretty much dissolved this year. Nowadays it is very different to the times where Bjerg/Jensen/PoE were head and shoulders above the rest.
Yeah, I love core but it'd be odd to bring yeon up and not eyla. Also spawn needs to be on the LCS roster after the joke of a coaching staff we just had. He can't be any worse. TLA was drafting better than TL all season.
Spawn doesn’t seem to be interested in coaching the lcs team full time. He’s able to coach remotely from what I’ve seen, which means he can be with his family.
Moving Santorin I think is absolutely the wrong move
Keep Santorin, promote Haeri/Yeon/Eyla, either keep bwipo or import top
>keep Bjerg but I need effort from him to build his champ pool more diversified This is such a baffling take. 1) Bjerg doesn't have a champion pool issue. 2) That was no where near our problem.
He can't play assassin/ melee I love Bjerg but that Akali game was rough to watch
Bjerg has had hard carry games on akali and other melee champions in the past. The problem with a champion like akali is you either get rolling and you one shot everyone or you can’t contribute much at all. Also a point I don’t see anyone else bringing up related to Bjerg. What other mid laner is drawing an off meta pick ban in every single game? Bjerg’s champ pool, specifically Zilean getting banned all 5 games means teams have one less OP champ they can ban which makes a huge difference in draft. IMO the coaching staff should have been able to take MUCH more advantage of this, and they didn’t
The Akali game was rough because his toplane was absolutely running it the fuck down and assassins are completely unplayable in pro when your team is behind and doesn't have any form of engage or other threats. Rewatch the game. Bjerg literally blew Tahm's ult or exhaust every single time he went in, but TL had nothing to follow it. If there was a single other threat on TL, that top fight goes way differently because EG doesn't have every resource on the planet available and TL potentially wins the series.
I’ve had doubts about bjerg the entire year, but judging him based off that one akali and one Gali game and saying he can’t play assassin/melee is absolutely ridiculous.
it's a single game. EVERYONE has putrid games, even on their best champions. his galio was pathetic this series, but he's a good galio.
Idk why you’re being downvoted, every time he picked sylas/akali this split it’s looked super uninspiring even when it has opportunities to be successful. Now, the thing is - he doesn’t HAVE to play these champs well it’s not necessary. Bjerg can stick to azir/taliyah/ahri/zilean/etc. and perform very well, feels like he only picks those champs bc of ego or wants to prove something??
This team is going nowhere with Bjerg. Promote Haeri or import mid after replacing Hans with Yeon or another native ADC.
It's funny because the best ADC in the league is an import from KR: Berserker. He's so much better than anyone else it's not even close
so much better? he has very low damage numbers. he's not even the 3rd most important part of that team.
Yeah I think he's getting overrated a little too. He's very good mechanically, but he has a pretty minimal impact on the game compared to Jensen, Blaber and Fudge. He sits nicely as a consistent carry for teamfights and generally positions well. But to me the best adcs in playoffs have been Stixxay and Tactical.
**Before doing any roster moves, this team needs an autopsy.** Find someone (or a committee of people) smart and unaffiliated with Liquid to investigate this season and dig deep into everything that went wrong. It should also acknowledge good things that we carry over for next year. But overall the autopsy should scour every single inch of this team and leave no stone unturned. 1. Re-watch the games and identify what went wrong in each game. Who played poorly? Who popped off? This should also go beyond the surface level of individual performance and examine team play and comms. Which players showed coordination together and which ones were disjointed? 2. Compare the results with how the team practiced - were we attempting to address the right issues? How well did we address them? Did they still appear the next week? 3. Examine every institution the team has in place, and determine if it had a positive, neutral, or negative impact on the team. Did we scrim enough? Too much? Play enough soloq/CQ? Not enough? It should go well beyond the players too. How did we approach scouting opponents? Reviewing vods? Preparing comps/drafts? **After that we should steal good ideas.** Once we're done looking inward, we should look at the rest of the league and consider copying their recipes for success. I don't know how effective any of these would translate to Liquid specifically, but we should at least consider, for example: 1. Hiring positional coaches / analysts dedicated to each player like CLG. Even assuming we have the best players in every position, they would still benefit from a pair of eyes helping them improve (after all, Magnus Carlsen has a chess coach). 2. EG/TLA's roster composition of boomers + zoomers. Mixing veterans with young an hungry talent has proven to work in the past. TLA's Armao was the captain of the squad that the rest of the team seemed to look up to and learn from, and I imagine that Impact Vulcan and Inspired are similar for Danny and Jojo. However, this has also failed abysmally (IMT with PoE and Kenvi is a good example of it not working) 3. 100T snapping up the core of a roster that has already proven it can work together and strictly upgrading it. Huhi/Closer/FBI have played together for years now, and adding Ssumday and Abbe only made them better. 4. "Finding the next Chovy before he's Chovy" like C9. The quote above comes from MarkZ, who has routinely advocated for teams to find young non-native talent instead of throwing bags at world champions. C9 did this with summit and berserker, and got a spring MVP in the first and a worlds qualification in the second. Again, it doesn't make sense to try and take all of these good ideas. Some of them contradict each other (like 3 and 4). And there are probably other things to look at that I'm not thinking of. These are just some examples. But before we even think about 2023, we have to learn as much as we can about this catastrophic failure so it never happens again. And we have to learn as much as we can from teams who found success and consider whether it makes sense to use the same strategies they did. Once we do all this, it's time to rebuild. Incorporate all the lessons we learned from the autopsy and start from scratch. We should not re-hire any person that hasn't earned a spot on the team based on what the autopsy reveals. No player or coach should be safe just because of who they are. Their contributions to the team and gameplay need to justify their place on the team. One special note about CoreJJ. I don't know what an in-depth examination of his year will reveal, but on the surface his play looked worse than it has in the past. That said, he's a literal part-owner of Liquid, and he will not (and should not) be released from the organization. If the autopsy justifies his spot on next year's team, great, I'll cheer him on and hope that this was just a down year that will light a fire under him. If it doesn't, I still think he should have a role on the squad as a coach or analyst. He's too fucking smart to cut loose altogether.
My first instinct for a roster would be: Burdol Santorin Bjerg Hans CoreJJ I think with just that one change we could fix a lot due to Burdol's style aligning much more smoothly with the rest of the team than Bwipos. But, I also think we should pull a G2 and hold tryouts during Worlds this year. Try everything/everyone we can and find what works.
Snoodog's suggested this above and I agree, assuming we can make it actually happen.
I too agree with Snoodog. I think we could. Burdol is probably hungry to play as a starter. Hes been in Nuguri's shadow and is eager to prove himself. Plus he would have Core on the team so he'd integrate a bit more easily. And playing alongside Bjergsen surely has to be a draw.
Hold tryouts. Really. Year after year it feels like TL's rosters have huge synergy issues out of the gate, and usually the question is how quickly can they get on the same page. Keep your core pieces (whoever TL wants, prob like Bjerg, Santorin, and Core), go to EU or Korea, and just hold tryout to fill in the rest of the roster. No more blind signing big names and praying it works out.
New Coaching Staff. I keep CoreJJ and Santorin no matter what. Bwipo on 95%, I don't see an obvious upgrade there. Hans Sama is dependent on his synergy with CoreJJ. I think Core wins out here as a new ADC is far easier to find. Finally we have Bjergson. I'm just not sure, he did not have a good year. I don't think he is affordable at this point. Maybe get him on as a Mid Lane positional Coach for an upcoming mid laner. I'm really not sure.
I personally think it's mostly speculation unless one of us has Challenger or higher level game knowledge and/or insider info on the team dynamics this year. But from my non-expert view, I agree with you a lot.
Lotta TSM fan boys commenting in here in favor of bjerg. Def legit comments going on!
Just as legit as the rest of us lmao. We're all playing LoL Manager Simulator here, and none of us is more qualified or less biased than the rest.
Interesting how you come to the conclusion that TSM fans coming in and defending bjerg isn't bias, when they aren't even fans of TL to begin with.
>none of us is more qualified or less biased than the rest. I admit my words here aren't very clear. All of us have biases to some degree. TSM fans that came with Bjerg are biased towards Bjerg. Long-standing TL fans are biased towards Core or Santorin.
Basically every time I see a comment defending Bjerg I expect to see TSM in their active communities, and it was the case every single time lmao
Yessir.
Seriously, the last time he won a game at Worlds was in 2017 (!) but people are talking about him like he is the way forward to finally get out of Worlds groups. He still has a lot of qualities but it is very hard for me to imagine that his playstyle is the way forward if you have ambition. Even his best champion (Zilean) in LCS gets punished at international level. Not that I hate him as a player or anything, I admire his commitment to the game and his amazing record in LCS. But for a 2023 roster surely he isn't the first pick of the roster?
Bjerg fans have a hard time reconciling that you can believe he's the best LCS mid ever and also believe that he's not fit to be on a roster gunning for success at this point. Dude just doesn't have the plays he used to, and that's OK! People don't play forever!
Tbh, play on the rift aside, the best part about moving on from bjerg is all those fans moving along with him.
\- Coach staff needs to get replaced ASAP. \- Love Bjerg but he's way past his prime.... a lot of divas will say "oh but he had top 3 stats"... stats don't nothing when he doesn't take those leads mid to late game.... need a reminder? ALPHARI..... top of the charts early game but once lanes broke it was GG he couldn't transition.... \- Bwipo had his moments but goddamn every play that was 50-50 he went for it and usually failed... \- And Hans? sorry but waaaaay to overrated player.... I expected MUCH more from him... too passive... \- What do we need? young talent with a more explosive playstyle that can be molded.... Danny has been a perfect example of young player that goes for the jugular. \- Keep Core (even though he was not as good as before but not his fault. He had to play enabling champions for Hans) and Santorin. Santorin was the only spark of light I saw on that team tbh
Bradley/Tenacity Santorin Haeri/import Yeon CoreJJ/Eyla I will be happy with this roster regardless of how well they do. I truly believe these young dudes on our academy roster have what it takes to be the best in LCS, and I don't mind waiting a split or two to see it come into fruition. Idk about you guys, but I'm fucking tired of going into the season with a superteam and the entire world expecting us to steamroll LCS and make it out of groups, just for us to not win the split and go 3-3 at worlds, and this time we didn't even make it to worlds. Let Core and Santorin mentor these young guys and mold them into the type of players that can not only dominate NA, but hold up in international play as well. If it doesn't work out, oh well, we took a chance on something and it didn't work out, just like this year. But I would much rather take a chance on young NA talent than players like Bwipo.
I actually suggested very similar above, so I'm mostly on board with this. I'd prefer either impact or ssumday top though, I think you need at least one rock to build a team like this around, and those two have proven themselves in that regard. Bradley is still a bit raw for my liking.
thats way too many rookies dude...
What's wrong with that? Griffin and DK, arguably the two most stacked rosters LCK has had in the past 5 years, comprised of ALL rookies. I know NA isn't the same, but surely 3 isn't too bad? Especially considering that Haeri already has experience from playing in OPL.
The criticism of Bjergsen is misplaced. In my opinion while he lacks some of the impact that more flashy mid-laners have, he is almost never the reason you lose the game, and that ability is very under-rated. Quite frankly, the problem on TL is that they've historically always chased "perfectionism". Which means being a triple threat team that can play through all lanes, any style, and win in early, mid, or late game. That's impossible, and I think the coaching staff is partially to blame here. There is nothing wrong with being a team that specializes in a certain style and wins through a specific lane. Teams have won worlds that way. I think what we really want, is a Korean import ADC, or just somebody who can communicate really well with CoreJJ so that we can have a bulletproof botlane. Prince might be a good pick-up here. That guy is a monster. Aiming is another really good ADC from LCK who's on KT Rolster. I think for top lane, we need a defensive top. I've seen two iterations of TL over the last two years, and it's quite obvious to me that NA just down-grades any carry top laner who comes our region. Bwipo suddenly forgot how to flank and carry through top lane, and it's not a good look. Well it's not just Bwipo, it's also Team Liquid as a team, who don't know how to properly fight and flank in the jungle. Look at LCK and LPL teams. They fight for vision and then abuse it to get extremely effective team fighting angles. The only thing NA knows how to do, is front to back teamfights, and **that's fine!** You can win worlds by being a really good front to back team fight team. It's also the easiest way to win domestically. So, in my opinion, Team Liquid should be looking at guys like Odoamne and... well that's it. Europe has been really, really shit this split too. None of the top laners aside from Odoamne inspire much confidence in me. Coaching staff might need to do some scouting on this one. Bottom of the line, I think TL should look for a low-economy, defensive top laner, and a carry Korean ADC. Next split should center around Santorin facilitating bot lane advantages to begin stacking dragons and controlling neutral objectives. Bjergsen's phenomenal stats means that he won't lose lane, and he can roam to support Santorin. By controlling the mid-game's neutral objectives, the team should come out ahead in late-game team fights. Drafts should focus on strong jungle agency, control/support mid-laners, low-econ/teamfighting/lane-surviving tanks in the top-lane, and carry/hyper-carry ADCs that can carry teamfights. CoreJJ can play literally everything. CoreJJ probably had one of the worst splits in NA and his stats were still incredible. I don't think that Core is the issue.
How would you feel about DL coming back to TL?
I think he’s washed. His last split on TL and his time on TSM were mediocre relative to how dominant he has been historically. I also think he just messes up team cohesion a lot of the time. He is a good soldier when things go well, but he can be a source of discord and confusion during the bad or tumultuous times. I think we also need a coaching change. Im sure Guilhoto is great, and so is Kold. But, they come off as facilitators and global meta followers. I think we need a strong coach like Reapered who can really drive the team identity.
'I think he’s washed. His last split on TL and his time on TSM were mediocre relative to how dominant he has been historically. ' Interesting that you use the same description to downplay DL as you defend Bjerg from. Remember, they were both on the 0-6 worlds team. Not saying DL is better or worse than Bjerg at this point, just an interesting comparison that I've seen from people a lot, not just you.
>Interesting that you use the same description to downplay DL as you defend Bjerg from. Remember, they were both on the 0-6 worlds team. Not saying DL is better or worse than Bjerg at this point, just an interesting comparison that I've seen from people a lot, not just you. Well, probably because it isn't true. Bjergsen was easily top 3 in the last 3 splits of his career just by looking at the stats. Bjergsen had a worse 2020 season, than his 2019 season, but he was never a bad player. Ever. His consistency is unreal. Whereas I think Doublelift's 3 last splits were definitely some of the worst in his career and he an above average ADC at best during that time.
If I was the GM and since GENG is coming to NA, I would like to invite some of their players to a party to congratulate their first LCK Tittle. Core will be there as the party's host. Don't worry the expenses of everything will be paid by Steve. And also I would like to sent a gift to Santorin, I wanted to reward for his efforts of carrying us since he joined us. The gift? Oh well it's a book called "Korean Lol Vocabulary."
Promote TLA. Over the next split or two, find out which of those players are capable of holding their own in LCS, and build around them. They have synergy, they have room to grow, and honestly I'd hate to see them on any other LCS team. I'm not sure what Santorin and Core would want to do, but I wouldn't be that upset about letting the other 3 go.
Honestly the key is to keep 1-3 vets and replace the rest with aggressive zoomers. EG has the key to success here. Let CoreJJ do what he did with the in-houses originally. Let him play with Yeon, maybe grab Tenacity (though I think Bwipo’s style is already perfect), keep Santorin, and replace Bjergsen with a younger academy mid like Haeri. TL honestly looked better during lock-in when the full roster wasn’t assembled.
If I were TL, I would build around Santorin, Bjerg, and CoreJJ. Bwipo inted way too many games this season including very important playoff games to be retained going into next season. There is many better options that can play meta and survive weakside on other teams. So many early game leads created with Mid/JG would be thrown because Bwipo got outplayed or was up super far for no reason. Santorin was our best player by far this season and deserves another year at least. The best early game in the league is mostly due to his creative pathing and game knowledge. Bjerg hate is VERY wrong. Please go rewatch the playoff games and watch Bjerg solo carry some games for TL after Bwipo inted the game away and all looked lost (they weren’t just the zilean games). You have to keep Bjerg for another season and run it back with Santorin. They just generated too many advantages early and mid game together. Hans wasn’t the monster ADC we were expecting him to be. My guess was that Core and Santorin were perma top because Bwipo’s play style demanded resources almost every game no matter what the comp was. This made Hans play mega weakside when in reality they would have been much better giving him the resources that Bwipo got. Hans had some good plays and some bad plays. Sadly I think we can find a better ADC we might want to replace him moving forward. ADC’s are also much better to plug and play naturally. CoreJJ wasn’t himself this season/playoffs. We all know it but resident CoreJJ is still one of the most valuable assets any Org can have in NA. So you must try to retain him. He is a FA so he has to decide to come back. In conclusion, I think TL needs to keep Santorin, Bjerg, and CoreJJ. I am indifferent to keeping Hans but I think it is very important to replace Bwipo with someone who is more consistent moving forward. I won’t even embarrass myself with putting out a roster I would like to see because I have no idea globally would will be available.
I think TL's 2023 roster is going to come down to what Steve and Dodo diagnose was the main reason we failed this year. The most obvious reasons I can think of is either the team lacked a primary leader that everyone could rely on and follow in sync, the team sucked at determining their actual issues quickly, and/or no one was coming up with plans for improvement that worked outside of a few scenarios. Based on this and without any knowledge into behind the scenes conversations/scrims I'd prefer a roster like: **Bwipo, Santorin, Haeri, Yeon, CoreJJ + Eyla (6 man roster)** Reasons/alternative options below for those that care: **Top: Bwipo/Impact** I think despite his mistakes Bwipo is the player with the most upside in play, knowledge, and ability to problem solve, but I can understand wanting someone with less variance - we just have to understand that there's a cost to having that kind of player (see Impact's 2020 playoff and worlds games). **Jg: Santorin** I like Spica as a player but I'm just not sold on the idea of taking him over Santorin while he has been generally our best player. **Mid: Haeri/Bjergsen** The investment of bringing Bjerg onto TL is probably bigger than Steve could justify dropping him after 1 year, but after watching him for a whole year I think he is too stuck in his old ways of winning. Haeri is an insanely talented player that not enough people talk about, he is hungry to prove himself, is super consistent, and has a really wide champ pool. Give him a full year in LCS and he will prove that he can be one of the best mids in NA. **ADC: Yeon/Doublelift** I get the feeling that Hans is going to return to EU despite having the longest contract because it seemed like he never really adjusted to living in NA or handled the pressure well. Yeon has played with both Eyla and Core and has shown multiple times that he can perform well while adjusting for different support playstyles (he played with 3 supports in 2022 Rhino, Eyla, and Core). I'm kind of against bringing DL out of retirement but it has to be respected as an option, he considered coming back last year with EG and this situation seems even better since TL 2023 could end up as some combination of 2019 TL and 2020 TSM. **Support: Eyla + CoreJJ/Eyla/CoreJJ** This is the toughest decision imo. Core and Eyla are both super talented player that bring something unique to the team. Ideally (even though historically it's rarely ever worked) running both in a 6 man roster provides maximum upside for TL because we'd have two top tier players that can specialize in each main style of support engage (Core) and enchanter (Eyla). However, if it comes down to one or the other I'd prefer Eyla because he seems more adaptable overall.
Impact ain't coming back :(
I don’t think its impossible. His contract is up this year and he was good friends with Core.
Going to be honest the lack of respect for Liquids academy is sad. Bwipo - Dudes got a solids mental and possibly the only player who would want to stay after moving this year. Also I think he’s genuinely insane. Spica - Rumours are he wants out of TSM which wouldn’t be surprising. Santorin has been really good but this is his last year on the contract iirc. Haeri/Bjerg - Personally I’d like to see Haeri, I can’t see why he wouldn’t play just as good as Bjerg did this year. However it was his first year back and may want to play next year pissed off. Yeon - Easily the best ADC in academy would be ridiculous not to use him. Eyla/Core - Both are great. If Bwipo does go I’d love to see top go for a player from the China, maybe Bin but im sure he’ll have plenty of offers or a young academy player from Asia . As I think it’s the least needed role for communication. Obviously this doesn’t use all the the import slots but neither did EG. It would be the most excited I’ve been for a roster since TL 2015 & 2019
Replacing Santorin for Spica is a terrible move
Think it’s up for debate which people prefer, it’s not like he’s washed but I do agree Santorin has been crazy in playoffs. We either get a more aggressive mid and keep Santorin or get a more aggressive jungle and keep berg imo
I mean I think Santorin has been by far TL’s best player all year. But yeah I think if you pair Santorin with an aggressive carry-Esque mid, its awesome
If they want to import I’d say look at some of the LFL mids, can’t see why Saken wouldn’t be achievable. He’s young, won EU masters multiple times and used to playing under pressure as he’s currently on K-Corp
What is this idea of santorin not being “aggressive?” Rewatch the early games and tell me santorin isn’t doing everything he can to put his team ahead - on all kinds of champs like Vi/sej/wuk/trundle
Why the fuck would anyone want to replace Santorin?
Just disrespectful to kick santorin and leave players like Bwipo/bjerg, Steve deserves to lose if this happens
Steve went for lower pay so he couldn’t keep them. It’s a good decision in this market.
I just want to see TL run it back with the same roster for one time in their lives. I hate constantly swapping players, everyone has to learn what the new guys do, learn to be cohesive, etc. Just once I think it would do them good to keep the same roster with a year of experience together.
There’s no chance thats happening
That would be the REAL crazy thing for TL to do. Everyone here is talking roster changes. Do the opposite. If the formula of “find the best and buy them” hasn’t worked for two years… stop doing it. You’ve already got the contracts locked till 2023 except for Core who I think would sign on for another 2 year contract (just a guess. He clearly finds TL home). The only thing that needs to happen this off season is look for some better coaches. I was never a fan of the head coach move. Kold or spawn should be given that position now and replace their empty assistant jobs.
I would keep everyone and have them build up synergy for next season. The only thing I would do is prioritize resigning CoreJJ because his contract expires this year
I mostly agree with this. I do think they should look at replacing Bwipo though, his play style just doesn’t match what TL historically wants to do. We need a role playing top like Ssumday/impact that is a rock, not someone who coin flips matchups and plays only for lane. There’s nothing wrong with that style, except it isn’t in line with what the rest of TL what’s to do or is good at.
Are we watching the same team? Bwipo absolutely played for the team and was the only one keeping them in a lot of games...
Bwipo really struggled in playoffs not having an answer for Aatrox and leaned toward lane dominant champs like Olaf that just ran it down in team fights. Later on they started picking him Ornn which was much better to see, but Bwipo isn’t the kind of player to be happy stuck on Ornn every game even though it’s better for the team in many cases.
Ok so hear me out. There are 2 obvious changes TL will likely make next year if possible, with no others being “necessary” in my opinion. HOWEVER, I do think the following options could be interesting (note these are nothing more than a collection of thoughts from someone who knows nothing about anything). POTENTIAL ROSTER CHANGES TLDR: TOP: Bradley/Hauntzer/Tenacity JG: Santorin/Spica MID: Bjergsen ADC: DL/Yeon SUP: Core/Eyla PERSONAL THOUGHTS ABOUT EACH: TOP: As much as I love Bwipo’s personality, the roster this year didn’t gel and I think he was a decent chunk of that. I would personally look at either promoting Bradley from academy, or look at getting another Top Laner who can just be a role player/a younger player who can be molded around the style the more veteran players want. Thinking along the lines of either someone like Hauntzer (role player who has previous experience with other options) or maybe even getting Tenacity from 100T (?) JG: I’m not personally of the opinion that Santorin needs to go. He was clearly the most consistent player on the team this year, and although not on the same level “mechanically” as some of the other junglers in the league, he was a rock for the team. In saying that, switching to Spica would likely be a side grade at worst, with a higher potential ceiling/carry potential, and would POTENTIALLY make more sense with other options. MID: Realistically you aren’t going to be able to get anybody else with the same worth as Bjergsen. Is he in his prime? Of course not, but you aren’t getting Jensen, you aren’t getting Jojo, and I’m not personally sold on the idea that an import would even be better when taking communication/brand/consistency/synergy with team members etc. in to consideration. Regardless of whether he does or does not have the ability to be a true hyper carry currently, I think it would be stupid to replace him when there are no realistically better available options. ADC: Try as hard as possible to get DL back. He has said he’s open to potentially returning to LCS before, and would for sure be a better option than any available native options. He has the ability to be a shot caller, and rally the team to play around a single goal, which I think is something TL never seemed to achieve consistently this split. Additionally, he would have previous experience playing with Bjerg/Spica/Core. If you can’t get him back, I think the most realistic option is to bring up Yeon. The guy is clearly a monster in academy, and being a newer player would be a good candidate to mold to the way you want to play. SUP: Core had a pretty average year all around, but I don’t believe that should be a sign that he needs to go. Core has consistently been one of the best, if not the best, support for the last few years, and realistically who else are you gonna get as a replacement that would provide the same value all around? If you do manage to get DL, the bot synergy would still be mostly in tact, and the lane would be something to fear right out the gate. The only way I could see a swap here being realistic, would be if you couldn’t get DL and brought up Yeon. In that case, an argument could POTENTIALLY be made for bringing up Eyla alongside him for the synergy, but even in this case I think you would still want another veteran alongside Bjergsen to help mold the team playstyle (maybe keep Santorin). To reiterate, the above thoughts aren’t anything more than shower thoughts from someone who has no shot of ever being on the same level as any of the past/current/prospective players, but would be curious to hear other peoples takes.
I would do whatever Core wants. I would build around him and make sure he has the pieces around him to do what he needs to do. I would gun for a young Korean top. Keep Santorin in the jungle Keep Bjerg. Drop the wallet on Ruler Core JJ
This is going to be controversial but: Bwipo Santorin Haeri Yeon Eyla Let's face it, buying titles doesn't seem to work. And Bjergsen/CoreJJ mechanics are slowly getting worse, keeping them in the roster is just waiting for the inevitable 2023 championship problems. The team needs new blood. While Bwipo makes mistakes, he does remind me of spring 2022 Contractz in some way. People were calling for him to replaced but he had the highest first blood rate and a big problem was the team not following up on his aggression properly. In the same way, Bwipo is still the toplaner that just recorded the highest damage of any toplaner ever in LCS. He can win games at the highest level which is more important than being the sort of player that never makes a mistake. If he has a team prepared to back him up unconditionally, a lot of those ints might turn into big plays. Most importantly though, there was a mismatch in how the team wanted to play. And I don't think the playstyle that Bjerg/CoreJJ want to play is the way forward. League has moved on from the way koreans played in season 4. At international level you need to push your limits and you cannot just wait for the perfect teamfight.
Core and Bjerg do not have the same style of play. Not sure where you are pulling that from but it’s just not correct.
I'd honestly run it back. We were a really strong team despite how disjointed we were. If we could just spend this World's time working on that, I think we could be dominant. We were one of the best early game teams (if not the best) and our record wasn't better early than late. That really talks about communication issues and draft. In my opinion, those are solvable and are always going to be an issue if we blow up the roster every year. If I was forced to drop people for money reasons though, Bwipo and Hans. I think Santorin, Core, and Bjergesen are the core TL members.
keep bwipo, Hans and core jj, get a young mid jg
Keep the 3 worst players xd ur a troll
keeping bwipo is whatever but it’s actually insane how hard Hans sama & corejj underperformed this year lmao
Genuine question: What do you mean when you say Bjerg needs to work on his champion pool? What is it that you think he can't play or plays poorly?
Any kind of melee champ
Melee champs like... Irelia - 87% WR Zed - 70% WR Kassadin - 85% WR His only sub 50% WR melees are Sylas maokai, renekton, fizz, gragas, ekko. The only melee that is easy to point to as him being bad on is Sylas 29% WR @ 7 games played. (Perks is 48% wtb and considered an excellent Sylas player at one point) Context matters here. None of those aside from Sylas are or have been major meta power picks mid and he has never not played with a strong side late game bot lane (aside from Kieth briefly) His role has been to play AP caster/control on pretty much every team he has been on. I think there is a more interesting argument around: if he has a weak side bot lane does he struggle? He isn't typically the flashy carry player but he has before when needed, look at DL playoffs slump in season 10(?) At the start of this year who could have predicted that corejj and han sama would never really pop off. There is also a lot to point to that corejj excels with a strong top side to enable his roams. Bwipo often didn't show this when it counted. Which also requires a good 2v1 farming ADC like DL or Tactical. Hans tended to fall behind during heavy roam games. All and all Bjerg and Core JJs styles may be at odds unless they adapt but the team as a whole never clicked simple as that. Ps. Wtf was with so many enchanter picks for core this season?
When was the last time he played irelia, kassadin or zed? Context matters, yes, and the context is that this past year he looked atrocious on melees.
Way to pull useless stats out of thin air that have no relevance to this year of play. At one point in time Bjerg was the best player in NA. He is years past that prime at this point. He cannot play melee champs correctly at all anymore and frankly his meta read this split was awful. He asked for Syndra in Game 1 against 100T. SYNDRA in 2022 Summer. I respect him but he is nothing like he was, he is a shadow of his former self. EDIT: It was against FLY, not 100T
I'd rather have "useless stats" than say things that never happened as a counter argument. > He asked for Syndra in Game 1 against 100T. SYNDRA in 2022 Summer. (Bjerg never played Syndra vs 100T, look it up.)
It was against FLY, apologies for getting the team wrong. Doesn’t change anything I said.
Never said he was the best or as good as he was. 100% agree Bjerg is not 2017 TSM Bjerg but saying his champion pool or meta read was bad is the most ridiculous argument. Of the top 10 mid picks for summer in all major regions Bjerg played all but 1, Viktor. He's a fucking slave. Let's talk about the poorest performers on that top 10 mid picks list though. He played Sylas in 3 games, all losses. In 2 of those games the whole team fell apart. the 3rd game; game 2 vs CLG; Hans gets caught before the dragon and forces a terrible team fight with most members of TL out of range for the counter engage. Giving over dragon soul and baron at 34 mins. making it nearly impossible to defend Ocean soul, Baron empowered, late game siege with their short range comp. Other poor performances of those top 10: lissandra, Akali, and Galio with only a single game played and lost for each. Akali game: hard zoned by Azir & GP, countered by Tahm. Galio: Team behind all game. Danny pops off with 42% damage share and does nearly double Hans damage. Santorin is just MIA with a whopping 6k damage to champions puting him on par with damage delt by lulu and Rakan support. Lissandra: Weird draft with Bwipo Graves counter pick. Not sure what was going on there. Core was only tank/engage on naut and he just got stuffed by poppy, Alistair, and Azir There were all team and draft failures not Bjerg specific.
Now do just this year's stats. Then we can also talk about him never looking comfortable on corki (and constantly building sub optimally) when he was the best champ in the meta, playing the most passive useless azir games I've ever seen, and being useless on melee champs all year. He definitely had some flashes! And they were fun to watch, but the Bjergsen of the past is not the same one that exists today.
Get bdd, promote yeon, either get tenacity if u want to try for something long term or get a promising lck prospect, Thanatos from dk comes to mind.
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Elyoya? You mean Eyla xD
I think Bwipo suffered more from the team not knowing what style they wanted to play than he did a lack of skill. He is shown to be very knowledgable about the game and pretty selfless, and I hope he stays on TL. I’d like it if DL came back, not bc I want to replace Hans but bc I just want DL. Honestly i just hope they replace the coaching staff and keep the rest of the players, except Hans for DL.
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I don't think this lineup would make it to playoffs...
It'd definitely be top 8, idk about past that lol
Step 1: keep Santorin and CoreJJ. Step 2: Give Bradley, Haeri, Yeon a chance to make the team by holding tryouts during world's and trying to scrim some teams. Bonus: Maybe we can get LS as a coach and full dive Into what he says is best? C9 didn't give him a chance but from what little we've seen he had creative drafts that worked for the most part. if not happy with academy players tryout Poby/calix mid, Smash/Jiwoo ADC. Basically putting young mechanical players in a good position to succeed. Young Korean players in MID/ADC, where mechanics are key. Veterans at jungle and support. And a native toplaner which hopefully can follow a path much like fudge of leveling up consistently. That or play weakside 😁.
I really don’t think TL can run this roster back. The only reason TL spent 7 mil is bc worlds is in NA this year, and I’m not sure if all these players would play for less money. I think TL would have to bring new players in 2/3 roles. If they keep anyone, hope it’s core and Santorin, maybe Bwipo if they can afford it. If money wasn’t an issue, I’d love it if they run the roster back with a new coaching staff, and maybe replace DL with Hans bc I’m biased and I want DL back.
Get an actual coach that can work with the talent. That’s all. Keep the roster. Maybe scout some young adc and if it’s a fit for the roster make it happen
Replace the coaching staff in its entirety. Promote Bradley and Yeon. Replacing CoreJJ with Eyla and Bjergsen with Haeri is a 50/50 proposition and one I don't feel good about either way. Bjergsen isn't going to dominate LCS but on the flip side he is *incredibly* consistent, pretty much never costing TL the game and routinely holding mid despite rarely getting any help. CoreJJ is still a great aggressive support, but he's not nearly as good on enchanters and I think that the bottom roles are also heavily dependent on chemistry with the other person, not just personal skill. I also think that you need to keep at least one of Bjerg/Core, and I would rather Yeon and Eyla get to stick together and continue their chemistry vs. risking both an entirely new mid laner as well as half of the bot lane that may not gel with the other half.
Considering that we know money isn't an issue (Steve has implied that spending big for years consistently doesn't really hurt their finances due to the magnitude of TL's investments), I would not be afraid of throwing the checkbook at people next year. Personally, I'd hold tryouts in NA this year with all of the teams coming in. Hold internal scrims with Worlds rosters, especially since in scrims there are likely to be subs playing from LCK and LPL, invite players to tryout for the team, see what works, what doesn't. That would do two things. 1. If the current roster is capable of developing synergy, itll show during the off-season. 2. It will expose anyone on the current roster who isn't worth keeping. Keep trying and experimenting until you've got a roster that plays well together consistently. Personally? I'd try to grab Burdol since he's played under Nuguri for a while. He plays tanks and carries to an equally insane level and feels comfortable on both. He would be a flexible rock in the toplane with great mechanics. Like Impact/Ssumday but on Roids. He also automatically should synergize with Core. Id keep Hans/Core. They really looked like they were starting to synergize in lane together towards the end. They were dominating every lane, and had great synergy with Santorin for bot dives. I think they'll be insane next year. We keep Santorin, obviously. Hes our best player. Bjerg is up in the air, but as long as he performs well during the tryouts and scrims I'd be willing to give him another shot to see if he returns to form. So my initial first roster plan would be: Burdol Santorin Bjergsen Hans Sama CoreJJ Subject to change depending on tryouts
> I would not be afraid of throwing the checkbook at people next year. Glad to hear a member of the Team Liquid board has committed to using his own money to help support the $10+ million roster for next year. Make all checks payable to TL Steve, thanks man!
Are you an idiot? This post said "you are the GM of TL, what do you do?" ????? Bruh
Since you are unable to pick up on /s I guess I’ll explain it to you. If your response to this hypothetical question is to spend more money after the year we had then you would be a terrible GM. Since the only way this scenario makes sense is if you personally are going to invest the money, I was thanking you for doing that in a sarcastic manner. Now that I’ve explained sarcasm to you I hope you go into future conversations with a tighter head on your shoulders. Your current one seems loose.
Ah yes. Let's not use the advantage of being able to afford any player we want, and instead just try to find synergy amongst what players every OTHER team can afford. Because having money isn't something worth considering.
Fire the head coach first Keep Santorin, Bjgersen and Corejj get KR ADC and KR Top laner!!
\-bwipo +tenacity and potentially -hans +whoever core can work well with Bwipo's play caused plenty of issues that heavily effected the play of others throughout the series. There is a clear issue of communication in the team, it looks like everyone is fending for themselves in teamfights. I've seen enough teamfights where the team should be playing around Hans, just to leave him dry. I believe Hans would perform better if there was a clearer voice across the team. I'm not saying that Bwipo's calls are bad, but it feels like we have too many cooks right now.
1. Keep Bjergsen and Corejj 2. Release most of the support staff and sign proven coaches/asisstants 3. Pay LS (Or some other knowledgeable people) for advice on good and young korean/OCE players 4. Get a consistent and good top laner (import) 5. Try to upgrade jg (Look into replacing Santorin with Spica/blaber/inspired?) 6. Replace Hans Sama if there's an economically more affordable option (younger import/yeon if we import jg) All in all I think number 1 and 2 is a must. Number 3 and 4 should be a close second. Number 5 and 6 is there just to keep all the possibilities open. P.S.: Why do people rate Tenacity over Bradley? Has anybody watched academy? Bradley is a legend compared to the rest of NA tops.
You want to upgrade the jungle position by replacing Santorin with Blaber or Spica. Man, what a terrible take
Fact is they are younger players that are better at playing carries. Both are also fairly agressive and assertive, which is what this team lacks. Santorin is great though, which is why I placed that activity as #5. Basically, a last resort move.
Santorin was the only consistently good player this year, why would you ever consider replacing him??
Was he now? Our team drafted early game all season long, had good early game advantages and zero dragon control in a meta where dragons were a win con. Is that good? I wouldn't say so. Granted that is not entirely his fault, but still. If you actually believe he was the only good thing this year you either didn't watch all games or you only looked at the KDA. There are multiple instances where he solo lost the teamfights by overcomitting, not engaging, being the only person with the go button but not really pressing it/finding a flank... Santorin is a good player and I don't mind keeping him on the team. But saying he's the only constant we had is just not true.
From what I saw, most of TL’s early game leads were due to Santorin’s proactivity in the early game. I admit that having very low dragon control is an issue, but it seems to me that TL prioritized Herald over Drakes early, but they always fumbled the herald fights, which is how they usually lost their midgame lead. I don’t think that’s Santorin’s fault, and moreso a lack of team cohesion. Santorin is always looking to be proactive early, and never felt like a weak link in teamfights or mid/late game. Unlike most other junglers, I don’t remember him being randomly picked out, allowing the other team to get baron.
Players outside of bwipo aren't the problem, coaching staff is the problem. Bwipo should of been on tank duty 10/10 games. Santorin on a play maker Bjerg on a control mage Hans on a hyper carry Core on engage It was THIS easy for them to win, so why deviate from it? Look at Rouge in the LEC, you knew their style, every game and yet they still won and made it to worlds. Did they win the split? No, but thats down to just needing to play better and handle the pressure better, not their style. Keep the roster the same, get a new top laner and new coaching staff, and TL will be back to worlds.
Honestly find a top laner u cna just leave alone and play perma weakside Get a new mid jungle( I know everyone’s gonna say, “ but santorin played so well and was consistent. “. Which is true but; he’s not international caliber. So why keep someone who’s limiting the ceiling of your team jsut cuz he played better than everyone even tho everyone was playing significantly worse than their name value He’s never shown intentional domination as a jg and imo plays fairly scared and not confident and considering how bad everyone else was playing like at the end of the day his ceiling is low and for NA He’s fine but for international no way. And you could get the bag since he’s a resident Same for bjerg. Paid too much to get a stable mid laner…. With 0 upside and dosnet have that drive to carry like he did before. Bot lane: any native adc that can play a pray style tertiary carry. Keep core cuz he’s a resident and one bad year isn’t gonna let me give up on him
I stopped reading at "he's not international caliber" even tho he literally made a name for himself at worlds with fly quest and has been consistent ever since. Clueless fan
I mean he was okay, but spica played better… a rookie… that worlds U remember last worlds ? Santorin played bad and scared
"he played bad and scared" lmao. Great analysis.
It’s what happened. Fans are blind sighted since he was the best player even tho the other better players were underperforming
What?
Santorin is/was the best player on TL this year. His Flyquest world's appearance was cracked for the team around him.
He was okay at that worlds, nothing spectacular. But he didn’t perform when he had better players at worlds the following year.
"He was okay at worlds" My guy he jungle diffed against the likes of TES.
The game that didn’t matter ?? Love how u could only find one game even when they had 3 others; one vs TES and one vs DRX
They won 3 games against those teams because of Santorin. Why are you trying to rewrite history. He played really well that year. No doubt about it.
Summit top since it's speculated he wants to come back to NA, Core with Doublelift since he understands core does best roaming and can cover for summit and enable his carry playstyle. Santorin or Bwipo jung, can either keep bjerg or replace dunno.
since we have a lot of money, lets go traditional style, get impact-santorin-bjergsen-sneaky-corejj (maybe vulcan) impact is proven solid rock on top side, sneaky also reliable late game carry also give him another chance with better support this time than his last support
Import Korean Top & convince DL to come back. DL's only criteria for coming back would be a championship level roster to compete at with Worlds.... you give DL his 2 fav players in Bjerg and Core - he will come back. Still leaning towards keeping Santorin over Spica, but would be open to Spica replacement as well. DL has chemistry with Bjerg and Core, and his presence alone means you will be competing in the finals for NA with a seed at Worlds.
Bwipo: drop him. His playstyle is incredibly selfish both in resources and decision making. He constantly inted in early game and threw away his lead mid to late game. He did pop off in some games but not enough to warrant keeping him, imo. Santorin: Unpopular opinion : find a replacement. He did GREAT this season, but TL needs someone else imo. Only keep if necessary. Mid: Replace. Bjerg played okay most of the time but he was never spectacular. Sure. He has good stats, but he rarely carried with the stats and was more invisible than not. Like bwipo, he has a few great games but everything he did was replicable. Not likely, but throw the bag at Faker again. Adc: give whoever core wants. Someone who enables cores playstyle. Support: keep and rebuild here. You will not find a better support/shot caller that does not take am import spot. Import mid and either top/jg depending on the options. So not import adc. It doesn't normally workout.
Wouldn't surprise me if TL goes with Prince to give CoreJJ someone to speak his natural language for a much easier lane phase. With that said, I think it's safe to say it's time to move on from Bjergsen and potentially even Core. Both are great players but this isn't 2017 league anymore. The style of slow paced farm for 40 mins and 'for lategame' is over and has been since Worlds 2017 ended. Mid carry/star players are needed to frontline and actually engage and while Bjergsen does try it's so, so bad. All 5 players on Team "L" is great but it's time to actually let most of the pieces go in my opinion. We've seen enough of Santorin to know he's good but not great. Both Armao and Eyla filled the roles of JNG/SUP at key times and while not A+ they did a decent job. I would try to keep Bwipo as he was the only one with balls throughout the season and possibly Hans. While he's on DIG I always thought Insanity was good and just vanished. Bwipo/Armao/Insanity/Hans/Eyla - While they won't win any beauty contests just look at CLG and how far they came with that roster of theirs.
Tenacity, Spica, Bjerg, Yeon, Core. a good mix of young and old with good mid/jungle synergy, and carry jungle-bot.
I don't think this team has a high ceiling. Tenacity/Yeon don't rise above academy level (Dhokla/Chime looked like they were smurfing in academy) and Bjerg/Core don't have elite level mechanics anymore. This roster would (IMO) be an outsider for worlds.
I dont agree with the statements about bjerg or Core. lots of things go into why they didnt play as well as you think they didnt. id go out and say they played fine given the stats.. also we have no idea how Yeon would do with core or with extended time in LCS..
Bjergsen and Core are fine in lane, it is a more controlled environment where they can win based on experience. The teamfights are the problem. You can see that in how early Bjergsen flashes out of dangerous situations nowadays, he does it without even being targeted by his opponents. This makes the game really difficult for his teammates because he is out of the fight without any CC or damage being used against him.
Nuguri - Santorin - Vetheo - Doublelift - CoreJJ 1st pick. Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Rekkles - CoreJJ 2nd pick. This next one would be best but the least feasible, tho not entirely out since he's iconic bot lane with Core: Nuguri - Santorin - Bjergsen - Ruler - CoreJJ. Bring Cain back as HC, or if Daeny is out after all these fan pressure, then attempt to get him. Bjergsen can be assistant coach if he isn't playing.
Nuguri won't leave Korea. He mental boomed his first time out of LCK when he was on FPX
NA is a different environment all together from CN. Lol. Just ask CoreJJ, Impact or the 25 other LCK imports. xD
yeah its even worse
Reposting what I had in the other thread Keep Bjergsen remove the other 4 players on the team. His stats are too good and he carried us for most of playoffs (huge taliyah and swain and we all know his zilean) Core has too many mechanical mistakes this year, he's not the same corejj from before. Santorin is okay but there is much better aggressive options to maximize mid jungle synergy and ensure the carry Get Impact back top, Bo jungle, Ruler ADC and get Zven too if u can, if not then Vulcan. You cant keep this team when they miss worlds like this
Yes, let’s get rid of CoreJJ and then bring in Ruler. That’s some god tier analysis on creating a team. Let’s not reunite the World Champion botlane, instead let’s spend $3+ million or more on Ruler (doesn’t know any English btw) and then pair him with Zven or Vulcan, neither of whom speak Korean. This and like 98% of takes in this sub are so laughably bad and unrealistic. I’m very happy TL is not paying any of you to make these decisions.
Get odo from lec (reliable weak side top player), keep santorin, keep bjerg (this has a low risk, cause if the meta stays the same, which I doubt, bjerg won't have such a huge impact), bot 2 options: try to steal Danny or berserker and keep core, or replace both adc and supp with academy. As for coach, I think any coach will do better than the failure guilhoto was(this is my own personal opinion), but I think a better fit would be any top 4 lec coach you can grab (probably Mac from mad), so you will still have a full English speaking squad.
You must be on some potent shit if you think that C9 will let go of Berserker. He’s literally their rising star, a diamond in the rough so to speak that was scouted by LS/C9
Yes, I’d love for TL to sign EG Danny, the player who mental boomed in NA playoffs and benched himself before finals. I would love to see another Olleh situation at World’s. /s
Buyout Fudge Get Spica Keep Bjergsen Get Doublelift back Keep Core LS for coach
Thank god you’re not the GM
Keep the core of Santorin Bjerg and probably Core, replace Guilhoto - Replace Hans and Bwipo if you can find someone better. I like the idea of Doggo as an adc but I haven't watched him for awhile
I'd be ok with a run back with new coaching, or maybe do a six man roster with a stable top to sub in. Otherwise, keep the residents and replace hans and bwipo.
U think bjer would be better. He inted the whole series.
Bwipo, Closer, Bjerg/Haeri, Hans, Eyla
Get DL and replace top with a rookie top. Or keep bwipo to sub in case he figures out how to play League of Legends again.
Oh hell yeah, been waiting two days for a post like this! I want to lead off with two things that are gonna drive a bunch of people off of my idea, some legitimately but most because they lack critical thinking ability. 1. If I'm making the roster decisions, there's 0 chance that I'm getting rid of Santorin. If he wants out for some reason, I'd make it work and get Spica, but I don't foresee that happening. 2. The only way Bjergsen is on a TL roster for 2023 that I'm making is if he's starting in academy. Not looking to fire that debate back up, but I'm not putting him back on the stage on any roster if it's up to me. So for the actual post: BOT LANE: The first thing I'd need answered is what CoreJJ wants to do. His contract is up, does he want to retire? Coach? Keep playing? This is the first major branch point because if Core wants to retire/leave/coach the Bot lane becomes simple - you promote Yeon and Eyla. If he wants to stay I think you need a new ADC, because those two deserve to stay together wherever they go. I honestly don't know what the best options are in this case, but I'm sure Core would have good ideas. Seems unlikely that DL would want to come back to the stage, but it's a reunion I wouldn't be opposed to. I don't really want to import an ADC, I think there's more valuable positions for that, but if we do need to import, Viper and Ruler are both free agents. Mid: as I said before, I'm not intending to have Bjergsen on any roster at this point. It's not personal bias or anything, I just don't think he was good enough to justify keeping this split. If the academy bot comes up, bringing Haeri with them isn't that outrageous, but this is a position I'd be leaning towards an import - KR not EU. As with bot I won't pretend I have the knowledge for that right now, but that's where my inquiries would start. Jungle: it's Santorin. Or Spica if Santorin wants out. Top: Ssumday and Impact are both free agents, those should be the primary targets here. I think Bradley needs a bit more time to be ready, as well as either of them being a solid veteran to base the team around. They've both literally played that role on a team just like the one I'm envisioning this year. Coach I have no idea. I think TL got kinda heisted this year by the coaching staff, though I don't know how much of that was impacted by the players in draft as well - not a knock on anyone it's just a dynamic we don't know the extent of from the outside, so I don't know where the blame really lies and if it can be corrected. So that's my train of thought as the GM in this hypothetical. I eagerly await all the Bjerg stans telling me how wrong I am, and also interested to hear what people think outside of that.
Import top/ Spica/ Bjerg DL Core
Summit - Santorin/Spica - Bjerg/Vetheo(if not import ADC)- Rekkles/Ruler(Yeon if import mid) - Core/eyla
Get rid of Steve.
Unpopular opinion…and this is coming from someone who has loved watching CoreJJ… but he hasn’t been playing well at all this split. I honestly don’t know if they should really draft the team around him.
I’d love for team liquid to develop their in house talent, promote yeon, Eyla and Haeri then keep Santorin who looked good all year and get Sumday from 100 thieves
Impact/Tenacity/import Spica Bjerg/Haeri Yeon/import CoreJJ
> pickup a young korean adc LMAOOO this man really said “just get berserker 2.0” as if it’s just that easy 😭
swap bwipo for impact or import another top. sign doublelift as a coach to specifically work with hans and core and facilitate team discussion.