The top-rated article on the League of Legends subreddit today is “the hate on YS is hard to believe” referring to Yellowstar, Team Solo Mid’s support player. TSM has been having a bit of a rough time, losing games they should have had in the bag, or being outplayed by lesser teams. The blame often falls on Yellowstar, once one of the best shot callers in the world and known for piloting a Fnatic that won five out of six splits and went undefeated in the 2015 Summer Split. Now, he’s barely holding together the former kings of the NA LCS.
TSM was supposed to be the best team coming into season six. Reginald, TSM’s owner, created a roster with some of the best talent from Europe and North America. He brought in CLG’s god-tier ADC Doublelift, and two of the most consistent European players, Hauntzer and Svenskeren. Regi made sure there was no language barrier, which was a major problem with last year’s support, Lustboy. He brought in KC Woods a professional baseball coach (who was later fired) and a sports psychologist to unify these all-stars.
They only started playing together a few days before the season started, so nobody really expected anything out of the gate. Right now we are one week away from playoffs and TSM is sitting firmly at fourth place after some embarrassing losses.
So what’s happening with TSM, and why aren’t they living up to expectations, like Immortals? There is no way to know what’s going on behind the scenes; we only get brief snippets of information that may not contain the whole picture. At IEM this year, TSM had their scrims accidentally broadcast live on the Garena stream for 8 minutes. This is the only look we have had behind the scenes. Bjergsen is the one making calls for most of the game, with Yellowstar and Doublelift making some of the quick micro plays.
At the start of the season, I told my friends that TSM would be the greatest team in NA if they could keep their egos in check. Doublelift and Bjergsen are two of the most outspoken players in professional play. CLG kicked off Doublelift for having a “negative attitude” and being difficult to work with according to Aphromoo, CLG’s support. Bjergsen has always had a cocky attitude, and used to get in fights with TSM’s old coach Locodoco. In last season’s TSM Legends , you can see how heatedly they fought over picks and strategies, while the rest of the team stares on in silence.
There have been a lot of bad performances from TSM recently. At IEM, they lost to Ever, a Challenger Series team, in a massive upset during the first round. They eventually went on to beat them, only to get slaughtered 0-3 against the Korean gods SK Telecom. The most recent disaster of a game happened yesterday against Renegades, the tenth-place team in the NA LCS. TSM as a whole were uncoordinated, easy prey for a team hungry for a win. A lot of the Yellowstar hate came from this game, where his weaknesses on the team were quite apparent. His engages weren’t followed up and he got caught being somewhere he shouldn’t have been multiple times.
Living up to the legacy of Team Solo Mid can’t be easy. Dyrus, Reginald, Wildturtle, Xpecial and TheOddone were the original dream team and won events around the world. They were arguably one of the best League of Legends teams of seasons two and three. Filling those shoes can’t be easy, and League fans tend to turn on you just as quickly as they jumped on your bandwagon.
TSM is most definitely making it to the playoffs, but how far they get is a whole other story. I am a huge TSM fanboy from their glory days, but this team just isn’t working. They need to find a way to utilize Yellowstar as a proper shot caller, let Bjergsen take the seat for a change and let the Frenchman that dominated Europe take the wheel. Their team fights need to get cleaner. TSM lost to Ever in a super late game team fight where the tanks of TSM strayed to far from the back line and got caught, making the cleanup a breeze. Staying coordinated can be easy if Yellowstar makes the calls.Most importantly, they need to keep their egos at bay. I have no idea if they are actually the way they act in the public eye, but it sure seems that way. TSM seems to tilt harder than any other team, and they need to get that under control or there’s no way they stand a chance of earning another LCS split banner.
