Gank Esports

This Saturday we will see the first quarterfinal matchup of the NALCS. After what was a long day of tie breakers in the final day of the regular season, we have the 4th seed Team Liquid facing off against the 5th seed C9. Memes aside it’s hard to believe where both teams ended the regular season. C9 looked like one of the more dominant teams throughout the split then faltered towards the end. Team Liquid a roster put together with intentions to compete at the international level has struggled to be consistent. These two teams will face off to earn a spot in the semi-finals and come one step closer to representing North America at MSI. Now it’s time for the bold prediction. Putting regular season results aside and the fact that the league reverted to best of 1s, it’s difficult to create a good evaluation of these teams. Going based purely off player history and dealing with high pressure situations it seems as though the Team Liquid roster holds the edge over Cloud 9. Altho...

     Was TSM’s botlane the problem? It’s hard to say. Swapping the best North American botlane for the best European botlane might sound nice, but is it the change the team needs? The 2016 Summer Split iteration of TSM looked like the most dominant North American team since Cloud 9 first came onto the scene. They were hardly challenged domestically until they headed to the world championship where they failed to make it out of groups.    This version of TSM were at their best when they were proactive in the early game. This seemed to be a product of the dual decisive shotcalling from Bjergsen and Doublelift. TSM failed to adapt to a different playstyle when taken off their comfort picks. The TSM of 2017 were looking to mend those errors by adopting different styles and playing unique champions.    This led to a more methodical version of TSM who looked to stall out the game rather than d...

It seems that the name of Team Liquid’s most recent acquisition sums up the organization perfectly, InsanityXXX. There once was a time that Team Liquid was a competitive League of Legends team but that just is not the case anymore. On the surface it seems as though the Team Liquid Organization is willing to acquire top talent, but the problem is they do not know how to use it. During the 2016 offseason, it looked as though on paper Liquid would be in contention for top 3 in the NA LCS; however, for some reason the team just never seemed to be successful. It appears as though Liquid these days makes announcements more for fan reaction, rather than long term competitive success. We constantly hear new headlines about player acquisitions, but nothing really about team culture or changes to infrastructure to bring out the best in their players. In the Team Liquid YouTube video series there was a constant teaser to a new person being part of the roster. To the surprise of m...