Team Liquid fail to make it to the World Championships yet again
The Curse of Team Liquid
One month ago, Team Liquid were poised to make 2015 their year. They built up a solid roster, perhaps the best pound-for-pound in all of North America, and were at the top of the League of Legends Championship Series standings heading into the playoffs.
They then proceeded to lose to Team SoloMid in the semifinals. Counter Logic Gaming’s emphatic win in the finals shut TL out of qualifying for the World Championships via their accumulated points. TL would have to beat one more team in the Regional Qualifier to advance.
It just so happened that the one team they had to face was Cloud 9, who saved their own abysmal season with a miracle run that saw them go from 7th place to a Worlds qualified team. Once again, the team formerly known as Curse lives up to their old moniker.
Many fans (yours truly included) were devastated by this outcome as Liquid had come a long way from last year’s heartbreaking loss to LMQ in which they also missed out on qualifying for Worlds by a hair. In fact, here are 5 reasons Liquid should have made Worlds.
Their roster
Christian “IWDominate” Rivera. Diego “Quas” Ruiz. Kim “Fenix” Jae-hoon. Chae “Piglet” Gwang-jin. Alex “Xpecial” Chu.
Each of these names would be in the top 3 list per position of any serious analyst looking at the North American scene. Piglet is a world champion teaming up with perhaps the greatest support player NA has ever seen. Dominate worked his way back up from being banned for a year and is now the most well-rounded jungler in his region. TL amassed such a huge pool of talent, and yet they won’t get to showcase it against the rest of the world.
SK Telecom ‘reunion’
Piglet’s world championship win came when he was on SK Telecom in Season 3. When SKT’s less than stellar 2014 season ended, Korea was swept up in a wave of change that saw many of its top talents bought out by the rest of the world (most notably China.)
Of his old teammates, only Bae “bengi” Seong-ung and the Demon King Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok remain on SKT, but the possibility of Piglet potentially facing them on the Rift or just hanging out with his old pals again will be denied.
They already broke the curse
For those of you who aren’t familiar, Liquid is the rebranded Team Curse, which is a team that always seemed destined to be 4th place in North America. It had never placed higher in its history as a team.
In the Spring Split of 2015 however, Liquid achieved a decisive 3rd place finish, and in the summer they topped the Regular Season standings, something unprecedented in the team’s history. But it seems like no matter how hard they try, the 4th place curse still follows the team around.
Xpecial’s 4-peat
Xpecial’s time on TSM had given him 3 consecutive World Championship appearances. Had Liquid been able to qualify this year, Xpecial would join a rather exclusive club of players in terms of Worlds attendance numbers.
As one of the all-time greatest western support players in the history of the game, not seeing Xpecial make any clutch plays on the big stage is rather saddening.
This play
Is there anything more to say? The possibility of Fenix pulling out another god-level Azir play at Worlds is gone now.
Liquid = Tears
That Worlds will be without a western team of this caliber is a true travesty, especially with how weak the past two champions, TSM and Cloud 9, have been performing all Summer Split long. As it stands though, Liquid still failed to make the cut.
The story of Liquid’s 2015 run will go down in League of Legends history as one of the biggest missed opportunities by an organization. It only compounds with the realization that this team has come so close to making it onto the grand stage twice in a row.
As TL now sits on the sidelines until the next split, fans will have to be content with staying salty and perhaps borrowing some faith from CLG fans who no longer need it.
For an inside look on how TL’s players are dealing with the loss, watch the video below:
Photos taken from Inven and lolesports.com
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