Trouble in Paradise for TSM

Team Solo Mid is a team known by League of Legends fans the world over. The strong brand its built since the humble days of www.solomid.net have afforded the organization a reputation so all-encompassing that fans will chant “T-S-M!” even if the team isn’t actually at the event.

Not only are they popular, but TSM is the most successful team in the history of the North American LOL scene. Coming off their 3rd LCS title and winning IEM 9 in Katowice, TSM was hailed as one of the brightest lights the west had to match up to the dominant Chinese and Korean squads.

Team Solo Mid were crowned champions of IEM Katowice

Then the Mid-Season Invitational happened. TSM faltered on the international stage like never before, and fans the world over were outraged. But TSM are a resilient bunch. In their eyes, the second split of the year would be their road to redemption, another LCS title and a World Championship berth.

Summer Split: Something to Prove

TSM have a  history of dominance in NA since the days of Season 2, and only Cloud 9 has ever been able to dethrone them from the #1 position. After taking back their crown in spring and with Cloud 9 falling apart after a roster change, TSM was poised to take summer as well.

While TSM’s air of superiority is usually warranted, they didn’t want to fall into the trap of trivializing the rest of their region in order to focus mainly on international competition, as was one of the causes for their downfall at the MSI.

Dyrus received more help from Lucas “Santorin” Larsen this split

They’ve made attempts to shore up their most obvious weakness of leaving Marcu “Dyrus” Hill on an island in the top lane as a sacrifice to their enemies. Showing more comfort on Gnar and being allowed to pick Rumble more freely has given Dyrus more freedom. Coupled with increased jungler assistance, Dyrus’ KDA ratio for the summer is at 5.48 at this time of writing, already a marked improvement over his 2.52 spring record. His average CS per game has also gone up by 25 as a result of his team putting more stock into him.

By week 5, this revitalized TSM was alone at the top of the standings at 8-2. All seemed good, until a surprise announcement by TSM management shocked the world.

A Bot Lane Dilemma

Whether it was coach Choi “Locodoco” Yoon-sub who called it or not, the fact remained that Jason “Wildturtle” Tran had been slumping. At the time Yuri “KEITH” Jew was announced as a tryout replacement, Wildturtle had been slumping, with the worst numbers of his career. He was the lowest among all ADCs in NA in damage per minute, team damage percentage, and teamgold percentage.

This wouldn’t be as bad if not for the 2015 Spring Split being Wildturtle’s all time career high. He finished spring with the most kills out of any AD Carry in NA or EU, and was the only player to score a pentakill during the split.

Is Wildturtle’s future on TSM in jeopardy?

Wildturtle is no stranger to benching due to player performance either. He himself replaced TSM’s longest running AD Carry, Shan “Chaox” Huang after Chaox failed to stick to a strict practice routine. Although whether or not bringing a secondary player was to eventually replace Wildturtle or simply to motivate him to perform up to par is still up in the air.

As of week 7, KEITH has only played 1 game for TSM, pulling out a win with a respectable but far from record-breaking 4/3/13 scoreline. As for Wildturtle, things haven’t exactly been going as planned for him or his team.

A Wild Loss Streak Appears

After that single game with KEITH, TSM have gone on to lose 3 games in a row. To put into perspective how baffling that is, they never even accrued a 2-game loss streak last spring. Sitting at 9-5 and tied for 3rd place with Team Impulse and Counter Logic Gaming, TSM fans are looking to hit the panic button.

That’s not to say their record is bad by any means. It’s just that TSM talk about being the best in their region and are constantly looking towards bigger international stages for a challenge. If they can’t easily sit at the top of their region’s standings like Fnatic is doing right now, then they have no reason to talk.

Their first loss came to Gravity Gaming, who outdrafted TSM’s runeglaive Ezreal focused composition with a Maokai and Jarvan IV mid pick for heaps of engage. The loss was so devastating that TSM only able to secure 1 turret and 3 kills! Gravity currently sit alone at the top of NA, so at the very least this loss can be chalked up to Gravity Gaming being really good right now.

Their latest loss came at the hands of Team Liquid, who TSM narrowly defeated earlier in the split. Liquid was able to exact revenge with some excellent clean up play by Kim “FeniX” Jae-hoon on Azir. This time the battle could have gone either way as both teams have proven to be equally matched this season.

The loss that is most worrying was against Team 8, who currently sit at 7th place. Early deep wards allowed Team 8 to pick up first blood on Santorin, and TSM looked rather disoriented for the majority of the game. At one point, Dyrus teleported ahead of his team andgot picked off. Santorin even mis-clicked a Vi ultimate, which is something notoriously easy to land.

Misplays aside, credit must be given to Grayson “GoldenGlue” Gilmer however, whose Azir play carefully zoned out choke points that TSM could engage through, and provided enough cover for Zach “Nien” Malhas to kill off TSM members.

Team 8 were unlikely candidates to hand TSM a loss, but they defied the odds.

Losses to top teams are acceptable, but with how disjointed TSM was against a lower table team is surely a cause for concern. It doesn’t even get any easier for them as next week, TSM will face Team Impulse, a team who is now on a 5-win hot streak complete with wins over Team Dignitas and CLG.

Will TSM bounce back from their slump? Will Wildturtle be given another chance to prove himself or will TSM pick up on the #KEEPKEITH hashtag? Tune in to the NA LCS on July 18 to find out.

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