Doublelift reveals internal issues behind TSM’s collapse at Worlds 2020
Tina Jo for Riot GamesTSM AD carry Yiliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng has criticized his team’s “undisciplined” scrim play which led to their horrendous 0-6 run at Worlds 2020.
TSM went into Worlds as the LCS first seed, hoping to reach the knockout stage for the first time since 2014. Drawn into a group with Fnatic, LGD, and Gen.G, TSM wasn’t necessarily expected to progress from their group, but fans believed they could at least take a game or two.
But TSM limped out without a win, and the fallout has been huge. Long-time midlaner Bjergsen announced his retirement yesterday, with his move to head coach likely to kick off a revamp of the side.
As TSM’s most senior player, Doublelift took some time on his stream to offer fans more insight on what went wrong for them at Worlds this year.
Riot GamesSpeaking on his Twitch stream, Peng explained: “Losing trust in each other made us play even worse. After the first week, we probably had a 10% win rate in scrims. I was grateful to win even a single game per day. A lot of the games were either over after level one, or in the first five minutes.
“People on the team started ruining practice by coin flipping and playing stupidly. You need some discipline to stay focused on the goals. We lost all of our team play.”
TSM’s trust issues
As LCS analyst MarkZ pointed out, TSM’s performance was statistically the worst ever produced by a pool one team.
This is the first time a Pool 1 seed and the #1 seed from a major region went 0-6.
The only other time it was close was 2017 Pool 1 Flash Wolves who went 1-5, picking up a single win against…
TSM.
— Mark Zimmerman (@TheeMarkZ) October 10, 2020
The communication issues were evident through some bizarre pieces of play. Rookie jungler Spica produced one of the most memorable plays of the tournament, but not for the right reasons.
His “nine-man” Lillia sleep was not only heavily memed by the community, it also provided a perfect example of TSM’s loss of confidence and lack of trust in each other.
A fully confident TSM likely would have followed in on Spica’s engage to win the fight and potentially take the game. Bjergsen’s first task will be to build up the confidence of whatever roster he has at his disposal.
TSM finds itself with a lot of work to do if it hopes to end a torrid run of international performances.