TSM Acquires Keith

On June 23 2015 04:45 MooMooMugi wrote:
Reminds me of Chaox all over again, probably has lack of practice due to a girl

On June 23 2015 05:31 HyperST wrote:


I am pretty sure contract can be bought out by another organization if Bjergsen really wants to leave.

On June 23 2015 05:47 NonConGuy wrote:


Pretty sure if there is a buyout clause and the opposing team/player wants out, player can pay for it and tsm cannot stop him. Though usually buyouts are absurdly high though, wouldn't doubt if bjersen's buyout was more than 100k+.

On June 23 2015 06:25 MajorityofOne wrote:
Great move by TSM I think. Hard to say if Keith will work out but you need to at least put pressure on Turtle. I'd do the same for top lane though I'm not as down on Dyrus as some are.

If Turtle outperforms Keith in practice and starts playing better on stage, great. If not, you bring in Keith.

On June 23 2015 06:51 MrSparkle wrote:
Well, my heart is sad but my fantasy team will probably thank Regi. I'm sure my fantasy points were one of the main deciding factors in this huge, organization changing decision.

I wonder if this will actually turn into anything for Keith, or if he will just be used perpetually by teams to "motivate" their ADCs. I hope the best for everyone involved. I'm a big fan of both players, so hopefully everything works out well for everyone (even though from the outside it seems awkward as all hell right now).

On June 23 2015 11:50 eagle wrote:
keiths retiring even posted on twitter

On June 23 2015 07:40 Mensol wrote:

Well you just explained it yourself. Everyone is so bad in NA that Dyrus looking good.

He still has no chance against Marin/Koro/Duke/Huni/Acorn and list go on...

On June 23 2015 07:48 YellowOps wrote:
I'm surprised at the amount of hate Regi is getting though. Obviously as a TSM fan myself, it would sadden me to see WT leave but I think Regi's decision to tryout Keith was a win-win situation, as it'd either motivate WT to improve or bring in a fresh young player.

On June 23 2015 10:13 StarStruck wrote:
Santorin is another weak spot on the team and he's far too predictable. I think Regi is making a good move; however, I still don't see TSM doing anything noteworthy at World's. Teams cannot get used to the stats quo or else you'll never push players to keep improving or at least diversifying in order to stay in the hunt. As far as I'm concerned Bjergsen and LustBoy are the two players keeping TSM relevant. Mostly Bjergsen. It's amazing how well that worked out for them bringing him in because their focus so much on him making plays.

On June 23 2015 15:41 K3Nyy wrote:
I don't like TSM's management.

I'm genuinely surprised that Turtle being considered to be replaced so quickly when Dyrus was pretty much near the bottom to average of the pack for most of the last few years. I don't know how Turtle can make rapid adjustments in a week either. I feel like he's more in a slump than being inherently bad.

100 excuses for Dyrus but merciless for Turtle. Not a Dyrus hater, just trying to make a point.

On June 24 2015 03:30 geript wrote:
Let's be honest. At least in part, Dyrus' shit show last split was related to TSM's prioritization as a team (90% mid centric) and the fact that most of the time Santorin plays like Santorum. In a top centric tanky meta, they hung Dyrus out on a limb and Santorin is mostly useless. So it became Bjerg hard carry or no in many cases. Part of Dyrus doing better is that the meta is shifting away from the tank meta (with Cinderhulk and champion nerfs), part of it is he is playing better in lane, part of it is him adjusting to the recurrence of the 4v0 early push strategy. So he's not TPing into easy dives. In addition, Dyrus champ control appears to be much better this split overall.

On June 24 2015 06:39 StarStruck wrote:
sad thing is a lot of them have been playing way below expectations yet they still sit in 2nd place in NA hue. Just goes to show you how bad the situation is this split.

On June 24 2015 12:45 StarStruck wrote:
The point is none of them are even close to being good enough in their positions. It doesn't matter who's show it is in NA atm. Both those teams are lackluster and their scores have very little meaning with how poor a lot of the games have been.

It's just not a good situation and Regi realizes that. There needs to be drastic improvement and a team like TSM has to try new things to create better synergy between the team if they have any hope of taking games off the Chinese and Korean teams.

C9 isn't even relevant atm and I don't think they're going to be relevant for a while. As for TL.. they're having a hard time even beating the teams higher up than them when those teams are playing sub par. Sure those games were close, but you still went 0-2 last week. Like come on. It's pretty bad the good thing is a lot of the players realize this and take it in jest. Now they got to act upon it.

On June 24 2015 14:02 HyperST wrote:


I don't recommend using that game as an example for anything, ever.

On June 25 2015 06:36 wei2coolman wrote:

I'm pretty sure the results pretty much prove that.

On June 25 2015 06:37 Gahlo wrote:

And yet Hai can hit Challenger during a bootcamp.

On June 25 2015 07:12 Ansibled wrote:
They have more players, so they have more talent. They are also better at making that talent play well enough so we can see it.

On June 25 2015 07:17 oo_Wonderful_oo wrote:


This is bullshit, holy shit.

There is a common rhetorical question in Russia when our national team is losing.
"Hey, we have almost 150 millions people here but somehow we still have same 3 defenders as dozen years ago, how can it happen, can't we grow at least, 5-10 more?"

If Western regions lack infrastructure, they're not willing to train harder and harder and streaming culture is way more cool, it's not problem of less amount of players.
I don't think people legit can argue that Froggen, Bjergsen, Doublelift or WildTurtle ain't talented enough to be world contenders. It's not problem of talent, it's other things.

On June 25 2015 08:58 Mensol wrote:

https://twitter.com/liquidkeith/status/613400872895143936

Worth to mention that TSM announcement video got 4.955 likes and 8.712 dislikes. Some people really hate Keith right now, especially WT fanboys l o l.

On June 25 2015 10:22 wei2coolman wrote:

^ pretty much about as lulzy as it gets.

Also in last summoning insight Clement Chu was talking about how a couple taiwanese players got contacted by Korean organizations because they were so highly ranked on Korean ladder. But didn't' follow through, didn't know they were taiwanese.

We're talking about organizations constantly combing through Challenger Solo Queue ladder rankings to find a new player.

On June 25 2015 10:29 wei2coolman wrote:

Not to mention orgs that have multiple world-class players in a single position.
EDG Koro, and AmazinJ
EDG U and Pawn (last split)
SKT Faker and Ez hoon.
Flame and Acorn.
like holy shit, can't even compare top western team "talent" to top eastern team talent.

On June 25 2015 10:35 wei2coolman wrote:

As opposed to sister team organizations in the previous split? God-tier players everywhere in Korea.
Also more money invested = more infrastructure = more talent development.

On June 25 2015 16:43 Andadog wrote:
So mostly because I am not 100% familiar with the rules of lcs but how is this not considered poaching or something along the lines of that where a contracted player is being offered a chance to play for another organization. Can someone explain this too me?

On June 25 2015 23:32 Zato-1 wrote:
There's 3 parts involved in a player transfer from one team to another: The player, his current team, and his prospective team. If all 3 parts agree to the transfer, then it's perfectly fine. If the prospective team tries to make arrangements with the player behind the back of the players' current team, it's poaching.

In the case of Keith, TSM asked TL and Keith, and both agreed to let TSM try Keith out, so it's not poaching.

On June 26 2015 04:22 geript wrote:
Personally, I think NA definitely has less raw talent than China or Korea both as it regards sheer numbers of professional level play and in regards to average skill cap. This is not to say that NA shouldn't have more just on the basis of sheer numbers. Rather that basic traits that tend to make a good player (hand-eye coordination, quick reflexes, fast decision making, etc.) are poached in essence by other sports. In the US at least, sports are still king (generally football > basketball > soccer/baseball etc.). Wheres, I suspect that the esports subculture in Korean provides far more percentage draw than it does in the states; so Korean, while having a lower number of talented prospects, "captures" a significantly higher percentage of those prospects into the esports system. Whereas because esports are far less normalized, the amount of "capturable" talent is likely very low; in addition, the potential talent is pulled between a variety of games in addition to otherwise self-selecting out (for other sports). This of course also doesn't cover the significantly better farm system that exists in Korea and China (in regards to getting talent not necessarily better for the talented players themselves) to the talent that is found is better refined.

Another important way to look at NA/EU vs China/Korea, is college sports. In college football, there may be 5 pro players on a team; sometimes more but usually less. People who possess the intelligence, athleticism, quickness, strength, etc. in order to play on a professional level. The better schools tend to have more players likely to go pro and are more likely to play against opposing teams with pro candidates. So generally, the talent from bigger/better schools tends to do better in NFL and they tend to have a leg up when entering the NFL. I imagine it's like that in Korea. Higher percentage of raw talent who get used to playing against skilled opponents and improve faster because of it and enter the pro scene at a higher level due to it. Whereas in NA, there's less talent; so players are less likely to play against highly skilled opponents. In turn, they progress in skill more slowly because they aren't challenged as strongly as often. This extends to the pro scene and I'm pretty sure Samsung or Anarchy would both be (in the least) top 3 NA LCS if not better.

On June 26 2015 05:17 Sonnington wrote:

There's a big difference between what American women demand of you and what Russian women demand.

On June 27 2015 09:23 Mensol wrote:
TSM Wildturtle will be starting as ADC.

l o l I thought Keith was going to play this week if he makes lineup

On June 28 2015 00:13 Mensol wrote:

Loco told in TSM Legends that Keith would be permanent member if he performs.

On July 01 2015 16:37 LiQuiD112 wrote:
We assigned our contract to TSM today in exchange for a price, Keith has been released from TL. I'm really happy for him and we'll be figuring out what next steps are for Team Liquid Academy.

On July 01 2015 16:37 LiQuiD112 wrote:
We assigned our contract to TSM today in exchange for a price, Keith has been released from TL. I'm really happy for him and we'll be figuring out what next steps are for Team Liquid Academy.

On July 01 2015 20:29 alereu wrote:
Good luck Keith. I like Piglet, but the game is entirely more communication based now. You watch TDK now that they are speaking Korean, lets see how they do. Having two people not speak the language is much harder than just one, for that reason alone I think Keith should have been given more time. Again nothing against Piglet, he seems to be fitting in with the team great now, but they should have held on to Keith.

On July 01 2015 20:30 krndandaman wrote:
thanks for the update, liquid.

this doesn't mean keith is the starter right? just that TSM has his contract and are free to use him in any way they see fit?

On July 02 2015 01:28 LimpingGoat wrote:


I definitely don't think it's overrated, I think its just more nuanced than people realize.

On July 02 2015 03:23 tar0 wrote:


Bjergsen is not best mid in the west. Been confirmed. He isn't even best in NA anymore. He can only play one style and he doesn't impact the game anymore. He needs to be replaced.

On July 02 2015 05:54 Mensol wrote:

Bjergsen was the best western mid pre-IEM, he was ahead of everyone in west. He has fallen at MSI though. Febiven is clearly ahead of every westtern mid laner atm.

On July 02 2015 08:07 Mensol wrote:

You are talking about only NA right? not overall?

On July 02 2015 08:48 jack342342 wrote:
I want this move to work but I can't help but think that the synergy between Lust and Keith might be lacking