League of Legends Flame Friday: TSM needs to look beyond Grig and Akaadian

Making the decision

The debate for TSM, therefore, seems to be quite obvious: do you take the safer, low-ceiling player of Grig, or let it ride with the more aggressive but risky player in Akaadian. Well, as I alluded to, the correct choice for a team with aspirations of being a World Champion (as TSM always says is their goal) is neither. But not for the reasons that you might think.

If you compare Akaadian’s best split to the current LCS junglers’ performance, he would rank in the top three. However, if you take his second-best split stats and do the same comparison, he would rank just above average, ahead of Grig’s current performance but behind Svenskeren, Wiggily, Xmithie, Meteos, and Contractz. It’s also critical to note that his best two splits came in his first two splits with Echo Fox in 2017. Since then, he’s consistently posted sub-par stats.

Essentially, if TSM goes with Akaadian, they are hoping that he is going to reach his peak consistently. However, with three years worth of statistics under his belt, Akaadian has not shown improvement but has actually regressed in some ways. And even if he can only become the “good” version of himself, he’d still be just above-average.

On the other hand, Grig has yet to show that he can be a difference-maker in the jungle. Yes, he is consistent, but that consistency is pretty firmly below-average. Again, comparing his career stats to the average jungler in the current LCS, Grig would rank below average.

There is no stat that makes Grig particularly bad but in aggregate the guy has just shown himself to be able to play at a consistently average-to-below-average level. He continues to struggle in the early game, his damage outputs are poor, and he has underwhelming kill participation compared to his position (almost 5% lower KP than the average jungler).

Most importantly, though, is the fact that both of these players have two-plus years of experience in professional play under their belts, but have not shown any capacity to grow or improve. Beyond the stats, both players continue to make very basic mistakes that should not be tolerated by players of their experience level.

For instance, in the loss to CLG, at the 10-minute mark, Akaadian initiated a very unfavorable dive between the inner and outer turret. He knew that Sylas had Jarvan ult, Yuumi and Sivir could ult to stop him and Bjergsen from bursting them down and Corki was likely roaming after them. Even though it worked out and they initially traded 1-for-1 (requiring an ill-advised teleport from Broken Blade that cost him three turret plates in the top lane), took awkward pathing back out of the dive, half trying to block for his Kennen and Yasuo but not doing either, but ultimately letting Zven die and giving up a kill himself.

Later, when attempting to gank for Broken Blade in the top lane, he died after a Corki roam in a 3v2 where they traded 1-for-1. It might not have looked like his fault and TSM just lost to a better roam, but Akaadian did misplay by not instantly ulting the Aatrox and then using his E>Q on Jarvan to get distance between himself and the oncoming Sylas. He also could have flashed the killing Q – Phosphorus Bomb from Corki, potentially allowing him to live long enough for Broken Blade to body block for him while Bjergsen made his way to top lane to potentially turn the fight.

On the other side, though, Grig has also shown himself to be prone to terrible mental errors. Of course, in his most recent performance versus Fnatic at Rift Rivals, Grig famously walked right over a ward on his first gank mid that Bjergsen appeared to have communicated to Grig. When a pink ward didn’t reveal the ward, Grig should have probably just gone to get the Scuttle Crab rather than attempt to gank without his ult.

Later in the game, he would botch a 2v1 fight against Broxah. After landing his stun onto the Elise, he mistakenly dashed in on Sejuani before the stun ended, thus giving her time to rappel into the air. Had he held his dash to layer the CC properly, he could have secured the kill or had the dash available to back out of the fight as he saw the bot lane duo collapsing onto him.

The general point, however, is that both of these junglers continue to make both micro and macro mistakes that have cost TSM dearly in their games. After years in the professional ranks, with years of time to train and learn, neither jungler has proven himself to be anything more than an average player. For TSM, “average” performances will not do.

So the answer of who TSM should choose as their jungler going forward is, honestly, neither. If I was Reginald, I’d be on the phone with my good friend Jack Etienne to see how much it would cost to pry Blaber away from them, considering whether OpTic Academy’s Dardoch might be worth the risk, or even calling up his own Academy team’s jungler Spica for a look.

Yes, these are very risky moves and yes it may be too late in the season to even consider doing this, but the fact is that time is running out for TSM. They have gotten to the top of the LCS based on the backs of individual play despite their junglers. Grig and Akaadian can be just good enough for TSM to make LCS finals again or make worlds, but that is it.

If TSM is looking forward, neither Grig nor Akaadian have shown that they should be guaranteed anything going forward. At least not if TSM still has the ultimate goal of competing for a world championship.