LCS: Why Team Liquid was Right to Bench Doublelift

Team Liquid confirmed that star ADC Doublelift will not be playing in Week 7 of the LCS and that’s the correct decision.

On Tuesday night, CLG decided to release former World Champion mid laner Crown, but somehow that wasn’t the biggest roster news of the night. Instead, the LCS fans and media began speculating wildly about the implications of Team Liquid’s announcement that they had signed little-known ADC Richard Samuel “Rikara” Oh to their Academy team.

With substitute ADC Edward “Tactical” Ra performing well in place of starting AD Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, it seemed unlikely that TL would be moving on from him. Did this mean Doublelift’s illness was worse than expected?

Liquid CEO Steve “LiQuiD112” Arhancet added fuel to the speculation when he Tweeted that Tactical would be starting for the LCS team next weekend. He later clarified that Doublelift is no longer ill but that the team would be evaluating the starting ADC on a week-to-week basis.

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Finally, the bombshell. Doublelift himself Tweeted that he had, in fact, been benched for his poor play and lack of motivation during the Spring Split. While Doublelift apologized to his teammates and fans and promised that the fire he was lacking had been re-ignited, it was clear that the damage had already been done.

This isn’t the first time that Doublelift has had issues with motivation. He famously took off the 2017 Spring Split as a member of TSM to try streaming. He eventually returned before the end of the split, citing a renewed desire to play.

In the aftermath of this decision, there are a lot of questions about where Liquid will go from here. Will Doublelift be playing at all in the rest of the Spring Split or playoffs? Will the team look to trade their most popular, star player? And, most importantly, did TL make the right decision?

As to the last question, the answer is almost certainly “yes.” Team Liquid played exceptionally well with Tactical as their ADC, not only going 2-0 for the first time but also utterly dominating some pretty decent competition in 100 Thieves and TSM.

Tactical posted an 8/0/6 KDA scoreline, 481 gold per minute, and 587 damage per minute. These lines, though coming from only a two-game sample size, dwarf those of the best ADC in the LCS, Cloud9’s Zven.

Not only that, but Doublelift had been performing quite poorly throughout the beginning of the Spring Split. His 3.3 KDA was the lowest in his role and he had a bottom-three damage per minute.

In truth, however this scenario plays out, it will likely benefit Team Liquid. If Tactical’s first weekend was a fluke, you still have an all-LCS ADC behind him, now hungry to prove that he deserves to not only start but also be at the top of the LCS in his role. It could invigorate Doublelift just like he was after getting dropped by TSM and CLG, without Liquid having to watch their former star beat up on them with another team.

If Tactical performs well, though, then TL will have a difficult decision. They could, of course, sell this promising young talent to another LCS team looking for help at the AD Carry role. Or, perhaps more interestingly, they could decide that the risk of having an unmotivated, highly paid player isn’t worth the hassle and put one of the best and most popular North American League of Legends players ever up for auction.