I love Maple so I hope he succeeds but man he can be hit or miss. I could see him being top tier or bottom tier, who knows. His highs are definitely nuts though.
That was just people speculating about where Bin would end up, and if there's an org on people's minds with "Talent coming to North America" everyone always jumps at that it could be TSM.
As recently as worlds. He was the best/most consistent player for PSG in their 6 games. While people will say it’s only 6 games, apparently he is washed from 10 games in the LPL.
All the evidence we've seen is that a player can be bad, good or anywhere in between at any time. Rookies break out in the LCS, veterans like santorin become dominant after years of middling performance. All I can say is maple has the track record to return to form, it's about building the right team for him to thrive in.
>I've watched Faker shake on Qiyana
I started watching league during S8 finals so I only vaguely knew about Faker
Watching him completely botch that Qiyana ult vs G2 in 2019 was *heartbreaking*
Bottom tier in the LCS? you kidding?
People were saying Bjerg and Fudge were the best mids most of this split
Bjerg was just the "best" by default.. and Fudge was being carried hard by his top laner smashing everyone outside the top 3
This just triggered an insanely specific [TSM Legends memory from 2015 Worlds](https://youtu.be/ltkjoB4xERE?t=204). It's at 3:25 if timecodes don't work.
They picked up SwordArt right after his Worlds finals appearance on Suning and he was playing really well throughout the tournament. Wouldn't necessarily call that "way past his prime"
But basically nobody considered him a good support in the LPL. SN just didn't have a good shotcaller and that has value. People forget that SwordArt was on that team when they still were bad, the change that moved the team forward wasn't SwordArt, they just basically had to keep him because they added two Rookies to the team with Bin and Huanfeng and simply need someone with more experience.
SwordArt is a good shotcaller, but not a good support. This is mostly the posiiton he does the least damage. And we saw that his mechanics weren't even matching some of the NA supports.
I don't know if it's unclearly phrased or if I'm not doing well reading it, but it feels like you contradicted yourself this comment. Was he a good shotcaller, or wasn't he? Did he not have an influence on their improvement, or did he?
If you want to find something interesting, look at the team’s ranking ever since SwordArt left. It’s been the same team excluding SA, and they have not been even close to their form back then.
People that were watching LPL the split before SN made worlds finals were rating him as a very middle of the pack support in LPL, like 9th - 12th best.
The team had a very good performance at worlds, but his performance throughout the year wasn't that great.
Maple just doesn’t play well in LPL for some reason, I mean he was pretty solid at international events and PCS last year before going back to China this split.
He can play pretty much every mid champs, good team fighting, my only concern is his English because he mentioned on stream that his English is ass(source: me, a native Chinese speaker, watching his stream).
Agree his time in LPL honestly just looks straight worse than anything else, even against lower tier mids that realistically he should be doing well against. It's like as soon as he steps foot in china he starts underperforming
Eika looked good in LFL, came to LCS and was BY FAR the worst mid in LCS. Goes back to LFL and looks incredible again. It’s some serious gaslighting for the people who pretend mid in the LcS to be this awful role.
Why are we even comparing a perennial ERL player with a guy who was the best mid in LMS/PCS for most of his time there and was definitely good enough to be fielded in the LPL beyond one contract.
people actually act like abbedagge, bjergsen, jojo and jensen would be bottom tier ERL midlaners...
they may not be as good as humanoid/caps but would be easily LEC lvl.
I mean abbeddage is a good example. His last split with schalke he was probably the 4th or 5th best mid
Now in NA he's about the 4th or 5th best mid lol
Uhm, Jojo performed better in finals, and he can only go up from here so alright, I can give you that currently.
Bjergsen, eh, really wasn't impressive either, if you really want to give him the benefit of the doubt maybe.
Jensen coming back might be better.
That's it, at WORST he's 4th, and that's being generous, and definitely not 5th in any world. Jojo has had one split, and though he was better than expected, he was still the worst player on his team even in finals and semis, Bjergsen is simply debatable on all areas, and Jensen didn't play.
That doesn't work like that all lol, I can also say Blue was 11th best midlaner in LEC and managed to outperform a good majority of NA midlaners this year and was at least top 5 - Top 6 on a dysfuctionnal Dig.
On the other hand, Toucouille was at least TOP 3 in LFL last year and he showed great gameplay in LCS outshining in lane the likes of Bjergsen, Abbedage, Fudge, JoJo here and there.
I mean i'd personally take Jensen Bjergsen Nisqy and PoE over any of the mids that have ever played in LFL, so let's not act like LCS isn't super top-heavy
Maple is better than everyone in LCS except maybe toucoille or jojo and typing that physically hurts me. Just because a player goes to LPL and doesn't perform doesn't make them a shit player, Maple has always been good.
You do realise Toucouille comes straight from LFL right? And that Vetheo also comes from LFL? Not saying current LFL players are better mids than LCS ones but there has been great players in LFL as well.
LCS is pretty easily 4th best region behind LEC LCK AND LPL, and actual NA born players are rarely pro stars. Somehow this turns people into thinking the best player in actual minor leagues will stomp NA.
People like to say "X weak player will be fine in NA" and it's rarely true. Their weakness is often a sign of deficiencies rather than them being a big fish in a pond of even bigger fish.
Yeh people forget a lot of players in LCK/LPL/LEC are getting carried by way better players than are in LCS. To come over and perform rarely happens if they suck elsewhere.
Contend for worst 3 mids pretty much every split he's played.
Contend for worst mid this last split.
Through managements incompetence, managed to keep Knight benched at Suning.
I think that sums it up.
>Contend for worst 3 mids pretty much every split he's played.
Aside from the 5 year run in 2013-2018 when he was the undisputed best mid of his region by an absolutely absurd gap and was actively beating some of the best midlaners in the world at worlds, yeah sure
Like i get it he's been very mediocre recently but holy fuck you have to be stupid to say he's been worst 3 mids every split he's played when he was beating world-class midlaners when he came from a minor region for like 5 fucking years
Yeah but "foreign pro who used to be good on a declining career joins NA team" has historically not been successful.
Maple has not looked good at all in LPL and joining LCS at this stage in his career is not really promising.
If Maple looks good in his home region but shit in a different region that speaks the same language, I’d worry about his play in a region that has a different language entirely.
If being arguably the 2nd worst mid in the entire LPL makes Maple a "very good mid" compared to NA mids then its time to just shut LCS down as a major region period.
Dog, Maple got benched on the worst team in the league and replaced by Forge. If he comes to NA and is anywhere close to top 3 then the region is doomed period. He couldn't lane for shit and was comically bad in the LPL. Just unreal levels of bad.
Yeah, *exactly*. Everything I've seen of bottom tier teams in the LPL is some of the absolute worst garbo, as in even with a simple eye test the current TSM could easily compete with them.
Fucking *TSM*.
You'd put Faker or Rookie on TSM, I'd still bet on EG/TL/100T in a H2H. Helps having great players, but having the overall better team is what wins games.
yeah, I think people forget the Swordart roster was the first time TSM placed 1st in regular season in like 3 years. And he did it laning with fucking Lost.
It’s kind of expected, but I don’t mind. I actually went back at some point last year, and rewatched all of the TSM games with emphasis on how SA was playing. Besides about 2-3 games with disjointed engages, SA made very very little mistakes in summer. His engages, team fighting, and roaming were a large reason why TSM succeeded. Also the whole CoreJJ 0% percentage proximity was preceded by SA playing this style with Lost staying bot.
All I know about Maple is that he was a large part of the Flash Wolves a couple years back and is a fan of Steins;Gate so I am biased to say that he will be the greatest mid scientist of all time
I mean, they’re still under contract, so they have to stay if TSM want them to. I believe we held on to Zven for longer than he wanted us to because they had no better replacements at the time?
what did the regi said before split? that this is long term project with keiduo and shenyi? that they gonna build on that?
i wonder what his short term project look like
That was before they found out that KDO eats shit for breakfast. But that can be blamed on poor scouting. And Shenyi was a drama queen, which couldn't be scouted
A bit fifty-fifty. Replacing Spica might not seem like a priority, but Bo was one of the hottest players in the World before he got sanctioned/benched in the match-fixing scandal. New mid seems higher priority, but Maple isn't nowhere near as hot as a player. Still much bigger name than Keaiduo though.
It wasn’t confirmed if MIA was academy (to replace Yursan) or LCS (with Shenyi Acad). I’d assume Shenyi starts in LCS, tbh
Edit: it’s Mia in LCS, bummer /:
Obviously. Anyone who comes from LPL or LCK is choosing money over achievement. Even as an LCS fan I admit that's always the case. But I also think players are smart to do it. Sure is nice to retire filthy rich.
I think he can but his English won't be really good. He went to the same high school as SwordArt (even though it's because they joined FW) and according to SwordArt, Maple was quite hard working so I guess his English will be similar to SwordArt? Maybe need some time to practice.
MMD said a few days ago that SA had the best English on the team by far, but “someone” on the old flash wolves team had been studying very hard recently.
This move is like...4-5 years late...or at least it should have been a move with SwordArt
He had a pretty good showing on PSG at last years MSI, should have gotten out of groups at worlds (HLE had no fucking business in the quarters)
He should look good in NA but I don't think this is will tip the scale massively into TSMs favor
Maple has been rumored to NA for like 5 years, cool to see it happen finally.
This guy won't make a top 10 mids of all time list, but he's a legend in my mind based on the sheer amount of international tournaments he's been in. Always present, and always a force to be reckoned with. I hope he finds success in NA.
I think Regi has it in his mind that Chinese and Taiwainese players are the best bang for your buck, even if the players are mediocore for their region. We now know from Peter Zhang that Regi came to him and asked him to suggest imports from those regions.
You can kind of understand the logic, since other teams are taking up the best possible import options from LEC and LCK, so looking at LMS and LPL seems like an opportunity. But I think it is a doomed endeavor. I don't think LPL or LMS players will ever perform well enough in LCS orgs simply due to how LPL and LMS teams play LoL so different from LCS teams. Just seems like a recipe for disaster. Mechanics are not everything. It's still a team game where players need to be able to communicate rapidly and get on the same page strategically.
LPL and LMS players seem to have even worse English than the LCK players, too.
Nah man you cannot say that with Holo Holo on the team. I would argue he would probably write better but in terms of speaking and communicating Reignover, Huni, Wadid are definitely standouts.
Complete agree. A lot of NA fans see Maple and remember the good ol days. Now, a bad lpl split doesn't mean he's bad forever, and he could possibly do well. However, if you're a TSM fan, I feel like you should expect Regi to sign a midlaner who played out of their mind last split, not one you hoped lives up to old potential.
Honestly with Bjerg and Abbedagge being so underwhelming, this isn't \*too\* bad of a pickup. He's probably not gonna be gapping any midlaners internationally but for NA he's fine. Good chance of being top 3 midlaner
He had a bad split in LPL, doesn't mean he can't ever be good again. There were lots of people that had bad splits before that we consider good players.
Honestly with how much reddit hates this I hope he comes in and fucking gaps everyone. Always liked those YFW teams.
Just look at how happy people are about Jensen coming back to C9 when the community was ready to throw him away after 2019 Worlds because he played poorly there.
For reddit, you're only as good as your last split/tournament.
His english is pretty damn good and his personality as well as brand could be perfect for NA.
Before that I didnt want him to go to TSM because I thought they wanna build a championship team but now it would be nice actually
the thing is Icon came from a wealthy family and he legit could become a model or generate money from simps by streaming. He has so many leverage that even if he's still passionate about league and competing, he would like to be contending championship and definitely not joining teams like TSM. Unless if TSM somehow assembled a roster he would like to play with.
Difference between people who watch/follow LPL vs people who watch internationals.
The former will dump on him because he's been legit terrible in LPL. The latter are living off the korean killers hype or from internationals last year (when he was on PSG Talon). The latter are probably the same people that thought Doggo would be a top tier adc in LPL when the signing was announced, lol.
He's been a good player for most of his career tho, i'd be more inclined to believe that the environment in China simply doesn't suit him rather than a total lack of skill on his part.
2013-2018 I'll give you.
LPL has had many mids which most regions would consider good come in since then. Knight, Angel, Fofo, Creme, Strive, Shanks, Care, Yuekai to name a few. Even then you still have some like Cryin, Ucal, Yagao, Forge (subbed for Rookie), Xiye as some well known names.
Maple was struggling to compete in '19, '20. Went back to PCS in '21 as nobody wanted him. And now in 2022 he's benched from one of the bottom teams in the league. 2021 was the only year you could consider him 'decent' again.
Maybe you're right, but at no time during 5 splits in LPL did he look serviceable. He was getting outlaned by players most people considered bad for LPL, let alone when he went up against the good mids.
> Maybe you're right, but at no time during 5 splits in LPL did he look serviceable. He was getting outlaned by players most people considered bad for LPL, let alone when he went up against the good mids.
That's why i lean more towards "environment issues", surely a player of his caliber should have been middle of the pack at worse and not bottom tier, he was more than fine internationally for most of his career including last year, it's weird that he'd be so bad in LPL.
Some players just do better in/out of certain regions for whatever reason like Rich or Malrang this split, hopefully LCS works for him.
Wait Doggo has been nice though breathe Linda sprinted it in playoffs no way you can blame doggo and also he had to compete with mfkn UZI and UZI gave up that should tell you something. And BLG wasn't bad they lost to the 2nd place team and took a game off of them
There's been a lot of Taiwanese favouritism within BLG in recent times past. I wouldn't call the fact Uzi thought the situation unworkable a big indictment on him and/or his skill -- and I didn't even expect Uzi would do better than being maybe 6th best ADC on his return (though I'd have welcomed a nice surprise there). Uzi was still better than Doggo even on relatively limited practice in my eyes, which says a lot for me in terms of where Doggo is/was at. Also, multiple Chinese pros that have watched their scrimsets rate Doggo among the worst of the adcs they reviewed (it was mostly top teams), but I'll discount Uzi's rating because obviously they'll be biased towards his legacy/name.
BLG wasn't *bad*, but the potential was there to be so much more than they ended up being. I did think Doggo was a limiter on their potential and was waiting for Uzi to be played more full time, but their internal issues and player performances outside of botlane ended up being the real killer for their split anyways.
No major surprises really, BLGs management has become a bit of a meme over more recent years for a good reason. This just reinforces it for me.
Because he was so bad that when he came into RW, despite the fact that he was replacing a bottom tier mid, they immediately started losing largely off Maple's comically bad performances. They immediately started winning again when they brought back their previous mid.
If you look at the available people they could sign mid-year, I don't think there is any way TSM could construct a roster good enough to compete with the top 4 orgs. The current roster has issues at pretty much every position and has big internal issues.
Remember that they are locked into contracts with their current players. It's not like they can just drop players to get them off the payroll. So anything they do would have to be trades OR just straight up adding huge new salaries to their budget. Who the hell is going to want to trade for the steaming piles of shit players TSM has atm? A team is going to give one of their good players for one of TSM's shitty ones? No way.
This isn't a video game where you can just click a button to add any player you want from pool of players. You have to considered the very real limitations of your annual budget as well as other players already being contracted with other teams for the year. TSM has very very limited options here for acquiring new players.
Just don't understand the fuck in this org
washed top / jungle out next split / washed mid / tactical / no name support , so its reginald sell the spot at the end of the year or another entire fucking rebuild and another fucking years wasted , i'm tired of this org
Imagine the entitlement of thinking the management can go and get whoever reddit thinks is best for their team and then when they don’t, all they spew is toxicity online crying about it. People need to grow up. Who is some random to tell Regi that they’re cheaping out by not using FTX money on the game they’re probably least profitable in? And what if they did throw the bag at people and they didn’t join. People act like they have all the info on the decisions made and act like it’s all incompetency in management. Last split was not a shit show just because of the roster. That roster does way better than 9th with a real bootcamp and time to gel. Sports teams can’t realistically stay on top forever. This team has gone through so many changes from top to bottom recently. You can’t expect everything to be smooth sailing just like that.
They aren't...they are acting like the current direction is unacceptable for a team whose management still constantly claim the aim is to win worlds.
Either be honest and admit you have no ambitions for the LoL team any more or actually back your words by at least attempting to build a competitive roster.
Continuing the revolving door of importing random washed up players instead of trying to develop domestic talent like EG did will not only be bad for their team, but also cost them a lot of money and also bring the overall level of LCS down
I love Maple so I hope he succeeds but man he can be hit or miss. I could see him being top tier or bottom tier, who knows. His highs are definitely nuts though.
his highs are on tier with top tier mids, but that was like 3-4 years ago lol
He was on par with top tier mids as recently as last MSI.
How much of that was synergy with River though?
At least he can help enable spica to not look like a monkey
Yeah but word is that Spica might not be on the team anymore, so whoever is the alternative has to mesh well
that's for the next years, pretty sure spica is still with us in summer
Not a single person is saying Spica is off the team. Maybe after his contract is up, but not now.
That was just people speculating about where Bin would end up, and if there's an org on people's minds with "Talent coming to North America" everyone always jumps at that it could be TSM.
TSM and getting washed pros, name a better duo?
Lakers and washed pros
Lakers did win a bubble championship tho
that was before they got THE washed pro
As recently as worlds. He was the best/most consistent player for PSG in their 6 games. While people will say it’s only 6 games, apparently he is washed from 10 games in the LPL.
Didnt know last year MSI was 4-5 years ago
All the evidence we've seen is that a player can be bad, good or anywhere in between at any time. Rookies break out in the LCS, veterans like santorin become dominant after years of middling performance. All I can say is maple has the track record to return to form, it's about building the right team for him to thrive in.
[удалено]
>I've watched Faker shake on Qiyana I started watching league during S8 finals so I only vaguely knew about Faker Watching him completely botch that Qiyana ult vs G2 in 2019 was *heartbreaking*
I'm sure being in NA will bring out the best in him. We'll see the sharpest Maple yet!
The second coming of NA Crown
He is just there for retirement money
Bottom tier in the LCS? you kidding? People were saying Bjerg and Fudge were the best mids most of this split Bjerg was just the "best" by default.. and Fudge was being carried hard by his top laner smashing everyone outside the top 3
Dude They literally picked up FW players way past their prime
TSM Karsa in a few years then
Steak head coach
Fuck it. Steak top lane
This just triggered an insanely specific [TSM Legends memory from 2015 Worlds](https://youtu.be/ltkjoB4xERE?t=204). It's at 3:25 if timecodes don't work.
No way someone as insecure as Regi would allow a gigachad like Steak anywhere near the TSM complex.
Karsa literally wanted to join TSM in his prime and TSM was like nah
Picked up Mike Yeung instead lol
Just going for that high tempo speedrun
TSM did him a solid there.
Saved his career big time. Karsa has been the centerpiece of the best LPL teams for a few years now.
so did Pray and Gorilla instead we got zven and mithy smh... what could have been
He did say he wanted to be on TSM a while back
It's all coming together
Team Senior Mid retirement home.
They picked up SwordArt right after his Worlds finals appearance on Suning and he was playing really well throughout the tournament. Wouldn't necessarily call that "way past his prime"
But basically nobody considered him a good support in the LPL. SN just didn't have a good shotcaller and that has value. People forget that SwordArt was on that team when they still were bad, the change that moved the team forward wasn't SwordArt, they just basically had to keep him because they added two Rookies to the team with Bin and Huanfeng and simply need someone with more experience. SwordArt is a good shotcaller, but not a good support. This is mostly the posiiton he does the least damage. And we saw that his mechanics weren't even matching some of the NA supports.
I don't know if it's unclearly phrased or if I'm not doing well reading it, but it feels like you contradicted yourself this comment. Was he a good shotcaller, or wasn't he? Did he not have an influence on their improvement, or did he?
If you want to find something interesting, look at the team’s ranking ever since SwordArt left. It’s been the same team excluding SA, and they have not been even close to their form back then.
The mental gymnastics y'all people pull to stick to your narratives smh
People that were watching LPL the split before SN made worlds finals were rating him as a very middle of the pack support in LPL, like 9th - 12th best. The team had a very good performance at worlds, but his performance throughout the year wasn't that great.
Maple just doesn’t play well in LPL for some reason, I mean he was pretty solid at international events and PCS last year before going back to China this split. He can play pretty much every mid champs, good team fighting, my only concern is his English because he mentioned on stream that his English is ass(source: me, a native Chinese speaker, watching his stream).
Agree his time in LPL honestly just looks straight worse than anything else, even against lower tier mids that realistically he should be doing well against. It's like as soon as he steps foot in china he starts underperforming
Tsm really saw Swordart be average and decided being average was better than 9th. Baby steps i guess
Maple going to NA to retrieve Swordart's mercedes
banger
SwordArt went to worlds finals with LPL team What did Maple do in LPL ?
With TSM's scouting they probably only watched his games while he was in the PCS
he will be fine in NA
Eika looked good in LFL, came to LCS and was BY FAR the worst mid in LCS. Goes back to LFL and looks incredible again. It’s some serious gaslighting for the people who pretend mid in the LcS to be this awful role.
Why are we even comparing a perennial ERL player with a guy who was the best mid in LMS/PCS for most of his time there and was definitely good enough to be fielded in the LPL beyond one contract.
Because he joined TSM
people actually act like abbedagge, bjergsen, jojo and jensen would be bottom tier ERL midlaners... they may not be as good as humanoid/caps but would be easily LEC lvl.
I mean abbeddage is a good example. His last split with schalke he was probably the 4th or 5th best mid Now in NA he's about the 4th or 5th best mid lol
Who the fuck do u have above him for him to be fifth wtf
Uhm, Jojo performed better in finals, and he can only go up from here so alright, I can give you that currently. Bjergsen, eh, really wasn't impressive either, if you really want to give him the benefit of the doubt maybe. Jensen coming back might be better. That's it, at WORST he's 4th, and that's being generous, and definitely not 5th in any world. Jojo has had one split, and though he was better than expected, he was still the worst player on his team even in finals and semis, Bjergsen is simply debatable on all areas, and Jensen didn't play.
Nah Toucoille was clearly better as well
That doesn't work like that all lol, I can also say Blue was 11th best midlaner in LEC and managed to outperform a good majority of NA midlaners this year and was at least top 5 - Top 6 on a dysfuctionnal Dig. On the other hand, Toucouille was at least TOP 3 in LFL last year and he showed great gameplay in LCS outshining in lane the likes of Bjergsen, Abbedage, Fudge, JoJo here and there.
I mean if you think this splits DIG was dysfunctional, I can't even fathom what you'd call last year's SK.
I mean i'd personally take Jensen Bjergsen Nisqy and PoE over any of the mids that have ever played in LFL, so let's not act like LCS isn't super top-heavy Maple is better than everyone in LCS except maybe toucoille or jojo and typing that physically hurts me. Just because a player goes to LPL and doesn't perform doesn't make them a shit player, Maple has always been good.
You do realise Toucouille comes straight from LFL right? And that Vetheo also comes from LFL? Not saying current LFL players are better mids than LCS ones but there has been great players in LFL as well.
LCS is pretty easily 4th best region behind LEC LCK AND LPL, and actual NA born players are rarely pro stars. Somehow this turns people into thinking the best player in actual minor leagues will stomp NA.
People like to say "X weak player will be fine in NA" and it's rarely true. Their weakness is often a sign of deficiencies rather than them being a big fish in a pond of even bigger fish.
Yeh people forget a lot of players in LCK/LPL/LEC are getting carried by way better players than are in LCS. To come over and perform rarely happens if they suck elsewhere.
SA was fine with the bum lane partner he had to lane with but this signing would be beyond bad.
Contend for worst 3 mids pretty much every split he's played. Contend for worst mid this last split. Through managements incompetence, managed to keep Knight benched at Suning. I think that sums it up.
>Contend for worst 3 mids pretty much every split he's played. Aside from the 5 year run in 2013-2018 when he was the undisputed best mid of his region by an absolutely absurd gap and was actively beating some of the best midlaners in the world at worlds, yeah sure Like i get it he's been very mediocre recently but holy fuck you have to be stupid to say he's been worst 3 mids every split he's played when he was beating world-class midlaners when he came from a minor region for like 5 fucking years
The question asked was >What did Maple do in LPL ? And that was the context surrounding my answer.
Wasnt fofo winning MVP while maple was still in the league? Maple was great, but "absurd gap" is kinda misleading
I remember the Westdoor guy, I think he was pretty good too ? Played for AHQ in LMS, he was the Fizz dude
maple is still very good compared to NA mids
Lol we will see I have him rank 6th in na right now at best in his current form. He was so bad in the lpl that he was benched on a bottom feeder team.
You can have 1 bad split, is fine... you should not be considered dead after that...
Yeah but "foreign pro who used to be good on a declining career joins NA team" has historically not been successful. Maple has not looked good at all in LPL and joining LCS at this stage in his career is not really promising.
If Maple looks good in his home region but shit in a different region that speaks the same language, I’d worry about his play in a region that has a different language entirely.
When people are at the tail end of the careers and they come to NA the last thing people should expect is improvement.
his prime was 7 years ago and he's signing to the 9th place LCS team
If being arguably the 2nd worst mid in the entire LPL makes Maple a "very good mid" compared to NA mids then its time to just shut LCS down as a major region period.
That line of thinking usually outs people as having not watched a single LPL game, nevermind a game between bottom tier teams.
Dog, Maple got benched on the worst team in the league and replaced by Forge. If he comes to NA and is anywhere close to top 3 then the region is doomed period. He couldn't lane for shit and was comically bad in the LPL. Just unreal levels of bad.
Yeah, *exactly*. Everything I've seen of bottom tier teams in the LPL is some of the absolute worst garbo, as in even with a simple eye test the current TSM could easily compete with them. Fucking *TSM*.
Why do you define ending the regular season in 1st place and not going to Worlds by losing 1 game 5 as "average"?
Because League of Legends is not an individual game, so it's stupid as hell to use team results as an indicator of player strength.
You'd put Faker or Rookie on TSM, I'd still bet on EG/TL/100T in a H2H. Helps having great players, but having the overall better team is what wins games.
SwordArt was not average in summer…SwordArt was the best support in NA during summer. In the last 3-4 weeks of the split, he was MVP worthy.
You're getting downvoted because haha 6 million haha TSM XD... but yeah SwordArt was playng extremely well in summer.
yeah, I think people forget the Swordart roster was the first time TSM placed 1st in regular season in like 3 years. And he did it laning with fucking Lost.
It’s kind of expected, but I don’t mind. I actually went back at some point last year, and rewatched all of the TSM games with emphasis on how SA was playing. Besides about 2-3 games with disjointed engages, SA made very very little mistakes in summer. His engages, team fighting, and roaming were a large reason why TSM succeeded. Also the whole CoreJJ 0% percentage proximity was preceded by SA playing this style with Lost staying bot.
Also he had Lost as his adc so there was that.
All I know about Maple is that he was a large part of the Flash Wolves a couple years back and is a fan of Steins;Gate so I am biased to say that he will be the greatest mid scientist of all time
El Psy Congroo
He's so cool
Sonovabitccchh
Tuturu
All TSM has to do is get him a cranky redhead girlfriend and boom mad scientist performance unlocked.
Broken stopwatch in his inventory about to trigger PTSD tho.
didn’t know he’s a Steins;Gate fan, i love him already
Maple agreed to play for TSM on the condition that he gets to scrim on an IBM 5100
That makes more sense than Bo joining TSM. So it seems to be Huni - Spica - Maple - Tactical - M.I.A.
Are Huni, Spica and Tactical guarantee to stay?
Considering they cant get any imports and there are no good FAs prob a 99% lock
I mean, they’re still under contract, so they have to stay if TSM want them to. I believe we held on to Zven for longer than he wanted us to because they had no better replacements at the time?
yes unless tsm is trolling hard bc they are easily the best available residents
At least for summer I believe they are under contract. I highly doubt Spica will want to stay after this split though, so who knows after summer.
Went from Team Zoomers to Team Boomers
what did the regi said before split? that this is long term project with keiduo and shenyi? that they gonna build on that? i wonder what his short term project look like
That was before they found out that KDO eats shit for breakfast. But that can be blamed on poor scouting. And Shenyi was a drama queen, which couldn't be scouted
painfully average roster with IMT strengthening with Ignar (and potentially Sven), they might still miss playoffs lol
Summer playoffs is 8 teams, no? Or they changed it from last year. Hard to miss 8-team playoff
A bit fifty-fifty. Replacing Spica might not seem like a priority, but Bo was one of the hottest players in the World before he got sanctioned/benched in the match-fixing scandal. New mid seems higher priority, but Maple isn't nowhere near as hot as a player. Still much bigger name than Keaiduo though.
It wasn’t confirmed if MIA was academy (to replace Yursan) or LCS (with Shenyi Acad). I’d assume Shenyi starts in LCS, tbh Edit: it’s Mia in LCS, bummer /:
This decision screams retirement from Maple.
Good guy Swordart hooking up his buddy
Won't get his car money stolen either!
Team Stolen Mercedes at it again
This. I can just imagine SA and maple hanging out, and SA being like "Yo wanna make money and take a vacation at the same time? Lmao"
Obviously. Anyone who comes from LPL or LCK is choosing money over achievement. Even as an LCS fan I admit that's always the case. But I also think players are smart to do it. Sure is nice to retire filthy rich.
Anyone from LCK/LPL that comes to NA is 100% doing it for "retirement". We've known this for the past near-decade.
Team Saved Maple
TSM context switching from LPL pipeline to PCS pipeline. The GM has connections in the region, so it makes sense.
Anyone know if Maple can speak English?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cw1J01pa4Q He had a translator to talk to Bjergsen 2 years ago
If he can't, then at least he won't be affected by Regi's ranting.
He can probably understand this tho: >IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS IMPORTS
I think he can but his English won't be really good. He went to the same high school as SwordArt (even though it's because they joined FW) and according to SwordArt, Maple was quite hard working so I guess his English will be similar to SwordArt? Maybe need some time to practice.
He went to the same HS as SwordArt, so it shouldn't be too bad
same high school ≠ same English skill
MMD said a few days ago that SA had the best English on the team by far, but “someone” on the old flash wolves team had been studying very hard recently.
Don't think so. At least he never gave interviews in English and used a translator.
This move is like...4-5 years late...or at least it should have been a move with SwordArt He had a pretty good showing on PSG at last years MSI, should have gotten out of groups at worlds (HLE had no fucking business in the quarters) He should look good in NA but I don't think this is will tip the scale massively into TSMs favor
What a weird way of spelling Chovy Life Esports.
:( deft played really well from gauntlet to quarters
Well that's not overwhelming or underwhelming, I'm just whelmed.
Maple has been rumored to NA for like 5 years, cool to see it happen finally. This guy won't make a top 10 mids of all time list, but he's a legend in my mind based on the sheer amount of international tournaments he's been in. Always present, and always a force to be reckoned with. I hope he finds success in NA.
I think if he didn't have those disastrous splits in LPL, you'd have a good case for him being in top 20 all time.
Does TSM just not care anymore?
I think Regi has it in his mind that Chinese and Taiwainese players are the best bang for your buck, even if the players are mediocore for their region. We now know from Peter Zhang that Regi came to him and asked him to suggest imports from those regions. You can kind of understand the logic, since other teams are taking up the best possible import options from LEC and LCK, so looking at LMS and LPL seems like an opportunity. But I think it is a doomed endeavor. I don't think LPL or LMS players will ever perform well enough in LCS orgs simply due to how LPL and LMS teams play LoL so different from LCS teams. Just seems like a recipe for disaster. Mechanics are not everything. It's still a team game where players need to be able to communicate rapidly and get on the same page strategically. LPL and LMS players seem to have even worse English than the LCK players, too.
I think Swordart's English was better than basically every imported LCK player.
Nah man you cannot say that with Holo Holo on the team. I would argue he would probably write better but in terms of speaking and communicating Reignover, Huni, Wadid are definitely standouts.
hey swordart was great at english, as least for an import
Complete agree. A lot of NA fans see Maple and remember the good ol days. Now, a bad lpl split doesn't mean he's bad forever, and he could possibly do well. However, if you're a TSM fan, I feel like you should expect Regi to sign a midlaner who played out of their mind last split, not one you hoped lives up to old potential.
I don't thin any midlaner who played out of their mind last split would want to even join a bottom LCS team though.
But why get such a known quantity... This is the development roster they've been harping about?
Another guy who wants to retire comfortably
Honestly with Bjerg and Abbedagge being so underwhelming, this isn't \*too\* bad of a pickup. He's probably not gonna be gapping any midlaners internationally but for NA he's fine. Good chance of being top 3 midlaner
Cool, solid signing for TSM but also glad we didn't just chuck out Blue after he had a surprisingly decent split
Poor Maple.
I don’t understand
There’s a mid laner, goes by the name of Maple. He’s joining the LCS team TSM to be their mid laner. Hope it helped.
Bruh, cant even blame peter zhang no more..
wooloo king
This is a Team Speak Mandarin that I can get behind.
He had a bad split in LPL, doesn't mean he can't ever be good again. There were lots of people that had bad splits before that we consider good players. Honestly with how much reddit hates this I hope he comes in and fucking gaps everyone. Always liked those YFW teams.
He didn't have just one bad split tho, he had bad split pretty much every split he had been in lpl, which ain't promising at all.
He has had five splits in LPL, and five out of five have been abysmal
Just look at how happy people are about Jensen coming back to C9 when the community was ready to throw him away after 2019 Worlds because he played poorly there. For reddit, you're only as good as your last split/tournament.
Even Icon who was rumoured last year would have been better
It is actually true lmao. Icon laning is better than Maple and has a wider champ pool. Also Icon’s English is better.
His english is pretty damn good and his personality as well as brand could be perfect for NA. Before that I didnt want him to go to TSM because I thought they wanna build a championship team but now it would be nice actually
the thing is Icon came from a wealthy family and he legit could become a model or generate money from simps by streaming. He has so many leverage that even if he's still passionate about league and competing, he would like to be contending championship and definitely not joining teams like TSM. Unless if TSM somehow assembled a roster he would like to play with.
As a fellow Taiwanese, I'd love to see Karsa come to NA too.
DIG Maple at least made some sense pairing him back with River, but TSM? This makes no sense at all and reeks of just terrible scouting.
Don’t know why people are so down on Maple. He played pretty well at MSI and Worlds just last year.
Difference between people who watch/follow LPL vs people who watch internationals. The former will dump on him because he's been legit terrible in LPL. The latter are living off the korean killers hype or from internationals last year (when he was on PSG Talon). The latter are probably the same people that thought Doggo would be a top tier adc in LPL when the signing was announced, lol.
He's been a good player for most of his career tho, i'd be more inclined to believe that the environment in China simply doesn't suit him rather than a total lack of skill on his part.
2013-2018 I'll give you. LPL has had many mids which most regions would consider good come in since then. Knight, Angel, Fofo, Creme, Strive, Shanks, Care, Yuekai to name a few. Even then you still have some like Cryin, Ucal, Yagao, Forge (subbed for Rookie), Xiye as some well known names. Maple was struggling to compete in '19, '20. Went back to PCS in '21 as nobody wanted him. And now in 2022 he's benched from one of the bottom teams in the league. 2021 was the only year you could consider him 'decent' again. Maybe you're right, but at no time during 5 splits in LPL did he look serviceable. He was getting outlaned by players most people considered bad for LPL, let alone when he went up against the good mids.
> Maybe you're right, but at no time during 5 splits in LPL did he look serviceable. He was getting outlaned by players most people considered bad for LPL, let alone when he went up against the good mids. That's why i lean more towards "environment issues", surely a player of his caliber should have been middle of the pack at worse and not bottom tier, he was more than fine internationally for most of his career including last year, it's weird that he'd be so bad in LPL. Some players just do better in/out of certain regions for whatever reason like Rich or Malrang this split, hopefully LCS works for him.
Okay but even if that's true he's going to TSM. Which has a reputation of having a horrible environment.
Wait Doggo has been nice though breathe Linda sprinted it in playoffs no way you can blame doggo and also he had to compete with mfkn UZI and UZI gave up that should tell you something. And BLG wasn't bad they lost to the 2nd place team and took a game off of them
There's been a lot of Taiwanese favouritism within BLG in recent times past. I wouldn't call the fact Uzi thought the situation unworkable a big indictment on him and/or his skill -- and I didn't even expect Uzi would do better than being maybe 6th best ADC on his return (though I'd have welcomed a nice surprise there). Uzi was still better than Doggo even on relatively limited practice in my eyes, which says a lot for me in terms of where Doggo is/was at. Also, multiple Chinese pros that have watched their scrimsets rate Doggo among the worst of the adcs they reviewed (it was mostly top teams), but I'll discount Uzi's rating because obviously they'll be biased towards his legacy/name. BLG wasn't *bad*, but the potential was there to be so much more than they ended up being. I did think Doggo was a limiter on their potential and was waiting for Uzi to be played more full time, but their internal issues and player performances outside of botlane ended up being the real killer for their split anyways. No major surprises really, BLGs management has become a bit of a meme over more recent years for a good reason. This just reinforces it for me.
Because he was so bad that when he came into RW, despite the fact that he was replacing a bottom tier mid, they immediately started losing largely off Maple's comically bad performances. They immediately started winning again when they brought back their previous mid.
[удалено]
If you look at the available people they could sign mid-year, I don't think there is any way TSM could construct a roster good enough to compete with the top 4 orgs. The current roster has issues at pretty much every position and has big internal issues. Remember that they are locked into contracts with their current players. It's not like they can just drop players to get them off the payroll. So anything they do would have to be trades OR just straight up adding huge new salaries to their budget. Who the hell is going to want to trade for the steaming piles of shit players TSM has atm? A team is going to give one of their good players for one of TSM's shitty ones? No way. This isn't a video game where you can just click a button to add any player you want from pool of players. You have to considered the very real limitations of your annual budget as well as other players already being contracted with other teams for the year. TSM has very very limited options here for acquiring new players.
This at least is an interesting name.
Sadge, I guess this means the Bo rumours are not true?
oh boy TSM importing another big name from the taiwanese/chinese scene. this surely can't go poorly.
Maple was always so fuckin to watch at worlds and MSI. Dudes a stud and a godly performer.
I'm convinced lpl/lms players are just taking turns earning their retirement fee in tsm
the team completely lost its identity, i guess they can try rebuilding
retirement home LMAO i love NA but jeez are some of these moves are why our regions gets shit on by the whole competetive community
Just don't understand the fuck in this org washed top / jungle out next split / washed mid / tactical / no name support , so its reginald sell the spot at the end of the year or another entire fucking rebuild and another fucking years wasted , i'm tired of this org
Why are TSM fans acting like they have been a poverty franchise since the founding of the org lol
Spoiled little shits
I’m a TSM fan and its so true, a lot of these fans really are way too entitled.
Yeah, imagine the "entitlement" of wanting your management to actually attempt to build a good roster.
Imagine the entitlement of thinking the management can go and get whoever reddit thinks is best for their team and then when they don’t, all they spew is toxicity online crying about it. People need to grow up. Who is some random to tell Regi that they’re cheaping out by not using FTX money on the game they’re probably least profitable in? And what if they did throw the bag at people and they didn’t join. People act like they have all the info on the decisions made and act like it’s all incompetency in management. Last split was not a shit show just because of the roster. That roster does way better than 9th with a real bootcamp and time to gel. Sports teams can’t realistically stay on top forever. This team has gone through so many changes from top to bottom recently. You can’t expect everything to be smooth sailing just like that.
Remainder that TSM won a title more recently than TL lol
They aren't...they are acting like the current direction is unacceptable for a team whose management still constantly claim the aim is to win worlds. Either be honest and admit you have no ambitions for the LoL team any more or actually back your words by at least attempting to build a competitive roster.
This is a good pick up for TSM tbh. Maple has always been solid.
Did u watch him in the LPL this split? He looked abysmal
LPL is also extremely harder than NA, he will be fine
Lol, he lost his starting spot on the worst lpl team, he's not good
He lost his spot to Forge. Forge is good no?
Forge had a fairly alright split for himself but is prob the worst starting mid in LPL. Certainly bottom 3.
Continuing the revolving door of importing random washed up players instead of trying to develop domestic talent like EG did will not only be bad for their team, but also cost them a lot of money and also bring the overall level of LCS down
Hello darkness my old friend