Photo: LoLesports
Star AD carry Gwang-Jin "Piglet" Chae will be watching week five from the sidelines as his team sub him out in favor of Yuri "Keithmcbrief" Jew, after the Korean failed to meet expectations.
When Curse and Piglet shook hands on working together in October last year, the fanbase of the flames must've felt ecstatic. The Korena marksman was dubbed one of the best carries in the east and his Season 3 World Championship - alongside the Champions Winter 13-14 and the All-Star 2014 gold medals - came to support that claim. His exodus from South Korea following the changes to the competitive circuit as well as inside his own SKT team should've led to more great deeds on western soil.
As it is often the case, however, the strong on paper roster of Curse - now called Team Liquid after the merging this January - fell victim to communication issues. The language barrier between Piglet and the rest of the Liquid quintet created "poor team dynamic", to quote head coach Peter Zhang. The latter also added that while they understand it is not easy for Piglet to be uprooted from his all-Korean team environment and thrown into the unfamiliar world of American LCS, the decision to bench him is "in the best interest of the team".
Piglet has been competing with Liquid for three weeks now and did little to improve their standings in the league. On the contrary: a score of 2-4 between weeks two and four ate away Liquid's two-nil start after week one and the horseheads are now in a five-way tie for third place with Gravity, Cloud 9, Impulse and Winterfox and have lots of catching up to do before they can challenge the leaders in TSM (7-1) and CLG (6-2).
In his article for LoLesports, Robert Wery writes that the "Korean hype train was brough to a sudden halt" and this cannot be more true when it comes to Piglet. The Season 3 champions is currently statistically the worst AD carry in the entire LCS NA with 2.92 average KDA over six games. Looking at the same table, we can see his replacement Keith at the very top, impressing with 15-2-23 KDA stats over the two games he played.
