Photo by esportaren
Having failed to advance in the Spring Split of 2016’s North American Challenger Series, Team Liquid Academy assemble an almost completely new roster consisting of veteran challenger players and a former LCS jungler.
Team Liquid Academy are going back to the drawing board after a relatively mediocre Spring Split. Despite a number of talented players in their roster, they only managed to achieved 4th place in the tournament overall after a 1-3 defeat at the hands of Apex Gaming in the playoffs. With the offseason upon us and many free agents to choose from, ESPN has reported on a full makeover of the TLA roster.
Three of the newcomers are coming in as a package deal with top laner Collin “Solo” Earnest, support William “Stunt” Chen, and mid laner Greyson “Goldenglue” Gilmer. The latter is one of the few players on the team with true LCS experience after subbing in for Echo Fox during the first half of last split, but all three come to TLA after being released from the failed Team Ember after the team was eliminated during playoffs. The final addition to the roster is former NRG eSports jungler Galen “Moon” Holgate, following his replacement on NRG by Lucas “Santorin” Larsen. TLA’s only returning member comes from carry Jovani “Fabbbyyy” Guillen, seen as one of North America’s rising stars.
This change leads to the removal of members Derek “zig” Shao, Matthew “Akaadin” Higginbotham, Youngbin “Youngbin” Chung, and Andy “Smoothie” Ta, the latter of whom was originally planned to move on to the original Team Liquid before being replaced by Matt “Matt” Elento. It is not yet known where any of these men plan to go for the Summer Split.
With their new roster at the ready, TLA will need to prepare in order to face such teams as Team Dragon Knights, the new Apex challenger team, and potentially the new Cloud9 challenger team. Steep competition such as this is sure to bring an exciting Summer Split to fans of the CS.
