Doublelift explains why TSM’s 2022 LCS roster will hurt their brand value

Former League of Legends-pro turned streamer Doublelift explained why he thinks TSM’s roster choices for the 2022 LCS season will damage their brand value, and make it hard to keep fans rooting for the team.

On December 9, TSM announced the roster they assembled for the 2022 LCS season. The team kept jungler Mingyi ‘Spica’ Lu and top laner Heo ‘Huni’ Seung-hoon, who played for them in 2021. They also brought over AD Carry Edward ‘Tactical’ Ra from Team Liquid.

The announcement that shocked some fans was the acquisition of support Wei ‘Shenyi’ Zi-Jie and mid laner Zhu ‘Keaiduo’ Xiong from the LDL, or League of Legends Developmental League, which serves as the LPL’s academy system.

TSM streamer Doublelift shared his own thoughts on the roster changes after watching the announcement video.

Doublelift on TSM’s LDL acquisitions

On December 10, Doublelift talked about TSM’s new look LCS roster on stream, and said he doesn’t think 2022 will be a “fun” one for the org.

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“As far as brand value goes, I don’t think that it’s gonna be fun to be a fan of a roster that’s speaking mostly Chinese. That’s just the reality,” he said. “We are in the West, we are in America, we are in NA, supposedly American teams. We want them to represent our culture. It’s gonna be hard to be a fan, I guess.”

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The former pro player does belive the moves could shake out well for the LCS team on the rift, though.

“Even though they probably will be better, right, than having two random NA players, and being a s***ty placed team,” he concluded.

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Doublelift hasn’t held back when voicing criticism of TSM. He’s called the organization “disgusting”, and has publicly feuded with TSM’s owner Reginald.

While Doublelift sees bringing in LDL players as a good move in terms of the team’s performance, he sees it as a major obstacle to market them to an audience with a language barrier.