Rift Life - Team Liquid Will Be My Team This Year . . . Unless They Pull a Team Liquid

My friends and I are hoping to increase interest in League of Legends on Steemit, enjoy watching the NA-LCS (the North American Professional League of the game), and want to share our thoughts. With the spring season getting ready to kick off we thought now would be as good a time as any. Some of my friends are still waiting to get their accounts approved, but if you want to see who all will be contributing you can go visit here. Hive account@captenredbeard has already shared some information on what's new this season and his support of Clutch Gaming, unfortunately.

To be honest this will be the first season in which I'm rooting for Team Liquid. If you're interested in learning more about Team Liquid (formerly known as Team Curse) then check out the video above. Two of the most popular former players from the Team Curse days are THE BOY Voyboy bringing you fresh content straight from his oven to yours and one of the most toxic junglers from back in the day IWillDominate, but enough about the past and on to the present.

DoubleLift signed on for Team Liquid late in the 2016 season to help them avoid relegations. He was taking a year off from professional play after a disappointing performance in Worlds 2015, and wanting to see if he still had the drive to be a professional gamer. 2017 was much like 2015 in that he was playing for Team Solo Mid and had a disappointing performance during worlds. After being cut in 2018 by Team Solo Mid and picked up by Team Liquid it will be interesting to see if this ignites a fire in him to become an even better player than before. Doublelift brings to the table loads of experience, not only in professional play, but at international tournaments as well during his time with CLG and TSM.

Pobelter got his start with Curse Academy (Academy teams were/are the "minor" teams if you will for their professional counterparts) and worked his way up to joining the first notable team Counter Logic Gaming (CLG). Pobelter is one of the few mids (if not the only mid) that is not in import (from the United States). I love watching Pobelter play and anyone that has ImaQTpie in their corner has to be a decent player. He's attended world's in 2015 with CLG (a former favorite team of mine) and again in 2017 with a team known as the Immortals (no longer in the NA LCS). Once again another veteran player bringing worlds experience with him.

It's fun reading up on some of these players and learning something new as you go. Xmithie was on the CLG team that went to worlds with Pobelter, but apparently, Xmithie was unable to participate in Worlds 2015 due to Visa Issues. This is also the year that he became a US citizen. Again, in 2017 Pobelter and Xmithie qualified for worlds together again, but this time with Immortals. This time Xmithie was able to attend worlds and had a great performance in the jungle, but unfortunately Immortals was not able to make it out of group stage.

Impact has won a World Championship with SK Telecom T1 (the most winningest team in League of Legends) in 2013. After that, he bounced around a few teams before landing on Cloud 9 which is where he first appeared on my radar. I've always enjoyed watching Meteos jungle and the impact that Impact had on the top lane was incredible. Last year on C9 (Cloud 9) they were the only NA team to make it out of the group stage. Once again another veteran player coming to the team with at least 2 years of worlds experience.

Oleh will be a new player for me. Coming from the old Immortals (if you haven't noticed 3 of the 5 players were on the old Immortals team) I didn't really follow him or the Immortals much. The 2 years they were in the LCS I was enjoying watching TSM (last year) and CLG (the previous year) more. If I remember correctly him and Xmithie had really good synergy together and can't wait to see if they can replicate that this year on their new team. Once again Oleh comes with at least 1 year of worlds experience.

Did you see what I did there!? I made a funny . . . (ok if you still don't get it Team Liquid used to be known as Curse Gaming). In all seriousness though, Team Liquid for the past few years has been seen as a powerhouse organization that recruits the highest dollar talent only to fall flat during the season. That's why Doublelift was brought in mid-season to keep the organization's professional team's dreams alive. If this team can just meet expectations and finish the Spring Split at least 4th I will be pumped to watch this team get even better during the Summer as they gain more experience playing with each other.

Even though most of the players have experience playing with each other in the past, this is the first time these 5 players will be playing with Team Liquid. A new coaching staff, new expectations, new environment, etc. This is the team I'm most excited about entering the new season, but if they fall flat, my interest will quickly focus somewhere else.