Welcome back to the 2022 edition of “3 Takeaways for Team Liquid.” This segment covers three topics each week that are relevant to Team Liquid’s LCS team (occasionally mentioning TL Academy). Lock In Week 1 kicked off North America’s new year of League of Legends, and Team Liquid starts 2-1 in Group B. They beat Dignitas and CLG pretty handily, while losing a pretty close match against Evil Geniuses.
[Related: Team Liquid’s 2022 LCS Lock In Group B Preview]
Team Liquid took a bit of a gamble with their intended LCS lineup, because it relied on CoreJJ getting a green card to not count as an import. Well, as of today, he has not received a green card. So the team announced they would split stage time between Yeon-CoreJJ and Hans-Eyla.
It’s hard to say after three games which duo is definitively better. TL won both games with Hans-Eyla, and won more dominantly. But Dignitas and CLG are expectedly worse opponents than Evil Geniuses. More games are required to make a final decision as to who should start.
Honestly, either pair could start and the team could make it work. However, at the end of the day, Team Liquid probably paid a lot more money for Hans sama to play in 2022. If push comes to shove, and they settle on one duo while waiting for CoreJJ, it will be Hans-Eyla.
When Bjergsen started considering options to return to pro play in the mid lane this offseason, some speculated about his skill level. Taking a year “off” to coach TSM should certainly impact his performance in the short term, and possibly in the long term. Some fans pointed to Bjergsen’s Master-level Korean solo queue account as an indication he might have lost his mojo.
Team Liquid put the finishing touches on this thirty-minute win with a @Bjergsen triple kill! #LCS #TLWIN pic.twitter.com/oOv6GypANi
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) January 16, 2022
However, Bjergsen crushed his first week of Lock In. Over three games, he has a 15.0 KDA (second highest overall), as well as gold, XP and CS advantages at 10 minutes (second highest among mid laners). Team Liquid’s mid laner was roughly fifth highest in damage numbers, while also having the lowest death share of all players (6.9 percent).
All of this is a good sign that Bjergsen is still a reliable mid laner that can do his job. He played one game each of Orianna, Viktor, Corki—all mainstays of the mid lane champion pool over the years. Surrounded by superstars, Bjergsen should be set up for success this year. Lock In Week 1 was a strong showing, and any worried fans can breathe a sigh of relief.
While Team Liquid does not have the best team-wide K:D ratio (fourth) or gold difference at 15 minutes (3rd), they do have the best first turret rate, first three turrets rate, Herald control, Elder control, and first Baron control. Their Dragon control could use some work, but they are possibly the lowest priority objective currently.
Taking three turrets first in all three of their matches is a great sign of early game pressure. It is somewhere to build from. The statistic is probably tied directly to TL’s Herald control, as that objective can destroy turrets when placed correctly. The next step will be converting the open map into more farm, more optimal fights and maybe more Dragons along the way.
The only other teams close to Team Liquid in the objective control department are EG, Cloud9, 100 Thieves and FlyQuest. Evil Geniuses takes the most turret plates, but not necessarily the first turrets. They also have high neutral objective control across the board. 100 Thieves is pretty close to solid across the board, except only 50/50 at Baron. C9 has a 100 percent stranglehold on Dragons and Barons, but they take fewer early turrets and Heralds. Surprisingly, FLY took first turret and first three turrets in three of their four matches—good enough for second in the league. These are definitely the top five teams in terms of objective control, but Team Liquid has the widest breadth after Lock In Week 1.
Images from Team Liquid LoL’s Twitter
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