League of Legends World Championship: Team Liquid, a seahorse in an ocean of adversity (13/20)

The League of Legends 2024 World Championship kicks off in Berlin on the 25th of September. A total of 20 teams will compete to succeed T1 at the top of the Riot Games MOBA world hierarchy. On this occasion, Sheep Esports brings you a daily feature on one of the teams taking part. This September 17th, the thirteenth episode of our series focuses on Team Liquid, LCS second seed.

Team Liquid, one of the North America's finest will once again take part in the World Championship. Obtaining their ticket to the main event by finishing in second place in the Summer playoffs, they come in this tournament in a very different shape than last year. Indeed, despite being the second seed from NA after suffering a crushing defeat in the final against FlyQuest, Team Liquid enters the tournament as one of the top Western teams.

They will aim to break the organization's curse and reach quarters for the first time in their history. Although Team Liquid has participated in the competition six times since 2018, they have never managed to advance past the group stage. Their goal is to finally break the curse, as in four consecutive appearances between 2018 and 2021, they ended with a 3-3 record and failed to make it out of the groups.

The only time their fate was different was last year. Despite building a custom roster with Korean superstars like Park "Summit" Woo-tae on the toplane and reigning world champion Hong "Pyosik" Chang-hyeon in the jungle, they didn’t win a single match in the competition and became the first team eliminated from the tournament after a third loss against GAM Esports. The humiliation was complete, capping off a disastrous year for the team, which had not shown a good level of play throughout the entire season and had qualified at the last minute anyway.

Following the failure of 2023, Team Liquid reworked their strategy and decided to rebuild their topside. They recruited jungler Um "UmTi" Sung-hyeon, straight from the LCK for his first competition outside of Korea, and brought back their former toplaner from 2018 to 2020, the veteran Jeong "Impact" Eon-young. Alongside the fiery Eain "APA" Stearns, bot laner Sean "Yeon" Sung, and the league’s oldest player at 30 years old, Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in, they would go on to dominate nearly the entire 2024 season.

Team Liquid have had only FlyQuest as a real opponent throughout the year. TL won the Spring Split after a rather mediocre regular season where they took time to find their playstyle identity, and then they lost a best-of-five in the first round of the playoffs against FlyQuest themselves before winning it all in the end. The Summer Split however has been very different. The league tested its format of best-of-three in the first round only, and Team Liquid will not lose any of those. In fact, they will not lose a single match of the Summer Split except for the grand final lost to FlyQuest, in a highly contested series that will allow them to fine-tune themselves one last time before stepping into Worlds.

They also will benefit from their international experience at MSI 2024 and EWC. Despite getting clapped by T1 and Top Esports, they will have proven they can compete with Europe and took down Fnatic twice (3-1 ; 2-0). Another challenge for Liquid at these Worlds is to prove that the balance of power has finally shifted and that NA is stronger than EU.

If there is one player to keep your eyes on, it is surely Impact. At 29 years old, the player has demonstrated his ability to adapt his playstyle to meet his team's needs. At ease on tank duty, he carried many games on champions like Ornn and K'Sante, and he has never been troubled by lane swaps. His Jax is considered the best in the region as he completely dismantled the laning phase against Eric "Licorice" Ritchie (Dignitas) and Park "Thanatos" Seung-gyu (Cloud9).

On top of his domestic dominance in North America, Impact has also played a big part of Team Liquid's international performances this year. Defeating Fnatic twice at MSI and EWC and consistently outperforming Óscar "Oscarinin" Muñoz during both series, it seems the only remaining western toplaner who could match him is Sergen "BrokenBlade" Çelik. But we can only hope for an encounter at Worlds in a few weeks. Rasmus "Caps" Winther, LEC's season MVP, said in a recent interview that "Fnatic lost twice to TL, but I think third time's the charm. I’m hoping for a rematch at Worlds, and if they can’t take them down, we will." We surely hope for a new EUvNA clash to decide who's the best MVP player in the West.

Find below the 5-man roster TL is sending to 2024 Worlds: