TL Yeon: "We did ourselves a disservice today"

arrived at Worlds 2026 as the LCS champions, after beating 3-1 in the Summer final for their first title since Spring 2024. The team that rebuilt around Sean “” Sung and Jo "" Yong-in took the top seed in North America, but the Swiss Stage did not start as planned. TL lost the opener to , the LCP’s second seed, in a relatively close game.

The result puts Liquid at 0-1 and sends them to the second round against . Right after the match, Sheep Esports had the opportunity to speak with the team’s AD carry.

Sean “Yeon” Sung: “Obviously, it’s very disappointing to lose to CFO. They’re not weak, but I do think we should have been at least stronger in this head-to-head. It’s quite a shame that we couldn’t even show our actual potential and our skill level compared to what we showed in the LCS.

Yeon: I feel like our early game didn’t go very well, and we struggled to bounce back with a better mindset about wanting to win the game. We let our fundamentals fail us, because of the pressure we must have felt being a little behind.

Yeon: I think our fundamentals were quite good compared to other teams, and our team play was quite good. But it seems we let our fundamentals drop in this first game.

Yeon: North America has fewer players than regions like Korea, Europe and China. About the LCP, I’m not too sure about their player base, to be honest. But I would say the level is not that different, especially in the top tiers. When you get to solo queue and the lower-tier teams, we don’t have enough players compared to them. So our base is a bit lower, but our highs should still be quite good.

Yeon: I think the 0-1 teams are all quite good, especially the teams that lost today, but we just have to bounce back and make sure we play our own game. I think we did not do ourselves a service the way we played today.

Yeon: Their pick was quite random, I think they ran out of picks, to be honest. But there was nothing that surprised me. It was just a regular game.

Yeon: was a lot better than I expected initially, yes. And was even better than I thought as well.

Yeon: It’d be quite fun to play against (Steven Liv). I like him a lot, and I’m very friendly with him.

Yeon: To be honest, I don’t really mind which way I play. But I do think the hyper carries are definitely not as strong as the utility AD carries, mainly.

Yeon: Like I said before, I think we did ourselves a disservice and let our fundamentals down. We didn’t really show what we are actually good at, and we kept falling into a loop of being low on tempo, which is something we’re usually very good at, and playing as a team.”