Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, who recently decided to retire from professional League of Legends as a player, gave a little more insight in the situation surrounding TSM and their newly acquired support Hu “SwordArt” Shuo-Chieh. He did so while streaming on his Twitch channel.
Doublelift talks about his feelings going into the new season with thoughts about possibly retiring. “I think I did initially want to play, just with the best possible roster that I could. I was really excited for the whole SwordArt thing as they told me SwordArt was confirmed.” This confirms earlier reports that Doublelift wanted to play with a top international and English-speaking support in the upcoming season.
When the situation surrounding SwordArt got more cloudy and difficult, TSM offered Doublelift an alternative. “Then the negotiations were really bad at a certain point and they told me it fell through and that it wasn’t going to work. They asked me if I’d still be committed if my support was Nguyễn Palette Hải Trung, who is really good actually and I recommended him, but he doesn’t speak English.”
Six-time regional champion. 2020 Worlds finalist. We’ve faced him on the rift before, but now it’s time for him to lead us to victory.
Welcome to TSM, SwordArt 🤝 (Pending Riot approval) pic.twitter.com/kQn1LcP8Rk
— TSM (@TSM) November 26, 2020
This eventually led to Doublelift making his decision on the retirement final. “I told them I wouldn’t be committed with Palette and they (TSM) did not like that. The whole situation made me realize I am better off retired.” TSM would still go on to sign SwordArt after Doublelift retired in a huge two-year deal. The new bot laner for the organization on the other hand has not been confirmed yet.
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