At the end of 2017 Team Solo Mid had finalised their roster and coaching staff announcing MikeYeung, Zven and Mithy as their new additions to the roster with SSONG and Lustboy coming in as coaches for the team. Their notable additions gave the fans high hopes for a good worlds run and had analysts predicting them as the number one team in North America. However, after week 2 of the Spring Split, TSM only have one unconvincing win to their name, which has gotten many to ask why one of the best teams in NA is performing so poorly.

Team Synergy

Individually the players on TSM are highly skilled and have the potential to crush their opposition, however this is only a small factor that goes into winning the game. At the competitive level, the game mostly relies on a teams’ ability to work together rather than a player’s individual skill.

Similarly to other attempts at all-star rosters, they lack the synergy to play as a team. This is the core problem facing TSM that most of their current problems can be traced back to. The poor communication on TSM, as well as their inability to capitalise on their leads, can be traced back to that lack of synergy within the team.

Given that it is still early days for the Spring Split, there is a chance that TSM can resolve this problem. The main thing holding them back from resolving this issue is time, while team synergy can be improved it can be a long process especially when under pressure to win for every game.

Communication and Decision Making

Extending from the previous issue mentioned. Lack of team synergy has caused poor communication and bad decisions in high pressure situations during the game.

Communication within the team is the main issue that people keep pointing out when commenting on their performance. Even the TSM mid laner Søren “ Bjergsen ” Bjerg has stated, “ We recognise there’s problems, especially just the synergy and communication ”.

Communication is important in competitive League of Legends because it goes into all aspects of the game. From getting an early game solo kill to focusing the priority in the final team fight, communication is the key to success. Good communication is when a team can communicate well with each other about what they are doing and what their opponents are doing. Poor communication is when they don’t tell each other the information they need which can lead to poorly executed plays or getting caught out of position.

A notable example of this is from their first game against Team Liquid on day 1 of the NA LCS.

At around 12 minutes into the game, Mike “MikeYeung” Yeung invades into the enemy bot side of the jungle. He eventually has to use the Shyvana ultimate ‘Dragon’s Descent’ to stop himself from getting killed. This would have put MikeYeung at a slight disadvantage but nothing that would significantly impact the game. However this is not how it ended as Alfonso “Mithy” Aguirre-Rodriguez ran past the enemy support at the same time as MikeYeung had already jumped out.

This led to Mithy getting caught out and losing most of his health as well as the Kalista ultimate ‘Fate’s Call’. This made it easier for Team Liquid’s collapse on bot lane only seconds later which resulted in 3 members dead for TSM and a lead for Team Liquid which they never came back from.

Could this have been avoidable?

Yes, in many different ways if TSM had communicated properly with each other. MikeYeung should have communicated that he was invading and looking to check the red buff. Equally Bjergsen should have supported MikeYeung or told him to run back but instead Eugene “Pobelter” Park rotated first even though he was pushed under tower at the time. Most importantly Mithy should not have ran past the enemy bot lane to help MikeYeung who was already safe.

TSM has continually shown that there are weak at communicating and make poor decision during the game, which is their biggest failure as a team.

Fighting on Their Own Terms and That 10k Gold lead

In their games in week 2, TSM had no problem with getting early game leads in terms of gold leads. In their game against OpTic Gaming they had a gold lead for the entire game since the 2-minute mark, but they still struggled to end the game. Furthermore in their game against Echo Fox they had a 10k gold lead, which should have guaranteed the victory but it all fell apart during the game turning team fight in the 39th minute.

From this it is clear that TSM struggles to control to capitalise on their leads against teams but why is this the case.

The main reason why TSM struggle to use their gold leads to their advantage is their inability to force team fights for themselves. From their previous games we can see that TSM rarely initiate the team fights which means that their opponents have the initial control in team fights.

Their match against Echo Fox is a great example of this. They had a 10k gold lead ahead of Echo Fox but failed to capitalise on it by creating team fights in their favour. In that game, TSM never initiated any of the major team fights. The only time they initiated in that game was the one that turned the game into Echo Fox’s favour.

Initiating team fights is important because it can end team fights within second of the engage. This is most effective when they are ahead in gold and therefore items, which is how most teams use their lead by fighting when they are strong. On top of that making the first move especially when ahead makes the team fights favourable for the team that initiated. For TSM this is not the case as they prefer to play passively even when they are ahead.

TSM’s failure to make proactive plays and engages while ahead is why they constantly fail to take advantage of any leads gained in the early game.

Final Thoughts

I think TSM has a lot to improve on but luckily they have a lot of time to do so.

With the threat of relegation now gone, there is space for TSM to grow and develop as a team. However the overwhelming pressure on them to perform well in every match may affect their ability to develop as a team.

Going into week 3, their first match is against the Golden Guardians who haven’t performed that well so far. This should be a win for TSM but this is their opportunity to show that they have made some of the necessary improvements.