Ever since braking onto the League Of Legends scene back in 2011 , Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng has been one-off the best players in North America winning many domestic titles and in the process has cemented himself as one of the most influential players in the history of the LCS. However , until recently, Doublelift has never had any success at International Events failing to get out of groups at every international tournament. The Doublelift Curse.. was real.







In 2015 , Doublelift made his first appearance at the League Of Legends World Championships, qualifying with CLG after beating TSM 3:0 at Madison Square Garden to win the NA LCS Summer Playoffs for the first time in his career. After leaving NA as the number one seed Doublelift & CLG were favourites to go far in the competition when they were placed in a group with KOO Tigers, Flash Wolves and paiN Gaming however a series of bad performances including a loss to the international wildcard paIn Gaming led to them failing to get out of groups stage.

Just after Doublelift and CLG’s lacklustre performances at The 2015 World Championships , CLG announced that Doublelift would be leaving the team due to his negative attitude and falling out with his bot lane partner Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black due to his strong personality. After leaving CLG , Doublelift announced that he signed for the most successful team in NA LCS history , TSM where his main goal was International success

Doublelift & TSM qualified for Worlds as the number one seed from North America after beating C9 3:1 In the NA LCS Summer Playoffs 2016. Speaking just after claiming his second NA LCS title, Doublelift vowed in an onstage interview that he will do the fans proud at The World Championships and will do everything he can to lead his team to international success. Could the Doublelift Curse be broken?

Heading into Worlds TSM were considered to be one of the favourites to win the whole competition after being tipped as the best ever team to leave North America and expectations were very high for the so-called “Super Team” even though they were placed in the group of death which saw them face against RNG , Samsung Galaxy and Splyce.

Sadly , Once again Doublelift and his team were Out-Classed by the other teams and failed to make it out of groups shattering the hopes of dreams of all North American fans who finally thought they had a team who could potentially go all the way and become the first North American team to win the World Championships.

After taking a brake during the 2017 Spring Split to spend some time streaming , Doublelift returned to competitive play for TSM and helped them win the NA LCS Summer Playoffs for the second year in a row making them the 1st seed going into the World Championships for the second year in a row. Going into the World Championships with the same roster as last year TSM had very high expectations going into the tournament but yet again Doublelifts and TSM’s performances just weren’t good enough as they got knocked out of groups for the second year in a row after losing to EU Team Misfits.

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After failing to make it out of Worlds for the second year in a row Doublelift was being replaced in the bot lane by EU Powerhouses Zven & Mithy who comfortable won the EU LCS Spring & Summer Playoffs in 2017. 2 years after being kicked out of CLG , Doublelift was left without a team again but was quickly picked up by Team Liquid who had hopes of creating a super team.

Domestically, Team Liquids new roster performed exactly as you would expect winning the NA LCS Spring Split 2018 , By doing this Doublelift became the first player in North America to win the LCS with 3 different teams and also secured His & Team Liquids first ever trip to MSI. Unfortunately, just like past years at international events Doublelift and his team failed to make it out of groups after losing to EU Team Fnatic on the last day of the group stage.

However as you would expect from Doublelift , His lack of international success had no effect on him coming into the 2018 Summer Split as Team Liquid cruised through the competition and eventually beat Cloud9 3:0 in the finals to qualify for worlds yet again. During the Summer Split, Doublelift received his first ever NA LCS MVP award after getting an average of 3.78 kills a game and continuing to show that he is the most dominant ADC in all of North America.

Believe it or not 3 years after making his first appearance at the World Championships with CLG Doublelift still failed to make it out of groups finishing one win away from qualifying as the number 2 seed from Group C. The Doublelift Curse is still here…

Coming into 2019 , Doublelift promised fans he would never give up on international success and so far in 2019 it looks like Doublelift and Team Liquid could be destined for one of the most successful years domestically and internationally in North American history. After finishing the spring split going 14-4 Team Liquid went onto reverse sweep TSM in the finals which meant they had qualified for MSI for the second year in a row.

After beating Phong Vu Buffalo comfortable 3:0 in the MSI Playoffs , Team Liquid went into the group stage with the expectations of at least qualifying for the Playoffs and finally braking Doublelifts curse of never making it out of groups. In the first round of the Round Robin format Team Liquid finished 2:3 locking them into the 4th and last qualification for the time being.

Going into the last day of the Group Stage after losing to SKT , Team Liquid needed to beat Eu’s G2 E-Sports to automatically qualify for the Playoffs and avoid having to play a Tiebreaker against Flash Wolves. In just under 30 minutes Team Liquid beat G2 to qualify for International Playoffs for the first time in Team Liquid and Doublelift’s history. Could this be the first time that the Doublelift Curse won’t be present?

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Going into the MSI Playoffs as the 4th seed meant that Team Liquid were matched against the reigning world champions Invictus Gaming who after only losing one game during the Group Stage looked like they were going to easily beat Team Liquid and make there way into the 2019 MSI Final. However , Team Liquid were not going to let Invictus Gaming’s incredible win at the past worlds and there dominating run during the group stage play on there minds.

Branded now as the greatest Best Of 5 series ever played by an North American team , Team Liquid surprisingly beat Invictus Gaming 3:1 to qualify for the MSI Final and establish themselves as not only the best team in North America but one of the Best teams in competitive League Of Legends.

Sadly, for North American and Team Liquid Fans the final was where the Fairy Tale story finally ended for Doublelift and Team Liquid at MSI as they were convincingly beat 3:0 by G2 to finish in second place at the tournament. Doublelift and Team Liquid will now hope that in 5 months time they can go and have a bigger impact at Worlds and come back to North America as World Champions. In any case, the Doublelift Curse was lifted! Though the man still needs a finals’ win.





