Xmithie is not a stranger to international competition. He’s been to Worlds five times and MSI three times. He’s led four different organizations to Worlds which is a feat that is completely unmatched to this day. The rosters change around him, but he remains one of the most threatening players in North America despite the years and new talents that pass by.

League of Legends has been a competitive esport for about nine years now. With all the time that has passed since the game launched and tournaments began cropping up, a number of questions specific to League esports are fascinating to me. How do players become strong? How do certain players improve faster than their peers? Can players that have played the game for over eight years continue to evolve their style and abilities?

The semi-final between Team Liquid and Invictus Gaming was a whispered suggestion of some of these answers in the form of Xmithie.

2017 NA LCS Summer

Xmithie’s most impressive display of how important the veteran jungler can be to a team is the Immortals 2017 summer split. In spring, Immortals were an inconsistent team that failed to even qualify for playoffs. The mix of imports struggling with communication, young players that didn't yet have a hang of LCS-level macro, and then-jungler Dardoch’s fiery personality did not lead to a cohesive team environment. The blockbuster mid-season trade with CLG, swapping IMT Dardoch with CLG Xmithie, gave CLG the star player they needed in Dardoch. More importantly, it provided Immortals with a seasoned veteran who could guide some of the younger players in Xmithie.

In my time as an analyst, I had the good fortune to also learn macro while listening to Xmithie shot-call in scrims. His ideas were often effortless. His wisdom had been earned from hundreds of professional matches. “Do we just want to slowly lose the game here?” was a frequent call when we were behind in scrims. He tried to encourage his teammates to talk about ideas and opportunities to come back from a deficit.

The concept of “slow losing” is the idea that it doesn't really matter how it looks when you lose the game. Taking an engage that has a low percent of success is better than allowing the enemy to take more and more objectives while avoiding fights so that it looks like you made less mistakes. It’s a mental trap that can affect young players just getting used to how community perception and feedback can hurt them. The subconscious thought that if the game is longer and a player dies less, then the community feedback won’t be as harsh is a noncompetitive mindset. Xmithie tried to snuff this out when he could.

He led the seventh place spring Immortals roster to an LCS finals against TSM and the second NA seed for the World Championships. Adopting an aggressive style, he utilized Olleh’s strength on CC-heavy pick supports to his advantage, frequently snowballing the game through bottom lane. This iteration of Immortals was never going to be a super controlled mid-late game team with the experience and communication necessary to play that style, Both Ssong and Xmithie seemed to recognize this.

2017 League of Legends World Championship

At Worlds, Xmithie faced Longzhu, the strongest Korean team at the time, Fnatic, and the Gigabyte Marines in group stages. The group stage opener against Longzhu Gaming was a good depiction of this Immortals roster in terms of playstyle. Xmithie played Ezreal jungle since it was one of the jungle picks most capable of exploiting the early game that patch. There are clear miscommunications and wasted time due to indecision between the lanes and jungle. Despite this, he still manages to work with Cody and Olleh to find several early kills, including a clever usage of Ezreal ult from long range to combo with the crowd control from Varus and Morgana.

This early game also featured another key to Immortals success early game: Pobelter’s side lane communication. Pobelter found a window where BDD takes a reset to roam bot lane, even in a matchup where Taliyah normally has far more side lane threat than Ryze. Pobelter frequently took disadvantages in his matchups to help snowball his sidelanes and grow a gold lead.

Even with all the good that IMT had going for it in the early game, key mid-game mistakes cost them enormously. They bait a fight around infernal dragon and catch out Gorilla before going to kill the dragon. However, they don’t have vision in the topside river and LZ burst down the baron before Immortals is able to rotate. Immortals had two or three members that could have simply soloed the dragon while the rest of the team pressures the top vision, but because they commit all 5 members to hitting the dragon, they lose baron and shortly after, the game.

IMT did not make it out of groups despite Xmithie’s best efforts. They only needed one more game win to break free of the three way tie with FNC and GAM but were unable to pick up a single win on the last day of groups. While Xmithie performed admirably to create leads for his bot lane, having a nonexistent mid jungle 2v2 is a serious issue in international play, and Pobelter accepting deficits does have a significant cost associated with it if the bot lane isn't able to consistently carry.

This loss came mere days before reports that Immortals would not be receiving a spot in the franchised LCS began to surface. With a future in flux and the failure to make it out of groups, it was a difficult time for just about everyone involved with IMT. Realistically we should have been proud of achieving the results we did after the spring split was such a disaster, but coming in second in LCS after losing a game with a huge lead and then missing the knockout stage by one game at Worlds was frustrating.

2018 Team Liquid

Xmithie, Pobelter and Olleh wound up on Team Liquid after the dust settled, a superstar roster that was built with the intention of going to Worlds. This Team Liquid roster went on again to face KZ (formerly known as Longzhu Gaming) in the first match of MSI. This game is eerily similar to the first game of Worlds groups for Immortals. Pobelter helps bot lane find a lead, Xmithie uses herald bot to help a losing matchup, but come mid-game, TL fatally misunderstand how to assign lanes with the composition they have¹ and lose the game. This Team Liquid roster played a bottom lane centric style as well, but they preferred to play slower games when they had the lead, which was easier to do with a more experienced ADC in Doublelift.

[1] With Ornn being the only real hard engage tool against Karma, Soraka, Ezreal, it is EXTREMELY important to group with the Ornn every time his ultimate is up in order to abuse flash cooldowns and avoid sieges. Impact dawdles around the sidelane too much, costing them this game.

The rest of their MSI showing was uninspiring, save for their second match against FNC. There’s a rare moment you get to see a learned difference in the way a team approaches a situation after experiencing it negatively. At this moment, Team Liquid have a pretty significant gold lead and are planning on securing dragon, instead of committing all five members to DPSing the dragon, we see Impact, Olleh and Pobelter rotating towards mid, to deny FNC a baron attempt.

(Theres no climax here, just wanted to highlight how important it was that they seemed to have learned from past mistakes)

This situation isn't particularly uncommon. It’s one that each of these players has likely encountered many times in scrims between the loss to Longzhu and this game. As a former coach/analyst I deeply wished that this would be enough of an example for players to remember and learn the lesson, but the emotional weight of scrims is not the same. Being eliminated from groups because they had a baron snuck from them is a scar that those three players likely noticed again when this situation arrived, and were able to adapt and grow stronger for it.

TL were not able to make it out of groups at MSI, and were forced to move onto summer split while receiving harsh criticism from the community. Each player received their own brand of criticism, “Impact can’t play carries!”, “Xmithie is washed up” “Pobelter and Doublelift aren’t good enough to shine internationally!” but the most brutal criticism was of Olleh. He faced attacks over his decision to sit out a group stage game because of mental health problems. It was frustrating to watch the reddit community decide that Olleh wasn’t professional because he had mental health difficulties in an extremely high-pressure environment that sidelined him².

[2] FOR ONE GAME

The summer split was one of the most boring in my memory. It was easy to tell that TL would win the whole thing and qualify for Worlds as the region’s first seed and that’s exactly what happened. It wouldn't have been Xmithie and Co. at an international event if their first game wasn't against one of the highly-rated Korean teams. At this tournament that team was KT Rolster, who were fresh off winning the LCK summer split for the first time.

This matchup showed off a lot of the flaws of this TL lineup. Their level one plan was not great, and Doublelift lost his lane completely off of facechecking a bush because of it. Their mid game pace was glacial, they didn't attempt proactive plays, and instead committed only to fights around neutral objectives. Meanwhile, Pobelter took a significant personal deficit by teleporting to bot lane to help Doublelift escape a gank alive. The end result was that while bot and top were able to go even, Pobelter had to sacrifice mid to allow bot to go even and he fell behind significantly. Xmithie was able to find gank opportunities in the early game despite being denied some of his camps because of the bot lane deficit. He recognized that playing a slow game wasn't an option as soon as Doublelift got forced out level one, so he based early to get predator boots and found a kill in the bot lane to help fix the matchup. However in the mid-late game this proactivity went missing, and KT took the map.

It isn't until the last game of groups against EDG, after TL has been mathematically eliminated from advancing that we see some real variety in terms of playstyle. Pobelter starts posturing much further forward in lane than usual. He starts really punishing EDG Scout’s laning phase as Syndra vs Lissandra, and accumulates a CS lead for himself. The game is back and forth, but is won by Olleh interrupting Scout’s Glacial path and saving Pobelter, who in turn is able to one shot Iboy.

Olleh’s interrupt on Scout

2019 Team Liquid

It was a fitting ending to the Worlds campaign given offseason roster news. Pobelter and Olleh’s departure meant for the first time in a year and a half, Xmithie is no longer playing with any of his teammates from the 2017 Immortals squad. Instead, he was given a new arsenal of weapons to work with, a more resource demanding mid laner in Jensen and a World Champion support in CoreJJ. Expectations had never been higher for one of Xmithie’s rosters.

Stylistically this TL roster has a key difference in terms of lane focus, with a large priority shift towards enabling Jensen as a player. At MSI, Xmithie and CoreJJ made frequent roams towards mid to help Jensen ward his lane so he could play aggressively in the assassin matchups that MSI revolved so much around. It’s actually quite fortunate for TL that Sylas and Akali were highly contested at MSI, as melee assassin matchups are polarizing and can be swung wildly by jungle pressure.

Gone are the days of the Pobelter Bailout Teleport. Jensen is a player who wants to squeeze a lot out of his lane matchups when given the opportunity, and is hungry to make solo plays. His own warding habits are pretty lackluster³, so a lot of the burden falls to Xmithie and CoreJJ to cover for him. There’s another important piece to Jensen as a player that makes him kind of perfect as a partner for Xmithie. He’s really not into slow losing.

[3] If you want to learn more about Jensen’s warding habits, and what they mean for TL, Brendan Schilling has a great read about their finals performance here

When his team was in bad situations at MSI, Jensen constantly looked for 1v1s and picks to try to make some sort of turnaround possible. He often looked stupid for it and I love that about his play. More often than not the play you are forced to make to avoid slowly bleeding out looks stupid when it doesn't work, but it’s frequently correct and almost certainly more entertaining to watch.

One of Jensen’s less fruitful attempts at a solo play

This new playstyle led TL to the semifinals of MSI 2019. Their opponents Invictus Gaming, played a scrappy style of League that would have been brutally effective against the old TL’s slow and measured playstyle. While the new players played a role in the upset, this series was a triumph of effective prep work and the old men of League having their way.

TL showed up to the semifinals well prepared for Invictus Gaming. They cleaned up their level one game plans, they used Braum in the first game to walk in and get vision control, while not conceding a disadvantage in any of the four games at level one. Their drafts gave them tools to play a more aggressive style. Xmithie got to play Jarvan IV, Rek’Sai and Skarner, three options that allowed him to dictate the pace of the early game. They also prioritized Jensen’s mid matchup, showing that they understood the importance of controlling the middle of the map. They also showed off the option of picking Vayne against on-hit Neeko, so that they had an option to match the Neeko in a side lane towards the late game. They also warded in anticipation of lane ganks frequently. The most notable instance of this was at 11:40 in game one. Impact caught Ning on a ward and baited the gank out, which allowed Jensen and Xmithie to clean up three kills and opened up an advantage in an early game that looked grim.

The ward that won Game 1

Doublelift also changed his usual playstyle in the series. While in the past he had been the high resource carry that TL looked to in late game teamfights, against Invictus Gaming he absorbed jungle pressure instead. Doublelift has been a primary carry threat many times over the course of his career, it was time for a change. Instead of moving to a different team like he had in the past, he instead changed the role he played inside TL. There has been frequent discussion over whether Doublelift would be able to succeed in a system that doesn't prioritize his lane, but he actually picked it up quite well against IG. He not only avoided Ning’s ganks well, he also made smart rotations when CoreJJ roamed to avoid getting dove, while still picking up farm.

Xmithie got to play aggressive junglers each game this series, and while not every gank worked out, it’s clear why this style appeals to him. As a player with great instincts for the game, Xmithie understands both how to create a game plan that makes sense, and to adapt that plan on the fly when the situation changes. We see this in game 3, where he starts at his wolf camp on Rek’sai in order to give himself options after he gets to see how his lanes play out a bit. Once he sees that his bot lane has the push, he opts into vertical jungling and sets up a level 3 dive bottom lane.

Another change I saw in Xmithie is that he didn't let the pace of the game drop towards the mid-game as much as TL had in the past. This was shown well in the fourth game. He found pick after pick as Skarner, he abused when flashes and Quicksilver Sashes weren't available and kept the pressure on IG.

This game could also be titled Xmithie Skarner montage, 7:15, 8:25, 12:15, 18:35 are other timestamps of his plays this game

Finally the largest difference in the way Xmithie played at MSI is that he prioritized mid lane highly. He spent a lot of his time helping Jensen push out his wave when he needed a reset, or warding for him so he could lane confidently. This is a far cry from the IMT roster that relied on Pobelter to find times where he could roam away from mid despite having lower jungle pressure. This mid-centric style is easier to execute at international events, where having the option to have your mid laner threaten roams on every wave forces the other side to respect your options.

What made these veterans able to influence the course of the match so much more than their counterparts? TheShy had an outstanding individual performance, he generated large leads for himself, and solo killed Impact several times, so what is it about players like Rookie, Xmithie and Doublelift that makes their performances in this set so vital to their teams success? These players have endured failures on the big stage time and time again, despite having strong performances, their skill sets are refined by the amount of times they play on the biggest stages and lose. The trauma of certain mistakes and being on the losing side of certain in game experiences can be the only thing that’s able to make a player remember the right move.

TL lost in the finals, it wasn't close. But I’m extremely optimistic for the future of this squad. They've collected a group of players who have stood the test of time and learned from their experiences, in an industry where that all too often isn't the norm. Most importantly, they’re players who have been around far too long to waste another minute slowly losing a game.