After an entire split of intense and serious practice that surpassed in sacrifice that of any other western team, TSM found themselves inches away from making the playoffs at the 2016 World Championship, but ultimately failed. A revitalized RNG roster, that would go on to show the strongest non-Korean performance in playoffs, and the extremely macro proficient Samsung Galaxy, acted as gatekeepers, kicking TSM out of the tournament before the real action started and upsetting the predictions of almost every analyst in the scene.

While thousands of angry tweets regarding the rule that denied TSM a chance to get a tie breaker match flooded the net, player morale was at an all time low for this iteration of the roster. Everyone knows that this is the nature of competition, but one can only imagine how hard hitting it must be to attend the tournament you’ve been sacrificing your personal life and earnings for, being predicted by many to be a top 4 team, only to get nonchalantly beaten out of it during group stage.

In the midst of this generalized depression, exacerbated by the massively driven hate with which the players often have to endure following a weak performance, an idea that would end up being publicly announced on November 1st began concocting on ADC superstar Doublelift’s head. Massive burnout derived from an intense practice regime, combined with deep disappointment regarding his personal performance in the group stage, would lead the old CLG superstar to take a break from competitive play, effective as of November 1st, that will last, at least, until the Summer Split.

While officially TSM’s ADC spot remains open, as of October 31st, former TSM ADC Wildturtle’s contract with Immortals ended, with resigning deemed “unlikely”, as reported by ESPN’s Jacob Wolf. On the very same news post, released on November the 11th, Wildturtle was confirmed to attend IEM Oakland as part of TSM’s roster, but remaining still a free agent that would try out for other teams after the event was finished.

As we now know, TSM didnt perform up to expectations in this tournament either. However, this is not a true testament about how the team would perform should they choose to sign in Wildturtle for the spring split. We know from interviews that Doublelift performed a part in the shotcalling role, and while we can see raw talent work from the get go, shotcalling is something that takes time to develop into a team.

Its not a fair point to make that any new ADC TSM is looking for should cover this void. Other players can step up to the shotcalling, but first, regular practice and several serious matches are needed, so that players can get a feel of what the team is missing in terms of decision making. In this way, anyone growing into a Doublelift substitute can get a feel of what needs to be covered, allowing him to develop the needed skills.

Nevertheless, if TSM aspire to stand a chance at the Season 7 World Championship, re-signing Wildturtle into the roster is very unlikely the right choice. To understand the Wildturtle conundrum we must first take a look into the past and understand why TSM let Wildturtle go in the first place.

Wildturtle as Doublelift’s carrot

It’s necessary to remember the fact that, being 5-2 into their 2015 LCS summer split run, TSM signed Keith as sub AD Carry for the team, with the intent, as stated by TSM, of increasing Wildturtles motivation, giving him someone to compete with and having him fight for the starting ADC position. From this we can conclude that, since only Wildturtle was put under this kind of pressure, he was not only underperforming, but also putting in less effort than his teammates were.

This is a crucial element that TSM should be looking at in whichever ADC they sign for the spring split. You need either someone as good or better than Doublelift, or someone that can give you the best shot at motivating him again to play. A player that can make him feel threatened, a competitor which can stir within him the fear of being left out of the competitive scene, surpassing his prowess and overshadowing his legacy.

It would be foolish of TSM to take Wildturtle in with this intent. Being such a long time veteran that has had issues with working hard in the past, it seems unlikely that he would suddenly become the hungry kin of player, training non-stop and keeping Doublelift awake at night. Most likely a rising talent, filled with ambition and desire for titles, would be much better suited for this role.

This leaves only one reasonable option for signing Wildturtle: ee must surpass Doublelift. There is no way TSM can reach for a good position at Worlds with a Doublelift downgrade. Keep in mind that North America has a very poor ADC pool, and a downgrade from Doublelift means that you are most likely forfeiting bottom lane when facing the strongest teams in the world.

Wildturtle and the glass ceiling

As far as game related weaknesses go, Wildturtle’s most notorious one is his reckless overextension in teamfights. Often flashing into situations that lead unavoidably to death and take a tremendous toll on the team’s chances for victory; this is a glass ceiling kind of weakness. Once a certain level of play is reached, you can no longer get away with it because of how heavily it can be punished.

A good parallelism for this idea would be not buying wards in solo queue. As long as you and your teammates are at the level where no one looks at the minimap, not buying wards is not only a decent option, it is actually the best option; you are throwing gold otherwise. Once a certain level of play is reached, not buying wards quickly becomes a very big problem that can even lead to your team losing the game solely off vission.

That’s why TSM were often exposed internationally. This playstyle is more than fine when facing inferior opponents, teams that cannot deal with how stacked with talent TSM usually is. But once you face teams with similar amounts of talent, or even bigger talent pools, Wildturtles teammates suddenly couldnt be as disruptive during teamfights, and this is where this flaw would often get most heavily punished.

One should not be fooled by Wildturtle’s Season 6 LCS Spring performance. It is easy to look at his KDA, as well as into the team’s hot streak and assume, as many analysts did, that he had gotten over this key flaw and unlocked his true potential as a player. This opinion, of course, completely ignores the fact that Immortals would, almost unavoidably, pick support champions that specialized on protecting a target (Soraka most famously), and that the meta was at a point where building Maw of Malmortius and Sterak’s Gage was a completely viable strategy for AD Carries, making their overaggression that much harder to punish.

Perhaps even more important, is the fact that no team at the time had either the bottom lane skill, or the macro play, to punish these support picks. Wildturtle performed incredibly well during that split, even earning him a position in the 1st all pro team. But the fact remains that, not only the meta was perfectly suited for his playstyle, but he was again in a position where his team’s raw stacked talent allowed him to do what he does best, going crazy aggressive into the enemy team, even initiating the teamfights himself.

The reader should not leave this piece with the impression that this is a minor flaw that can be easily fixed. WIldturtle’s play has been exposed so often internationally that it has become pretty apparent, we are not in a situation where he knows how to position safely and just chooses to go ham against the plebs. Because of his professional trajectory, always starting ADC on one of the best if not the best team in his region, has made it so that this flaw was never punished, and thus he never had the chance to learn more solid positioning.

In comparison, Doublelift endured more than three years of being on an overall weak team. While this traditionally was also one of his key flaws, he seems to have a better grasp on how to avoid getting focused down by better teams, probably because he so often found himself being the main target of every teamfight while playing for CLG. As long as Wildturtle keeps having this fundamental impediment, he will not be able to surpass Doublelift internationally.

A step back

Does all of this mean Wildturtle is bad? Of course not. Not only is he one of the all-time best AD Carries  in North America, but this recklessness also makes him able to carry very hard against weaker teams, diving ‘balls deep’ into teamfights whenever he pleases, while being one of the most fun ADCs to watch. But the fact remains that, at this point in time, him and TSM are not right for each other. TSM need either an ADC that can whip Doublelift again into tryhard mode, or someone that can perform against the best bottom lanes in the world and, as much as we all would love to see TSM Wildturtle back, he is not at a point in his career where he can provide any of those.

After an entire split of intense and serious practice that surpassed in sacrifice that of any other western team, TSM found themselves inches away from making the playoffs at the 2016 World Championship, but ultimately failed. A revitalized RNG roster, that would go on to show the strongest non-Korean performance in playoffs, and the extremely macro proficient Samsung Galaxy, acted as gatekeepers, kicking TSM out of the tournament before the real action started and upsetting the predictions of almost every analyst in the scene.

While thousands of angry tweets regarding the rule that denied TSM a chance to get a tie breaker match flooded the net, player morale was at an all time low for this iteration of the roster. Everyone knows that this is the nature of competition, but one can only imagine how hard hitting it must be to attend the tournament you’ve been sacrificing your personal life and earnings for, being predicted by many to be a top 4 team, only to get nonchalantly beaten out of it during group stage.

In the midst of this generalized depression, exacerbated by the massively driven hate with which the players often have to endure following a weak performance, an idea that would end up being publicly announced on November 1st began concocting on ADC superstar Doublelift’s head. Massive burnout derived from an intense practice regime, combined with deep disappointment regarding his personal performance in the group stage, would lead the old CLG superstar to take a break from competitive play, effective as of November 1st, that will last, at least, until the Summer Split.

While officially TSM’s ADC spot remains open, as of October 31st, former TSM ADC Wildturtle’s contract with Immortals ended, with resigning deemed “unlikely”, as reported by ESPN’s Jacob Wolf. On the very same news post, released on November the 11th, Wildturtle was confirmed to attend IEM Oakland as part of TSM’s roster, but remaining still a free agent that would try out for other teams after the event was finished.

As we now know, TSM didn't perform up to expectations in this tournament either. However, this is not a true testament about how the team would perform should they choose to sign in Wildturtle for the spring split. We know from interviews that Doublelift performed a part in the shotcalling role, and while we can see raw talent work from the get go, shotcalling is something that takes time to develop into a team.

It's not a fair point to make that any new ADC TSM is looking for should cover this void. Other players can step up to the shotcalling, but first, regular practice and several serious matches are needed, so that players can get a feel of what the team is missing in terms of decision making. In this way, anyone growing into a Doublelift substitute can get a feel of what needs to be covered, allowing him to develop the needed skills.

Nevertheless, if TSM aspire to stand a chance at the Season 7 World Championship, re-signing Wildturtle into the roster is very unlikely the right choice. To understand the Wildturtle conundrum we must first take a look into the past and understand why TSM let Wildturtle go in the first place.

Wildturtle as Doublelift’s carrot

It’s necessary to remember the fact that, being 5-2 into their 2015 LCS summer split run, TSM signed Keith as sub AD Carry for the team, with the intent, as stated by TSM, of increasing Wildturtle's motivation, giving him someone to compete with and having him fight for the starting ADC position. From this we can conclude that, since only Wildturtle was put under this kind of pressure, he was not only underperforming, but also putting in less effort than his teammates were.

This is a crucial element that TSM should be looking at in whichever ADC they sign for the spring split. You need either someone as good or better than Doublelift, or someone that can give you the best shot at motivating him again to play. A player that can make him feel threatened, a competitor which can stir within him the fear of being left out of the competitive scene, surpassing his prowess and overshadowing his legacy.

It would be foolish of TSM to take Wildturtle in with this intent. Being such a long time veteran that has had issues with working hard in the past, it seems unlikely that he would suddenly become the hungry kin of player, training non-stop and keeping Doublelift awake at night. Most likely a rising talent, filled with ambition and desire for titles, would be much better suited for this role.

This leaves only one reasonable option for signing Wildturtle: ee must surpass Doublelift. There is no way TSM can reach for a good position at Worlds with a Doublelift downgrade. Keep in mind that North America has a very poor ADC pool, and a downgrade from Doublelift means that you are most likely forfeiting bottom lane when facing the strongest teams in the world.

Wildturtle and the glass ceiling

As far as game related weaknesses go, Wildturtle’s most notorious one is his reckless overextension in teamfights. Often flashing into situations that lead unavoidably to death and take a tremendous toll on the team’s chances for victory; this is a glass ceiling kind of weakness. Once a certain level of play is reached, you can no longer get away with it because of how heavily it can be punished.

A good parallelism for this idea would be not buying wards in solo queue. As long as you and your teammates are at the level where no one looks at the minimap, not buying wards is not only a decent option, it is actually the best option; you are throwing gold otherwise. Once a certain level of play is reached, not buying wards quickly becomes a very big problem that can even lead to your team losing the game solely off vission.

That’s why TSM were often exposed internationally. This playstyle is more than fine when facing inferior opponents, teams that cannot deal with how stacked with talent TSM usually is. But once you face teams with similar amounts of talent, or even bigger talent pools, Wildturtle's teammates suddenly couldn't be as disruptive during teamfights, and this is where this flaw would often get most heavily punished.

One should not be fooled by Wildturtle’s Season 6 LCS Spring performance. It is easy to look at his KDA, as well as into the team’s hot streak and assume, as many analysts did, that he had gotten over this key flaw and unlocked his true potential as a player. This opinion, of course, completely ignores the fact that Immortals would, almost unavoidably, pick support champions that specialized on protecting a target (Soraka most famously), and that the meta was at a point where building Maw of Malmortius and Sterak’s Gage was a completely viable strategy for AD Carries, making their overaggression that much harder to punish.

Perhaps even more important, is the fact that no team at the time had either the bottom lane skill, or the macro play, to punish these support picks. Wildturtle performed incredibly well during that split, even earning him a position in the 1st all pro team. But the fact remains that, not only the meta was perfectly suited for his playstyle, but he was again in a position where his team’s raw stacked talent allowed him to do what he does best, going crazy aggressive into the enemy team, even initiating the teamfights himself.

The reader should not leave this piece with the impression that this is a minor flaw that can be easily fixed. WIldturtle’s play has been exposed so often internationally that it has become pretty apparent, we are not in a situation where he knows how to position safely and just chooses to go ham against the plebs. Because of his professional trajectory, always starting ADC on one of the best if not the best team in his region, has made it so that this flaw was never punished, and thus he never had the chance to learn more solid positioning.

In comparison, Doublelift endured more than three years of being on an overall weak team. While this traditionally was also one of his key flaws, he seems to have a better grasp on how to avoid getting focused down by better teams, probably because he so often found himself being the main target of every teamfight while playing for CLG. As long as Wildturtle keeps having this fundamental impediment, he will not be able to surpass Doublelift internationally.

A step back

Does all of this mean Wildturtle is bad? Of course not. Not only is he one of the all-time best AD Carries  in North America, but this recklessness also makes him able to carry very hard against weaker teams, diving ‘balls deep’ into teamfights whenever he pleases, while being one of the most fun ADCs to watch. But the fact remains that, at this point in time, him and TSM are not right for each other. TSM need either an ADC that can whip Doublelift again into tryhard mode, or someone that can perform against the best bottom lanes in the world and, as much as we all would love to see TSM Wildturtle back, he is not at a point in his career where he can provide any of those.