With a great start to the season by winning both IEM Katowice and the LCS Spring Split,  TSM walked into MSI confident about their chances in the tournament against the winners of LCK, LPL, LMS, EULCS and one International Wild Card team. After a harsh reality check and very convincing set of losses, TSM stumbled and found themselves not understanding the meta exactly they way they thought they did. The entire summer split was a race of NA teams seeking to understand lane swaps better as well as objective control. After finishing 5th place during the regular season, TSM managed to defeat Gravity and Liquid to make it to the finals where they lost 0-3 against CLG. While the loss was harsh, it did nothing to jeopardize TSM's trip to worlds since making it to the finals had already guaranteed their presence in Paris regardless of result.

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Top – Marcus “Dyrus” Hill

As one of the most veteran players heading into worlds, Dyrus is going with the most to prove out of his team. Ever since the poor showing at MSI, there has been debate about Dyrus' presence in TSM and how much longer he has as a player. Since then, Dyrus has had ups and downs during the summer split, especially when Teleports were involved. Awkward timings and awkward ward choices didn't help the team in teamfights, usually ending up giving more than they should've. Renowned as primarily a tank player, Dyrus has struggled to adapt to a more carry-oriented champion pool. Sure he had that good Olaf series vs Gravity, but against Liquid and CLG, his carry potential was almost non-existent. Admittedly, during the latter weeks of the regular season, the teleports were getting better.

Jungle – Lucas “Santorin” Larsen

Unfortunately, for this young Danish jungler, the meta has shifted far away from his comfort zone as a player. Usually resorting to focusing his attention on mid lane to help fellow Dane Bjergsen to snowball a lead, Santorin has found himself lost in the meta. The lack of a versatile carry top laner leaves Santorin with few options on when to apply pressure. Often it ends up being nowhere at all, resulting in far too many minutes of just roaming around the map and farming. To this meta shift we must add that him and Lustboy are not working in tandem as they used to. Without the jungle/support roaming potential there from TSM, they can fall significantly behind in the objective control game and eventually just get snowballed upon.

Mid – Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg

Being labelled as the best mid laner in the west during the early stages of this year set a lot of expectations very highly for TSM's midlaner. With time, we came to realize that Bjergsen is a talented mid laner and undoubtedly the best mid in NA… but that's as far as his talent can take him for now. His opposition in NA was really poor both in Spring and Summer, never really challenging Bjergsen's limits as a player. This time around, it feels as if Bjergsen’s confidence has been shaken, often hesitating or second guessing his own plays, which leads him to not take the opportunity to gain an advantage in lane. Sadly, TSM can’t solely rely on Bjergsen to carry, especially now when the meta doesn’t allow him the freedom to do so as much as he used to. Occasionally you will still find that game where Bjergsen gets in his comfort zone and can possibly single handedly carry… However, those wins were against much weaker competition than what awaits him at Worlds.

Ad carry – Jason “WildTurtle” Tran

After a lackluster ending to the 2014 season and a mediocre-to-decent start to 2015, WildTurtle remains as the starting player currently on the TSM roster. During the summer split, TSM had managed to acquire the services of former team Liquid substitute AD Carry, KEITHMCBRIEF, in an attempt to both motivate Turtle to perform or substitute Turtle entirely had his performances not improved. Whether it was intentionally done by Reginald to motivate Wildturtle, it had worked for a brief period, where Turtle was able to carry a few games. However, the playoffs saw a WildTurtle that had returned to his unimpactful state, where his presence did little to change the outcome of games entirely, especially against CLG.

Support – Ham “Lustboy” Jang-sik

Working with WildTurtle has never truly been the strength of TSM's support. A lot of Lustboy's power resides in his recall timings and ability to roam around the map. For whatever reason, Lustboy and Santorin have stopped working together as a unit to roam around the map and the enemy jungle. This shows in TSM's play, where they don't usually have the appropriate wards to see enemy players approaching nor for Dyrus to teleport on to be effective. These are not unfixable issues. TSM had both Lustboy and Santorin working together during the spring season. It depends on them to find the magic they had as a team.

Player to look out for - Santorin.

This might seem like a strange choice, especially considering the fact that this is a very stacked mid lane talent attenting worlds, but considering the group they're in, TSM needs the best Santorin they can get. None of the teams in group D have a star jungler and they all have a very jungle/support tag team centered playstyle. If Lustboy and Santorin do not get on the same page as well as WildTurtle learning to be self sufficient, TSM will struggle a lot. There are a lot of "IFs" surrounding this team, but none of these are too hard for a team with the infrastructure of TSM cannot resolve.

Conclusion I know I've repeated it about 3 different times, but the group that TSM has been put in is utterly relentless when the support and jungler are allowed to do as they please on the map. Whether it's Pyl/TBQ, Score/Piccaboo, or even Mithy/Amazing, TSM needs to match the roaming prowess of these duos, or else they will find their jungle littered with wards and Santorin completely nullified. That is if he doesn't nullify himself already...

Images courtesy of gameskinny.com, newsforlol.com and lolesports.com.

If you enjoy bite sized content about specific teams, don't forget to follow the author on twitter: @Heckmaister. More to be released in the following days in anticipation of the world championships.