Team Liquid will be hitting the Rift today with a new name on their starting roster. The defending LCS champs will be subbing out Doublelift in favor of Academy AD carry Edward “Tactical” Ra after Liquid’s star bot laner fell ill, the team announced yesterday.
Tactical will be making his LCS debut after playing in Academy for the past couple of years. Doublelift tweeted out his support for his teammate and told fans he has laryngitis.
Tactical began his professional career in 2016 on Team Exile Surge, which he played on for two days before moving to Relentless Gaming. He drifted around different teams before being picked up by TSM for their Academy roster. He played the entire 2019 split on the TSM Academy roster alongside Erik “Treatz” Wessen in the bottom lane.
The team had a great showing and won the Academy Spring Split playoffs 3-0 against Cloud9 after finishing second in the regular split standings. While they did try to replicate their success in the Summer Split, the loss of their jungler Jonathan “Grig” Armao seemed to be too impactful and they finished fourth in the regular split standings.
The rookie ADC has immense pressure on him since Liquid is currently tied for sixth place with three other teams: 100 Thieves, Evil Geniuses, and Golden Guardians. Every win matters for them at this point if they want to make it to the Spring Split playoffs. The teams tied with Liquid have been showing improvement over the past few weeks as well.
The team’s start of the LCS Spring season was quite difficult since Liquid was unable to secure a visa for its main jungler, Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen, in time for the start of the split. With Broxah debuting in week four, the situation did not improve due to lack of practice. But over the past week, improvements could be seen in their gameplay and communication. Broxah is finally settling in with the team and could perhaps be the saving grace for Liquid’s chances to reach playoffs.
Their matches this week are against TSM, who sit in a comfy third place for now, and 100 Thieves who are tied with Liquid for sixth. Tune in today at 5pm CT for the match between Liquid and TSM and tomorrow at 2pm CT to see how Liquid will perform without their star bot lane player against 100 Thieves.
