In League of Legends, Yilang “Doublelift” Peng has been in the game for a long time. He was supposed to lead TSM to the top, but he was sorted out in 2017. Now he is with Team Liquid at Worlds 2019, claiming a first major victory against the Koreans from DAMWON Gaming.
This was the match: Team Liquid played the first match at LoL Worlds 2019 against the Koreans from DAMWON Gaming:
- Team Liquid has managed to go from a moderately successful team to the top team in the USA in LoL over the past few years
- DAMWON Gaming is only number 3 in Korea – but is very strong. 3 of the players have made it to the “Top 6” of the Solo Queue in Europe during the World Championship in Berlin – just like that. The top laner Nuguri is currently number 2 on the EU ranking list and is said to have played 167 games. (via dotesports) DAMWON already played the group stage of Worlds and is therefore fully in gaming flow.
Before the match, it was pretty open who would win the thing. It was an important assessment for both teams.
Team Liquid vs. DAMWON Gaming – The 3 decisive plays
This is how the match went: A first decisive fight occurred after 19 minutes. It was a chaotic fight at the Drake. At first, it seemed that Team Liquid had the upper hand.
They were tightly grouped and DAMWON Gaming seemed scattered. Doublelift on Kai’Sa was able to seemingly fend off the teleporting Vladimir (Nuguri) and keep him out of the fight.
Team Liquid was able to isolate and eliminate the opposing Alistar.
It looked like it would be a 5vs3 for Team Liquid and a clear number.
But Vladimir healed up, came from behind, and crashed into the backline of Team Liquid. The damage from Nuguri on Vladimir was too much in that moment. Team Liquid broke under the pressure. Doublelift and Jensen were actually pulling back, but then went back into the teamfight. That did not end well.
The Koreans were able to secure 4 kills in that action – while giving up only 2 kills themselves. At that point, it seemed like the match was going well for DAMWON Gaming.
But the luck of the match turned 3 minutes later. Impact on Aatrox was able to secure an important solo kill on Vladimir. This resulted in 3 players from DAMWON Gaming being dead – leading to a Baron kill for Team Liquid.
The decisive play of the day was finally made by Doublelift on Kai’Sa. He was able to secure a quadra-kill at 29 minutes. That’s something spectacular at the LoL Worlds.
The game ultimately ended after 31 minutes with a score of 15:9 for Team Liquid.
Doublelift – A man with a mission
This is Doublelift: The American is regarded as a legendary carry and cornerstone of LoL. He had his first successes between 2011 and 2015 with Counter Logic Gaming – back when League of Legends was still in its early stages.
He was actually supposed to lead Team SoloMid, the largest team in the USA, to success between 2015 and 2017 – but he was not able to do that. He was even sorted out there – he had to leave the team clearly against his will.
In 2017, he switched to “Team Liquid”, which at that time was considered a joke in the US league. But that has changed since then.
As can be seen, Team Liquid is holding up under pressure at Worlds, and Doublelift is an important part of the team. TSM might have preferred to keep him.
