In League of Legends Team Solo Mid is one of the most successful teams in the USA. But in 2021 everything seems to be falling apart. Now the president Leena Xu is leaving the team. In screenshots from Discord, you can read how she says her boyfriend, Doublelift, had an altercation with TSM’s owner, Reginald.
What is happening at TSM?
- It all started when TSM won the US league LCS in 2020 with a team of legends including Bjergsen (Midlane) and Doublelift (ADC), but was eliminated from the Worlds with a 0-6 record. After that, Doublelift and Bjergsen ended their careers as professional players in LoL. Bjergsen became the coach of the team, while Doublelift became a full-time streamer for TSM.
- Bjergsen wants to play again in 2022, but not for TSM. He is leaving the team despite TSM’s chief Reginald making him an offer that he couldn’t refuse.
- Doublelift and Reginald then had a bitter public argument. Doublelift accused Reginald of being a bully – Reginald in turn called Doublelift a strong player, but no one wanted to play with him anymore because he was so difficult. He also kicked Doublelift out.
President Leena Xu leaves TSM
This is the latest development: A key figure in Team Solo Mid is Aileena “Leena” Xu, she is the president of TSM, leading the operations of the huge organization.
She is also the partner of Doublelift and was previously in a relationship with Reginald. Xu has sided with Doublelift. She has announced that she will leave TSM.
In a Twitch stream, she states that she wants to work with the content creator group OfflineTV in the future. She feels on the same wavelength with them and has many friends like Scarra.
At TSM, she has had a tough year with “the new management”. Apparently, Bjergsen’s departure was the tipping point for her to leave TSM because she enjoyed working with him.
On reddit, there is speculation that she might not get along with Parth “Parth” Naidu (31), another leadership figure at TSM.
“Two guys with impossible egos”
This is what Leena Xu says about the conflict: Screenshots circulating from Discord show Leena Xu commenting on the conflict between her boyfriend Doublelift and her ex-boyfriend Reginald (via imgur).
She says:
“The truth is that these are two guys with egos that are impossible to deal with. There is not the side of Doublelift or the side of Regi. Doublelift could have been more patient – but so could Reginald. But I really did not like how Reginald handled the situation.”
Leena Xu
When asked that one would not envy her position, she laughed: “Yes, my boyfriend and my ex-boyfriend are fighting with each other.”
Egos of Doublelift and Reginald clash
What is the conflict? Doublelift’s retirement is apparently not entirely voluntary. He desperately wanted TSM to recruit strong replacements before 2021 and after Bjergsen’s departure. He wished for a strong support partner for the bot lane, someone of world-class caliber.
TSM could not ultimately promise that, but demanded from Doublelift nonetheless to commit to playing for TSM in 2021. Doublelift then suggested he might retire.
Now TSM has finally acquired a strong and ridiculously expensive supporter from Taiwan, but did not bring Doublelift back. This door is now seen by TSM’s management as closed. With a rookie ADC on the bot lane, things went pretty badly for TSM in 2020: the team even missed the qualification for the Worlds 2021.
The conflict with Reginald escalated after Bjergsen’s departure when Doublelift said he hated TSM and especially Reginald. He regularly berates LoL players, shows no respect for them, and has made several professional LoL players cry.
TSM had already kicked Doublelift out once. From 2015 to 2017, TSM had a strong team that regularly became champions in the USA, but always failed internationally in the preliminary rounds. So Reginald wanted to rebuild the team in 2018; but without Doublelift, it got even worse: for years, they did not become national champions again until TSM brought ADC Doublelift back for one last year before 2020.
TSM has an incredible amount of money, but no strong LoL team anymore
This is the current situation: TSM is in a pretty bizarre situation. They have a lot of money from a crypto deal, but all the strong players seem to be leaving the team – most recently, German PowerOfEvil and the ridiculously expensive supporter whose transfer triggered the crisis have left.
Bjergsen is said to have left the team, although they wanted to keep him at all costs.
In the near future, it seems that TSM will have to say goodbye to the top spots in the LCS for now. Fans are already speculating that they will play for 7th place in the future. TSM states that they now want to build a team for the future and recruit new talents.
At the moment, they are still relying on Huni (25), a veteran in the top lane whose peak was 4 years ago. Additionally, they have Spica (20) in jungle and Tactical (21) as ADC under contract.
The ADC meant to replace Doublelift, “Lost,” has also left the team along with PowerOfEvil and SwordArt. After 2020, besides Doublelift and Bjergsen, Biofrost and Broken Blade had already left.
In 2020, we reported on Leena Xu and her “hard year” in LoL.
Important woman in LoL has 3 times trouble in 2 weeks, faces a lot of criticism
