Iconic North American AD carry Yiliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng is returning to professional League of Legends, signing with 100 Thieves for LCS 2023. He will be also joined by former teammate Soren ‘Bjergsen’ Bjerg and some fresh faces.
He’s back, and ready to put his enemies right in the trash. Doublelift hung up the mouse and keyboard on his professional League of Legends back in 2020. He threw his jerseys in the bin, and took up full time streaming.
But after putting out feelers in 2022 and not getting a hit, the 29-year-old eight-time LCS winner will be returning for perhaps one last hurrah, joining 100 Thieves in 2023 after plenty of rumors.
The announcement video certainly played up 100 Thieves making the ultimate heist in trying to push towards a Worlds title.
“For a job this big, we needed to have the NA GOAT, and I knew exactly where to find him,” Yassuo said in the video, before pulling Bjergsen out of the trash and binning his Liquid jersey. But that wasn’t who Yassuo was expecting there.
“I’ve heard a certain someone has been getting a bit restless in the NA retirement home,” he added.
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“Back in my day, bot lane was uphill both ways, these kids don’t know how good they have it,” Doublelift said while swinging around a cane. “They’re so trash. Seriously, I could play better than them myself, and I’m almost 30.”
Our biggest heist yet. #100TIntroducing your 100 Thieves roster for the 2023 LCS season:@Bjergsen@Doublelift1@closerlol@tenacityna@Busio pic.twitter.com/K4xhNAovrV
— 100 Thieves VALORANT (@100T_VAL) December 9, 2022
The mix of young talent and veteran faces has plenty of people excited for what’s to come for 100 Thieves. Can ‘Closer’ Celik will remain on the squad from 2022, while Milan ‘Tenacity’ Oleksij and Alan ‘Busio’ Swalina have been promoted from 100 Thieves’ Academy line-up full-time.
100 Thieves had a somewhat successful 2022, qualifying for Worlds. However they failed to take home LCS titles in Spring and Summer despite making the finals, and were eliminated in the Worlds 2022 Group Stage with a single win to their name.
As for whether Doublelift is ready to show the new kids what’s up? He says it’s “heist time”, and he’s ready to prove a couple of years off the stage hasn’t hampered him one bit.