IWillDominate explains why Liquid should keep Doublelift benched in LCS

Yiliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng is currently on the bench after being diagnosed with laryngitis, and former LCS pro Christian ‘IWillDominate’ Rivera thinks he should stay there in place of Edward ‘Tactical’ Ha for the rest of Team Liquid’s split.

Team Liquid’s 2020 LCS campaign has gotten off to a rocky start. With visa issues plaguing starting jungler Mads ‘Broxah’ Brock-Pedersen for the first three weeks, the four-time champions of North America were only able to squeeze two weeks in with a full roster.

With Doublelift riding the bench for the foreseeable future, academy AD carry Tactical had some big shoes to fill. However, the rookie has had a dream debut in the LCS, helping Team Liquid secure their first 2-0 week in 2020.

Oshin Villa Tudayan for Riot Games

Tactical was named as Doublelift’s replacement, but Dom thinks the academy AD carry should become his successor.

The former TSM Academy AD carry took down his old org in his first match, before securing the first perfect game of LCS 2020 over 100 Thieves on March 1.

While Team Liquid themselves have embraced the meme of Tactical being better than Doublelift, former LCS star IWillDominate has suggested that benching the seven-time LCS champion for the two-game rookie was the smart thing to do regardless of illness.

“I feel like it’s healthy having a player that cares [like Tactical],” said the former Team Liquid jungler.

• Read more: Doublelift explains why he needed “wakeup call” about LCS form

“Even if in a vacuum Tactical isn’t as good as Doublelift, the fact that Doublelift literally went on camera and just admitted that he didn’t care about this season from the beginning, it’s so much better to have a player like Tactical who’s just going to be giving it his all.”

Doublelift has made his feelings known about the LCS earlier on in the split. During the LCS roundtable just before the season kicked off, he made it abundantly clear that he’s “fine with losing the LCS” if it means he can win Worlds. This mentality, however, has been his downfall, according to Dom.

“Doublelift is like ‘oh Spring split doesn’t really matter, I don’t really care, I’m just focusing on other stuff, winning the split doesn’t matter that much to me anymore because I’ve won it so many times,’” he said.

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“When a player says that, that makes me think ‘okay, just let somebody else play that actually wants to play’,” the streamer added.

When it comes down to it, Dom stated that if he had to choose between an established veteran with the wrong mentality, or a rookie with the right mentality, he’d almost always take the passionate player.

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“No matter how good you are, most of the time it’ll be more beneficial having someone who cares in than someone who doesn’t care, that’s my take.”

Team Liquid will be looking to keep their form up in Week 7 with a chance of tying their 6-6 record up with the 8-4 FlyQuest in second place.

They will face off against Counter Logic Gaming and Immortals, however whether it’s with Doublelift or Tactical remains unclear.