Team Liquid mid laner Nicolaj ‘Jensen’ Jensen revealed ahead of the start of League of Legends free agency that he had tried to create a superteam for the 2022 season with former teammate Yiliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng.
Jensen, Team Liquid’s starting mid laner since 2019, is expected to be one of the more notable casualties when free agency officially opens at 8pm PT on November 15.
With Team Liquid expected to sign Bjergsen as their new mid laner, Jensen’s future remains up in the air, and he is not currently linked with a new home.
However, he revealed on stream that he had attempted to create a superteam alongside his former teammate, iconic LCS bot laner Doublelift.
Jensen Doublelift superteam?
“Team up with Doublelift and create a superteam?” Jensen said, reading from his chat. “I mean, we kind of tried to make that happen, but it doesn’t seem possible.”
The Danish mid laner reiterated the point when asked again later in the same stream.
Jensen joined Team Liquid in November 2018 after three-and-a-half years with Cloud9. At the time of Jensen’s arrival, Doublelift had been with TL for about a year. Together, the duo won both 2019 LCS splits and attended Worlds before Doublelift left for TSM ahead of the 2020 Summer split. After the 2020 season concluded, Doublelift retired as a player.
However, the veteran player revealed he would return to action if he could lane with a top-tier support on a contender team. That team would almost certainly not be TSM, after they released support Hu ‘SwordArT’ Shuo-Chieh, and Doublelift publicly criticized the organization.
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With Jensen expected to leave Team Liquid, the opportunity was there for a reunion, but it didn’t materialize, according to Jensen.
A number of teams in the LCS are expected to field younger, and thus cheaper, rosters in 2022, and so the market for a veteran, and thus more expensive, mid laner-AD carry duo looking to play for a contender appears limited.
Jensen address this issue during his stream.
“A big problem with LCS, in my opinion, is that there are four or five teams that want to do a lot to win and have a very competitive roster,” he explained. “And there are like five or six teams that are like, ‘let’s just go with rookies’.
“So it’s very hard to have competitive rosters if you’re not part of those four or five teams.”
As it stands, both Jensen and Doublelift will be watching the LCS from home when the 2022 Spring split begins in January.