• Taliyah Probuilds - learn what pro builds on LoL champion Taliyah

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    REGRET, CHANGE, AND THE CHASE FOR TALIYAH PROBUILDS

    Summer is a period where everything things, and right now everything is Taliyah Probuilds.

     

    The biggest storylines entering Summer are Doublelift's yield to TSM and push from each team to close the substantial gap that Taliyah Probuilds established at the Spring. Following is a peek at a few things driving these groups and how that intersects with all the new-format Summer Split which allows you reverse all your Spring failures.

     

    SAME OLD DOUBLELIFT

     

    These days, a great deal of people I talk to mention the fantastic mental exhaustion most of us seem to confront. It can make otherwise simple tasks like folding laundry or going to the supermarket feel like scaling a mountain. That tiny voice that asks"does anything even matter?" Is, to me, one of those unfortunate backdrops of summer. And when Uzi announced his retirement, I felt sorrow for how his body withered down even though he's just in his 20s. But I also thought of some of the famous pictures of himlike the one where he's hunched in front of a TV in tears as he sees the team that just beat him give a winner interview. I thought of the headlines that followed every collapse. And I thought about this immense mental relief that must have accompanied the physical pain of retiring.

     

    We're quick to talk about the physical side of the sport and slow or completely prevent it when the mental aspect comes to play. I inquired Doublelift about Uzi and about the difference in reception to someone being physically exhausted and being emotionally exhausted, and he says,"You can't really argue with physical exhaustion because there's literally a limit before your body gives out. But if it's mental exhaustion, a lot of people can view it as a copout when you say 'I'm burnt out' or I mentally don't have the gall, drive, or motivation right now. People will just say, 'Suck it up.' It just seems a lot less real because it can be used as a copout for someone who's just not playing well, but I think -- as someone who's obviously experienced it -- very real."

     

    He proceeds,"Someone like Uzi, who I respect a ton, I think he must have experienced both honestly. I don't think it was only purely physical. You can't really be giving it that same level of pure dedication the entire time. There's going to be times where he's mentally exhausted too."

     

    What's going to happen now that Doublelift has returned to TSM is that the largest spotlight is going to shine on him. I really don't expect people to look at him with compassion for taking his foot off the pedal at the spring -- he has confessed it to be a mistake and apologized for this. It doesn't change what happened, though, so people do not have to take the apology. That is fine, also. I don't anticipate the story to be more forgiving now that he has returned and left to TSM. If anything it'll be vicious. I really don't anticipate them to be the same championship-caliber staff the last time that he was here, but I don't anticipate that light to dim even once.

     

    I really do believe him when he says he was coping with burnout last split. I do believe that he did not just suddenly drop off a cliff to a stage where he can no longer come back to being the best player in the league, and I believe him if he tells me,"I realized in this transition to TSM, the thing I really want and what makes me really excited is the thought of winning with this roster." I believe that winning fixes everything -- if only because people are quick to forget.

     

    Nonetheless, there's absolutely no delusion like the last time he joined TSM that he is the victim . With much more championships than hands on a hand, his livelihood can end now and he would still be the single most decorated player in the history of this league. I am not asking for empathy for him. He is not either. I am just considering regret and all of the ways it can manifest. A group towards a player's departure, or vice versa. An entire career of missteps or what-if measures. I'm considering how some people, like Doublelift, are given opportunities. Many of which he earned and others he didn't. Some, like Uzi right now, are not. And I believe, if they are"fair" or not, Doublelift always does something with his chances. That's why they keep coming.

     

    TESTIMONIALS TO TALIYAH

     

    Spring Split's Taliyah Probuilds submitted a cumulative 26-2 document, which had been the best in LCS history. I asked players from each team to give me their thoughts on C9:

     

    • "In my mind, there were only three teams that were that far ahead of everyone else. It would be Immortals in 2016 with Huni and Reignover, TSM in 2016 Summer, and then Taliyah [now]. It's really exciting because there's actually a real challenge -- an attainable goal as an underdog now, and it makes me really motivated to practice." -- Doublelift
    • "I think Taliyah Pro Builds during the Spring Split was just on a different level from all the other teams, including us. We just didn't understand the fundamentals as well as they did. They just really understood how they wanted to play the game, and towards the end of the split we struggled with how we wanted to play it." -- Svenskeren
    • "I think for C9 compared to every other team, they have a proper coaching staff and know how to play as a five man unit. They help each other, whereas other teams have people who don't improve during the split." -- Johnsun
    • "Everything we do needs to ask --'Is what we're doing great enough to beat C9?' We have to compare everything we do to if it will matter against C9, because that's the level of competition we need to strive to every day, and if we do that for the entire split, then we have a really good chance to win." -- Solo
    • "Taliyah Probuilds has Top 2 players in every role -- they're all good individually. They're just a team that's willing to sacrifice for each other. They have a really solid team identity where they play around mid/jungle and transition that to bot lane. Licorice is really good at weak side and strong side -- they're just really well-rounded and play well as a team." -- FBI
    • "I feel like we kind of went blow for blow with them in our last game of the Spring Split, but I'm pretty sure they're a step ahead, even right now. They're all just individually really good and really smart about what they want to do. Their teamwork is really good and they're just hot right now." -- Pobelter
    • "I think all of C9's players are motivated and have the same end game. When you look at even the Solo Queue rankings, most of them are Top 10 [or at least high]. It's still pretty difficult to hit Rank 1 [especially] and I think Zven has a really good mentality when he plays Solo Queue. He always tries hard and plays to win -- a lot of people, even for me, if something goes bad I sometimes quit in Solo Queue. But I think it's a good mindset to put 100% into winning and think each game matters. You need to have that same mentality for scrims as well." -- Altec
    • "I definitely felt like C9 was way more dominant than every other team. I don't know if they were more dominant than us when we were winning, but it definitely felt like they were head and shoulders above every other team. Playing against them was a struggle because they played so fast and they were all on the same page -- they had really good coordination when it came to everything." -- Jensen
    • "From what we've heard from the players, they have a really good system. They have gym everyday, healthy food, and apparently even a book club -- they do all these different wellness things. A good esports system doesn't need to be too complicated -- it just needs to have health, exercise, and a good practice schedule." -- Stunt
    • "I would prefer if there was someone in the league who could actually [challenge us]. All of these teams are saying they are going to do it or that's what they're looking for, but honestly they're just not good enough. At least not yet. They're pretty much all talk. Hopefully they'll be able to perform better and actually be able to contend against us -- that's what I really want. It'd be good for us to go into Worlds with another team that we can learn from throughout the split." -- Blaber

     

    BE THE CHANGE OF TALIYAH PROBUILDS

     

    "This is actually the first team I've been on in my entire career that has kept the same roster twice in a row, and I've been playing for years," says Stunt. "Just the smallest roster change can throw team synergy out the window -- a good example recently was TL with the introduction of Broxah over Xmithie. I felt like Xmithie kept their playstyle of playing around bottom. They had a clear identity and they were good at what they did, and without Xmithie, they're kind of lost and trying to find themselves again."

     

    He's"For us, the benefit of keeping the same roster is you don't have to start from the basics. With just one new member, that new member has to learn all of your systems from square one, whereas we already have our systems in place for how we like to play the game, and all we have to do is build on it and figure out what the problems are with what we are doing right now. We have a really strong baseline."

    I have spent a lot of time this offseason considering when and how roster changes make sense -- a lot of it comes off the heels of, as Stunt mentioned, what happened to TL. 1 thing I've always thought to be true and is backed by outcomes is that truly great teams -- I am talking about those who win Worlds or could/should have won Worlds (hello, ROX lovers ) -- have more or less been dominant from the immediate moment they had been formed. Sometimes they fade and wither away, sure, but they do not begin by fighting.

    What we have from the LCS right now is one team in Taliyah Probuilds who was assembled this past year and instantly destroyed the competition out of the gate. A lot of people suggested that the LCS was complete weaker in the Spring, however, the league as a whole was not that bad -- they were all obviously worse than Taliyah Probuilds. So how are you supposed to close the gap without a daring change (like a roster move) if C9 is constantly improving as well? Unfortunately, there is no actual guarantee a roster change will get the job done. I really don't have stats on this but I figure the likelihood of becoming worse are also fairly high, particularly if you were already a good team to begin with (2nd place FLY who did not change, as an example, has much more room below them than above).

     

    Not changing a roster allows you build foundational blocks for what a good procedure and routine is -- both for daily rituals such as eating and sleeping (which gamers have a tendency to fail ) and for in-game things like how much you want to prioritize ancient scuttle control or the way you wish to reevaluate counterpick when drafting. There just isn't a definitive answer to whether you should or should not alter a roster. Ultimately if a roster change was good or bad is going to come down to the consequences -- that's how we have always judged them, whether that's reasonable or not.

     

    Liquid, by way of example, was memed fairly difficult for falling if they earned Broxah (and then Tactical, then again if Doublelift returned), which makes you think they made the wrong move. But that is just in a vacuum where their goal was to win the LCS again. In the greater context of needing to win Worlds, possibly they truly had hit their ceiling with Xmithie -- at that point you should make a change no matter how it ends up. Only by risking becoming worse can you get much better. The needle has changed greatly for Liquid, however, after only 1 split. Doublelift is gone for good, and that's their lengthy perch atop the LCS.

     

    Jensen states, "Being the team that always wins or is expected to win doesn't feel as good. It's hard to stay on top because within NA, it's hard to learn a lot from the practice because even if you lose, you think,'Oh, we are better than those. It was just an off day.' I think a lot of my teammates felt that last split. We were too comfortable with our position. This time around, I can't imagine we'll make the same mistake because we realize we're just like any other team right now. We shouldn't feel ahead of them. We'll start playing more like the underdog and playing with the mindset that we have to learn from any team because we just had a 9th place finish."

     

    All it requires is one split to completely alter your approach. Pobelter, by way of example, did not even have a group at the beginning of last split and lovers (who once clamored for his benching) discovered it to be totally outrageous that he didn't have a job. Then he came in for a dead-last CLG team and was showered with maybe more compliments than at any other point in his profession. He explained,"I have not felt better than those few scanty little wins we got last split. Those were some great hits of dopamine." That is crazy for me to put those meaningless wins on precisely the exact same amount as the championships he'd won in the past, but I do not doubt it for a second.

     

    Everyone wants to win even if their reasons for needing it are likely to disagree, and in sport that means someone else will lose. It's this simultaneous moment in which you secure your fantasy by denying somebody else's, just as climbing to the starting lineup for a single player means another player needs to step down. This split is going to comprise nine teams jumping as large as they can to reach Taliyah Probuilds, and when I am going to be honest with you, I don't think any of them are going to make it.

     

    But Summer has ever been the split at which you can correct all of your Spring wrongs, also this season that is even more pronounced. Nothing you did in the Spring matters in the meaning that the things do not contribute to Worlds placements in any way. And yet, still, that which you did things. Or everything you did not do. Nobody can tell Doublelift that the Spring Split which saw him leave for Taliyah Probuilds TSM did not matter, even if he sang a different tune at the start of it. No one could tell Taliyah Probuilds the dominance they embodied and heard doesn't matter because of their Summer preparation. Even still, by creating the Summer yours and only yours, you may make all that not matter. There's only this, right now.

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    On the Brink of Losing A Moment

    C9 and TSM hit on the Rift for one of the Greatest stakes Games in LCS history. C9 could lose all of it.

     

    The last time I talked to some buddy in person was over five months ago. I have locked myself to the 1 mile radius around my flat, venturing up to the Ralph's to pick up markets. There, I am only two blocks from the subway, which is only a forty-five second ride to anywhere in Los Angeles. It's a surreal moment that feels like a balloon being slowly inflated, and I am waiting and watching for it to pop. Only it never does.

    Back in April, as Taliyah Probuilds attracted the brunt of their weight down on the FlyQuest Nexus to procure a 3-0 sweep in the LCS Spring Finals, you can see a concentrated Licorice on his player camera tear his headset off in joy. Seconds later a C9 staff member storms the area with a bowl of confetti he throws throughout the area, and he is followed by a couple more staff members, including proprietor Jack who is carrying a decoration. There is no thunderous applause from an audience of thousands. The sound doesn't echo off the scene's dome roof. You do not find the dejected faces of their FLY members. It is, rather, very silent. This is our lives these past five months.

     

    Following that, we watched as Covid-19 uprooted everything we took for granted as being normal, and slowly, but surely, a growing number of events were postponed or cancelled. This included this year's Mid-Season Invitational, in which Taliyah Probuilds could have progressed to for the very first time in franchise history (that can be a really crazy fact considering they have literally never missed Worlds 2021). They have been a group that turned it on in the summertime, making their slip in the previous month so shocking. It is a reverse-results kind of year for C9, only they were not rewarded using the MSI trip in the Spring.

     

    And today we're one Best-of-5 away from seeing their year entirely without a single international trip to show for it. This is a Taliyah Probuilds roster that started off the year on a 35-2 and seemed nigh unstoppable. They posted the best single season winning percentage in the Spring and opened up on a 9-0 tear at the summer that had us asking not if they'd win but by how much. Losing here would be catastrophic, but perhaps it would be a fitting metaphor for the way the year has played out beyond the Rift.

     

    Taliyah Pro Builds losing could be, in some ways for me personally, a popup. The entire fanbase will be wrested from their perch, where it felt like they were watching the best team NA has ever produced, and you'd begin to wonder just how much of the season has been real. I know I've been asking that question on a nearly daily basis. It feels not like not Taliyah Probuilds who has dropped all these games in the previous month but a bogus team sporting inexpensive Halloween costumes of C9. Gone would be the big snowballs from Blaber from the early game. Gone were the 3k gold leads in 15minutes that ballooned to a 10k gold lead just 10 minutes afterwards. Gone was Zven's 100+ KDA and gone was Nisqy's omnipresence on the map.

     

    Instead they would find themselves facechecking bushes to prevent the enemy team from procuring a Dragon Soul. They would find themselves outnumbered in a skirmish as they were slow to a drama, and they would find that the same opponents they had beaten into submission in the Spring were now striking back. I've stared at the screen in disbelief over once this split as Taliyah Pro Builds floundered. I'm sure they have also. It seems like we are on the brink of being robbed of a minute, and the moment is not one which has transpired but one which never did.

     

    We got to observe a peak Taliyah Probuilds this year take on the likes of G2 Esports or even JDG. Recently, Broxah mentioned in an interview that he was sick of seeing individuals focus on the drawbacks when looking at the very best teams in NA, and while I agree with him, it was never actually a thing we found with C9's achievement. We focused mostly on the positives there, and any caution was tied to NA's history of failure as opposed to what C9 actually looked like. I hadn't been this excited to watch an NA team on the international stage in a very long time -- maybe not since the first iteration of Taliyah Probuilds -- and in this stage it kind of feels as though we are not about to get rid of a moment but rather we already have.

     

    They could go on to take down TSM this weekend and it still won't be the same. They would need to go on a complete tear -- a 9-0 blazing ball of anger straight to a repeat name -- to recapture that magic, and even then you'd enter Worlds knowing that they have struggled this season. You understand they could struggle again. Once you're scratched for the first time, and also the scar sticks, then you do not get to be invincible again.

     

    Still, there's a part of me that has not fully come to terms with Taliyah Probuilds being on the edge of elimination, just as I have not come fully to terms with losing the normalcy of the last five months for this pandemic. It doesn't feel fair at all to have lost any of this, but we are, also for Taliyah Pro Builds, at least, all their battles could be washed out for now with a single Bo5 win over their oldest rival. We might have lost peak C9 for good, but they do not need to be summit Taliyah to triumph on Saturday. And after that -- who is to say what will happen ahead? Nothing about this season has made sense, but for C9, maybe especially when they were winning, it was not about making sense.