#HBC | Acrostic
♖♘♗♔♕♗♘♖
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2010
- Messages
- 2,452
Piglet's Solo Q grind is ridiculous spending around 16-17 hours a day in Solo Q alone and getting around 5-6 hours of sleep. He is the "highest" potential investment to make in the long term for TL's best chance in Worlds, however not necessarily the most "reliable" potential investment to make. Especially when his core problems which are cooperation and communication continue to go unaddressed. Based on post-analysis from MonteCristo on SI, Piglet in many team fights gets caught on the other side entirely after a Jarvan IV ult and burns flashes and Sivir ultimates to simply catch up to the team or regain footing.
The TL management doesn't understand just how large the gap is and that Piglet continues to spend so much time in Solo Q because that's his comfort zone and him avoiding fixing his glaring problems which is familiarizing himself quickly with the English language or developing a form of shortcut communication & play style similar to Star Horn Royal Club in order to understand at moment situations without needing to understand the finer points of English. SHRC's strength and ability to pull off cooperative play by spamming pings was largely allotted to their strong enforcement of wards and having effective vision over the map comparative to other teams they were competing against for more of Season 4.
Going back to the first statement I made in the second paragraph, the cultural gap between Korea and North America are pretty glaring. Piglet has a lot of pressure on him likely from his Korean fans and family, not even necessarily from the NA team environment which is another problem because actual outcomes weigh much more in Korea than in North America. It may seem like I'm posting a conjecture here on little basis, however many of my relatives and friends who come to this country from Korea still tell me that the biggest reason they get nerves and need a smoke is because they are concerned about how their parents and relatives at home view the outcome of their accomplishments and how they can represent themselves to their friends when they go back to Korea to visit. A lot of Americans don't realize that a huge mentality of a lot of Koreans isn't to settle in America, but to use America to get ahead back in Korea. This focus on Korea can largely be detrimental because it can serve as a huge demotivating factor for him to get accustomed to America, if America is just one block to clear in his career.
The core issues with Piglet which of course will never get addressed in Team Liquid Press is what factors they saw in Piglet, even Piglet in his peak around 2013 that they thought would work with their team and how to get him to that carry status as an AD Carry. At least this gets mentioned In TSM's trashy reality YT series, they actually discuss creating carry potential and farm around Wild Turtle as a potential second carry threat against teams like SKT if Faker effectively outclasses him or the team focuses on shutting him down with team comps built around neutralizing his performance.
As far as Piglet reaching that peak he had, I don't think that having Xpecial is conducive to him growing into that mentality and star personality he needs to be this season by the time Worlds comes around and I even find Xpecial to be detrimental to his growth within the TL infrastructure. From what I've posted previously in this thread, Xpecial is incredibly condescending and snide in his neutral comments and doesn't really have any respect for anyone leading to him unwittingly doing things like talking about how Keith's initial performance with TL was dismal after he had a stellar first week when Piglet had visa issues and then telling him "good job Keith" like he was his pet.
I understand that TL is investing in Worlds by giving Piglet chances. However, I don't believe he is more reliable than using Keith instead in the long term. True, if all the stars align correctly then Piglet "may" reach his peak within the team. However Keith's reliability should give the team the best chance of having their best performance at Worlds rather than gambling on a less than likely outcome.
At the same time, I'm also ambivalent with how the Piglet investment actually turns out because of TL's horrible treatment of its League community and deciding to purchase out Curse due to the profitiability of the venture outweighing the management's disdain of being associated with League as part of their business model. In addition, TL had a chance at getting Forg1v3n, although again whether he would have been able to have the same stellar performance he currently does in EU LCS is debatable.
Last edited:
